Since the rand became freely floating in the 1970s, it has depreciated against most major currencies almost every decade. Yet the path has been anything but smooth—sharp rallies of 30–50 % within single years are common.

South African residents currently have two main offshore allowances: R1 million discretionary and R10 million with SARS clearance. Many investors try to “move money when the rand is weak.” Academic studies and back-tests of actual investor behaviour show this rarely works.

A 2022 study of South African unit-trust flows found that investors moved the most money offshore near rand peaks and the least near troughs—exactly the opposite of successful currency timing.

Why currency forecasting fails

Interest-rate differentials, commodity cycles, political risk, and sudden capital-flow reversals all drive the rand. Professional economists’ one-year-ahead forecasts have historically shown almost zero correlation with actual outcomes. Waiting for the “perfect” weak-rand moment therefore becomes a form of market timing—with the same poor track record.

A more practical approach

Evidence favours gradual, rules-based offshore exposure (e.g., transferring a fixed percentage of savings each year or rebalancing when allocation drifts). This removes emotion and has delivered better risk-adjusted outcomes than large, sentiment-driven moves in almost every historical simulation.