Selling a property, some shares or a bit of crypto and not sure what SARS will take? I built a calculator that works out your capital gains tax for the 2026/27 tax year, and it clears up the single biggest myth about CGT along the way.
Capital gains tax is not a separate flat tax of 40 percent. Only 40 percent of your gain is included in your taxable income, and that portion is then taxed at your normal income tax rate. So the effective rate on the whole gain is well below 40 percent, and for an individual it can never be more than 18 percent, usually much less.
Put in what you sold the asset for and what it cost you, add any improvements and the buying and selling costs, tick whether it was your home, and enter your income for the year. It shows the gain, the exclusions, the taxable portion and the tax you owe, with a full breakdown.
A few things it does that the quick online ones often skip.
It taxes the gain at your real rate. Because the taxable slice is stacked on top of your other income, your income matters. The tool asks for it and runs it through the actual SARS tables, crossing brackets correctly, rather than just assuming the top rate the way many simpler calculators do.
It has the new 2026 exclusions. The annual exclusion went up to R50,000, and the primary residence exclusion to R3,000,000, both raised in the February Budget. So on an ordinary home sale you often owe nothing, and the tool shows exactly how the R3 million wipes the gain out.
It handles a capital loss. If you sold at a loss it explains that the loss cannot be set off against your salary, only against capital gains, and shows the amount that carries forward.
It has a year-of-death mode for anyone winding up a deceased estate, using the R440,000 exclusion, which pairs with our estate duty calculator.
Try it here: Capital Gains Tax Calculator South Africa 2026/2027
It is general information using the SARS rules, not tax advice, and it assumes you are a South African resident selling one asset, so it does not model pre-2001 assets, foreign assets, or gains inside a company or trust. I would be glad to hear if it matches what you worked out, and what would make it more useful.