How you own a rental changes the tax on its rent, on the sale and at death. Put in your tax band and your rentals, and see the same homes under five owners side by side: your own name, a company, a trust that hands its income out, a trust that keeps it, and a trust that owns a company.
Worked out in your browser with the same tax engine as our free game, Counter That. Nothing you enter is stored or sent. 2026/27 figures as SARS applies them; the Rates Bill that enacts them was before Parliament in October 2026. Figures last checked 9 October 2026.
If everything is sold privately at the end of year 15 (2040), after tax and after taking off everything you put in and the interest it would have earned in your savings. In today's money.
You put in R1 388 594 at the start for 3 homes (deposits and buying costs), and the figures below also take off every later shortfall you fund, and what all of that money would have earned in your savings after tax. A negative figure means the homes leave you with less than that money would have earned there. Each home is then worth about R2 229 031 in today’s money (R4 313 805 in 2040 rand).
Most left in this example
R1 849 603
better off by
The baseline: rent and gains taxed at your own rates, a rental loss set against your salary unless section 20A ring-fences it, and at most 18% of a gain after the yearly exclusion.
R954 277
better off by
Before selling, it kept R210 929 less than your own name (tax on the rent, running costs and what the money you put in would have earned); selling and paying out cost R684 397 more than your own name in tax.
R1 303 085
better off by
Before selling, it kept R561 467 less than your own name (tax on the rent, running costs, section 7C donations tax and what the money you put in would have earned); selling and paying out cost R14 950 less than your own name in tax. Its carried loss of R229 733 is lost because the gain is handed to you; trustees could keep enough of the gain to use it.
R679 684
better off by
Before selling, it kept R561 467 less than your own name (tax on the rent, running costs, section 7C donations tax and what the money you put in would have earned); selling and paying out cost R608 451 more than your own name in tax.
R496 578
better off by
Before selling, it kept R707 291 less than your own name (tax on the rent, running costs, section 7C donations tax and what the money you put in would have earned); selling and paying out cost R645 734 more than your own name in tax.
These are the results for the numbers above, not a recommendation. A registered tax practitioner or financial adviser can advise on your own situation.
Take 3 rentals worth R1 800 000 each with a R1 440 000 bond, let for 8% of their value a year, growing 6% a year, owned by one person in the 31% tax band (R460 000 a year before the rentals), with any profit left inside a company or trust, and sold privately after 15 years. In today’s money, after tax and after taking off what they put in and the interest that money would have earned in savings, the owner ends up R1 849 603 better off in their own name, R954 277 through a company, R1 303 085 through a trust that hands its income out, R679 684 through a trust that keeps it and R496 578 through a trust that owns a company. That is one set of numbers, not a rule: change any of them above and the order can change.
Selling over several tax years can lower the capital gains tax in your own name, and a large estate kept until death adds estate duty and the executor's fee on the homes.
A company tends to fit profit kept inside for many years by an owner on a high personal rate, on homes that earn more in rent than in growth; profit paid out, or growth, tends to favour your own name.
Vesting the income and gains in adult children on lower rates can change the answer; this calculator does not do that. This trust hands the whole gain to you when it sells, and a loss it has carried cannot reduce a gain it hands to you, so that loss is lost; trustees could keep enough of the gain to use it.
Trustees could vest a gain in a beneficiary in the year of sale instead of paying 36%, and section 7(5) can tax income a loan-funded trust keeps in the lender's hands; this calculator plays neither.
Dividends tax of 20% applies to everything paid up to the trust, whoever its beneficiaries are, on top of the costs of running a company and a trust.
The verified list behind the calculator and the game. A trust that hands its income out and one that keeps it share a list.
It depends on your tax band, whether the profit is kept or drawn, how long you hold, and whether you sell or keep the homes until death, so there is no single answer. This calculator runs your numbers for five owners side by side: your own name, a company, a trust that hands its income out, a trust that keeps it, and a trust that owns a company. As a rule of thumb from the tax rules it applies, a company pays 27% on its profit but 41.6% in all if the profit is paid out to you, and a trust that keeps its income pays 45%. A registered tax practitioner or financial adviser can advise on your own situation.
In your own name, rent is added to your income and taxed at your own rate, from 18% up to 45%. A company pays 27% on its profit. When the company pays what is left to you as a dividend, dividends tax of 20% applies on top, 41.6% in all; the money you lent the company comes back first, tax-free. A trust that keeps its income pays 45%, while income it hands to you in the same tax year is taxed at your own rates.
An individual includes 40% of a gain after a R50 000 yearly exclusion, so at most 18% of the gain is tax. A company includes 80%, which is 21.6%, and then 20% dividends tax if the rest is paid out (37.28% in all). A trust that keeps a gain pays 36%. Companies and ordinary trusts get neither the yearly exclusion nor the R3 000 000 primary residence exclusion.
If you lend a trust money without charging the official rate of interest, section 7C treats the interest not charged as a donation by you each year, and donations tax of 20% applies above the yearly exemption of R150 000 as SARS applies it from 1 March 2026. At 8.04% a loan of about R1 866 000 stays under the exemption in 2026/27 (about R3 731 000 for a couple each lending half), if you make no other donations that year. It also applies to a company that a trust owns.
What you own in your own name is in your estate: capital gains tax is charged at death (with a R440 000 exclusion in that year), then estate duty of 20% above the R3 500 000 abatement and the executor's fee. A trust's homes are outside your estate if the trust is genuine and independently run, but only your loan to it is inside, and no estate duty applies to the growth. The calculator's second view, "keep them until death", shows what two adult heirs keep after all of it.
It is what you keep if the homes are sold (or what your heirs keep, if you hold them until death), after all tax, less everything you put in and the interest that money would have earned in your savings at 5.75% a year, after tax. A negative figure means the homes leave you with less than the same money would have earned in your savings. It is a comparison of owners under stated assumptions, not a forecast.
No. It runs in your browser with the same engine as the Counter That game, and nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere.
This is general information, not advice. A registered tax practitioner or financial adviser can advise on your own situation.
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