In October 2025, South Africa was officially removed from the FATF grey list, the international watchlist that labels countries with inadequate controls against money laundering and terrorist financing. It was genuinely good news. Years of legislative reform, enforcement upgrades, and regulatory pressure had paid off.
But here's what the headlines didn't make clear: getting off the grey list was the beginning of stricter compliance, not the end of it.
If you have a trust, an inter vivos (living) trust, a family trust, a business trust, the regulatory expectations on you have permanently increased. And if you haven't taken specific action in the last two years, there's a very good chance your trust is currently non-compliant.
At the Master of the High Court's last published count, in March 2024, only 10% of South African trusts had lodged their beneficial ownership information. That is nine trusts in ten sitting in a grey zone of non-compliance, at a time when enforcement agencies are sharpening their tools.
What was the FATF grey listing about?
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an international body that sets global standards for combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and related threats. South Africa was added to its "Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring" list, the grey list, in February 2023, following a mutual evaluation that identified significant weaknesses in our anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) systems.
The consequences were real: increased scrutiny of South African transactions by foreign banks and correspondent institutions, higher compliance costs for businesses operating internationally, and reputational damage that affected investment flows and foreign exchange.
To exit the grey list, South Africa had to demonstrate concrete reforms across more than a dozen action items, amending legislation, strengthening enforcement agencies, improving financial crime investigations and prosecutions, and significantly upgrading our beneficial ownership framework for companies and trusts.
We achieved that. On 24 October 2025, after the FATF Plenary in Paris, South Africa was formally removed from the list.
What changed for trusts specifically?
Trusts were identified as a specific area of concern during the FATF evaluation. South Africa has one of the highest numbers of registered inter vivos trusts per capita in the world. Historically, they were relatively opaque structures: beneficial ownership was not routinely disclosed to any central registry, making them attractive vehicles for those looking to conceal assets or ownership.
To address this, South Africa introduced several significant changes to trust compliance requirements:
Beneficial ownership registers at the Master. Since 1 April 2023, section 11A of the Trust Property Control Act 57 of 1988 has required trustees to lodge a beneficial ownership register with the Master of the High Court, on the Master's ICMS web portal. This is a separate obligation from the beneficial ownership register a company files at CIPC, and filing in the wrong place does not discharge it. The register must identify every trustee, every beneficiary, and every person who effectively controls the trust or its assets, even where that control is indirect or informal. The register must be kept current and updated within a prescribed period of any change.
Record-keeping with accountable institutions. Trustees are required to record and maintain details of every interaction the trust has with an "accountable institution", banks, attorneys, accountants, estate agents, financial advisors, and other regulated parties. These records must be kept current and must be available on request to the relevant authorities.
AML/CFT compliance obligations. The Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) amendments have broadened the definition of accountable institutions and strengthened reporting obligations. Trust and company service providers (TCSPs), accountants, attorneys, and fiduciary specialists who administer trusts, are now directly supervised by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) and face their own compliance requirements.
SARS information access. The Tax Administration Act was amended to facilitate real-time information sharing between SARS, CIPC, and the Master of the High Court. SARS has built out its data-gathering capabilities significantly. Non-compliant trusts are increasingly visible.
How bad is current compliance?
Very bad, frankly. Master's office statistics, cited at the Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa, put compliance at 10% as at 31 March 2024. That is the most recent figure anyone has published, and no update has followed since, so nobody outside the Master's office knows where it sits today. What is certain is that a full year after the requirement came into force, nine trusts in ten had ignored it.
The picture on the second requirement, trustees recording their interactions with accountable institutions, is even worse. Awareness of this obligation is low, and compliance is minimal.
There are a few reasons for this. Some trustees genuinely don't know the rules have changed. Others have been told by their attorneys or accountants that they'll get to it eventually. Some assumed the grey listing was a government problem that didn't affect them personally. And some may be hoping the enforcement environment doesn't become too aggressive.
What can actually happen to non-compliant trustees?
Non-compliance with the beneficial ownership requirements and FICA record-keeping obligations can result in administrative penalties, which can be substantial. The FIC has the authority to impose sanctions on trustees and the trust and company service providers who assist them.
More broadly, a trust that cannot demonstrate its compliance, that cannot produce accurate beneficial ownership records, that has no documented history of trustee interactions with accountable institutions, becomes a liability in any dispute, any tax enquiry, or any future estate administration. Courts and the Master of the High Court are increasingly unsympathetic to trusts that have been poorly administered.
There's also the practical risk that comes with the next FATF evaluation. South Africa's removal from the grey list was predicated on demonstrated progress. The next evaluation (starting H1 2026) will assess whether those improvements have been embedded and are producing results. A country whose last published compliance figure was 10% will have a difficult time demonstrating sustainable progress.
What should trust holders do right now?
If you have an inter vivos trust, whether it was set up for asset protection, family wealth planning, estate planning, or a business purpose, here's what needs to happen:
Submit your beneficial ownership register to the Master of the High Court if you haven't already. This requires identifying all trustees, beneficiaries, and persons who exercise effective control over the trust. Your attorney or fiduciary specialist can assist with this, but you as trustee are responsible for ensuring it's done.
Set up a record-keeping system for trustee interactions with accountable institutions. Every time the trust deals with its bank, its accountant, its attorney, its financial advisor, or any other regulated party, that interaction should be documented and filed. Date, nature of the interaction, institution, and relevant details. It doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to be consistent, kept current, and available on request.
Review your trust deed and ensure it's up to date. Trust deeds drafted more than five years ago may not reflect current legislation or your current circumstances. An outdated trust deed creates both legal risk and administrative complications.
Confirm your trust is properly constituted. South African courts have set aside several trusts in recent years on the basis that they were not genuinely independent, that the founder retained effective control in a way that contradicted the legal structure. If your trust is poorly structured or has not been administered properly, the protections you believe it provides may not exist.
Talk to your advisors. If your attorney or accountant has not proactively raised these compliance issues with you, that's a conversation worth initiating. Many trustees have not received updated guidance simply because their advisors haven't made it a priority.
Does this mean you should wind up your trust?
Not necessarily. Trusts remain a powerful and legitimate estate planning and wealth management tool for many South Africans. Used correctly, with proper administration, genuine independence, and up-to-date compliance, an inter vivos trust can protect assets, facilitate intergenerational wealth transfer, and provide estate planning flexibility that's difficult to achieve through other structures.
But a trust that exists only on paper, that hasn't filed its beneficial ownership information, that has no proper trustee meeting minutes or records, and that has been ignored for five years is no longer just ineffective. It's a compliance risk.
If you have a trust and you're unsure whether it's properly structured and compliant, the answer isn't to panic. It's to get it assessed. The remediation steps are usually straightforward once you know what's missing.
The broader point about South African compliance
South Africa's exit from the FATF grey list required a genuine, broad-based effort to tighten our financial crime controls. What it has produced, alongside the headline win of delisting, is a permanently more demanding compliance environment for anyone with complex financial structures.
That includes trusts. It includes high-value property transactions. It includes professional service providers. And it includes SARS, which has made no secret of its intention to use enhanced data capabilities to pursue non-compliance across the taxpayer base.
The era where a trust could be set up once, left in a drawer, and never thought about again is over. The administrative burden has increased, and it's not going back down.
The good news is that for trusts that are genuinely used for legitimate purposes and properly administered, compliance is manageable. It requires some work and some consistent housekeeping, but it's entirely achievable.
