Do minors pay tax in South Africa? How children are taxed

A child can be liable for income tax in South Africa. There is no minimum age, and a minor is a taxpayer in their own right, with the same tax threshold and the same primary rebate as an adult. In the 2026 year of assessment, which runs from 1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026, a person under 65 pays nothing until taxable income passes R95,750, and every individual receives the R17,235 primary rebate. One rule complicates the picture: where a child's income comes from a donation made by that child's own parent, section 7 of the Income Tax Act taxes the income in the parent's hands.

A child is a taxpayer, not just a dependant

Liability for income tax follows income rather than age. A newborn with enough income in their own name is a taxpayer; a teenager with none is not. When a minor does receive or earn enough, SARS assesses the child as an individual, and the parent or legal guardian handles the registration and the return.

The child gets the ordinary individual allowances. For the 2026 year of assessment those are the R95,750 tax threshold for a person under 65, the R17,235 primary rebate, and the R23,800 local interest exemption for a person under 65. Threshold and rebate are two views of one figure: R95,750 taxed at the 18% first-bracket rate comes to R17,235, which is the primary rebate exactly, so income up to the threshold leaves no tax once the rebate is applied.

When the income is genuinely the child's

Income a child truly earns or holds in their own right stays the child's, measured against the child's own threshold and rebate. This covers, for example:

• a bona fide salary, such as a child actor or model paid for work done
• interest, dividends or rental income from funds that genuinely belong to the child, such as a gift from a grandparent, an aunt or a family friend
• interest on the child's own earnings

A gift from anyone other than the parent falls outside the section 7 attribution. Money from a grandparent produces income that belongs to the child, set against the child's own threshold.

When a parent's donation shifts the income back

Section 7 attributes income to the parent when that income arises from a donation, settlement or other disposition the parent made in favour of the minor child. The money can sit in the child's bank account and the interest certificate can carry the child's name; the parent is still taxed on it, at the parent's marginal rate.

The rule reaches further than a single household. Say two parents agree that each will donate to the other's child instead of their own. Income from the donation you funded is attributed straight back to you, so the swap achieves nothing. The purpose is to stop a parent parking investment income with a low-earning child to soak it up in a lower bracket or against the child's threshold.

This is not the 50/50 split that applies to spouses married in community of property, where investment income from the joint estate is divided equally between the two spouses whoever funded the asset. The minor-child rule moves the whole of the donation-derived income to the parent who made the donation, with no splitting at all. For the spousal position, see our article on how tax works when you are married in community of property.

A worked example: grandparent gift versus parent-funded donation

Take a minor, Thandi, with no other income in the 2026 year of assessment. In both scenarios the invested money earns R30,000 of interest for the year.

Scenario 1: a grandparent gives Thandi the money, and it earns the R30,000.

The donor is a grandparent, not a parent, so section 7 does not bite. The interest is Thandi's own income, and she claims her own allowances:

• Gross interest: R30,000
• Less the local interest exemption (under 65, 2026 year): R23,800
• Taxable interest: R30,000 − R23,800 = R6,200

R6,200 sits well below the R95,750 tax threshold, so Thandi pays nothing. Checked the long way, tax on R6,200 at 18% is R1,116, and the R17,235 primary rebate wipes that out, leaving nil.

Scenario 2: Thandi's parent donates the money, and it earns the same R30,000.

Here section 7 deems the R30,000 to be the parent's income, so Thandi's threshold and rebate never come into it. Assume the parent has already used their own R23,800 interest exemption on other savings and pays tax at a marginal rate of 31%. The added tax is:

• R30,000 × 31% = R9,300

The interest is the same R30,000 in the same child's account both times. Who funded it decides the outcome: nothing when the grandparent gave the money, R9,300 when the parent did.

Donations tax is a separate question

Whether the interest is taxed to the parent or the child is one question; whether the gift itself attracts donations tax is another, and there you look at the donor. A natural person can donate up to R150,000 of property in a year of assessment free of donations tax, and the donor pays donations tax at 20% on anything above that. A grandparent who hands over R500,000 in a single year would, as the donor, owe donations tax of (R500,000 − R150,000) × 20% = R70,000, quite apart from who is taxed on the interest that R500,000 earns. Our article on donations tax in South Africa works through the detail.