Cross-border planning: How to protect your family and agribusiness

As South African agriculture expands its global trade footprint, farming families face unique cross-border challenges. Eric Enslin, CEO of FNB Private Banking and Advisory, breaks down the five financial foundations needed to secure cross-border succession, tax efficiency, and operational continuity.

For many of South Africa’s farming families today, resilience is not only about land, yields and market access; it also depends on how well they manage money, ownership and succession when different family members live in different countries and continents.

While the primary farming business of these families may still be rooted locally, one generation may be running the farm in South Africa, another may be studying or working abroad, and a third may already be living offshore while remaining financially connected to the family enterprise.

At the same time, South African agriculture is becoming more internationally exposed through trade. This increasingly global footprint undoubtedly creates opportunities. Income streams can come from more than one market, some family wealth may be held offshore, and future generations may have expanded career options.

But these advantages only add resilience if they are properly coordinated. If not, families can end up with fragmented banking arrangements, avoidable tax exposure, succession complications, and too little liquidity when and where it is needed.

Financial pillars for SA’s multi-continental families

We often see farming families where the operating business remains in South Africa, while different generations live, study or work abroad. Income flows, inheritance expectations and funding needs remain interconnected, yet banking, tax planning and estate structures are handled in isolation.

This means that once a family’s financial life starts to span jurisdictions, resilience becomes a planning issue as much as it is an operating one. A son or daughter living abroad may still receive distributions, inherit assets, hold interests in a family entity or expect support from South Africa. A spouse may split time between countries. A family trust or estate may have local assets, offshore beneficiaries and reporting obligations in more than one place.

The families that navigate this complexity best tend to focus on five key foundations: tax residency and efficiency, separating business and family capital, planning for currency and liquidity needs, aligning succession across borders and putting clear governance in place.

1. Tax efficiency first

The first priority is tax efficiency. Given that South Africa operates a residence-based tax system, citizens are generally taxed on their worldwide income. While there are agreements in place to help prevent double taxation, avoiding this cost requires more than merely knowing where assets sit.

It’s also vital to be clear on where each key family member is a tax resident and how income, gains or distributions are treated in each of those jurisdictions.

2. Separating farming business from personal business

The second discipline required by a farming family operating across diverse countries is to separate the operating farm from the family balance sheet. This is one of the most important resilience decisions.

The farming business needs working capital, seasonal funding and ongoing reinvestment. The family members may need education fees abroad, retirement income in another currency, offshore property funding or liquidity for estate planning. When those needs are blended, pressure in one area can weaken the other.

A difficult season on the farm can suddenly affect personal commitments abroad, while a family capital need can place strain on productive assets that should have remained focused on the business. Figuring out how to separate personal and business finances is vital.

3. Currency and cash flow planning

The third priority is effective currency and liquidity planning. Cross-border families often think about offshore exposure only when they need to move money urgently. By then, the decision is usually more expensive and less efficient.

The South African Reserve Bank’s current exchange-control framework allows resident individuals aged 18 and older to use a single discretionary allowance of up to R2 million per calendar year and a foreign capital allowance of up to R10 million per calendar year, subject to the relevant tax-compliance and authorised-dealer requirements. For families with genuine offshore needs, that makes early planning far more effective than last-minute transfers.

4. Succession planning

The fourth factor to consider is succession planning across jurisdictions. This is often where cross-border families are most vulnerable. While a farm may be locally owned and operated, heirs may live abroad, assets may be spread across jurisdictions, and family intentions may not always reflect consistently across wills, entities and ownership structures.

Deceased estates that include local and foreign income and assets can also result in tax challenges. That is why succession planning for cross-border families cannot be treated solely as a domestic exercise; it needs to factor in all the global considerations.

5. The final discipline is governance

Family businesses often assume that if assets are performing and the business is running smoothly, the structure is working. But real resilience requires clear decision-making frameworks.

So, while it’s common to think of governance as something reserved for large corporations, in reality, when family members live in different countries, governance becomes essential even for the family-owned business. It’s the only way to ensure clarity on who can make financial decisions, how information is shared and how the family coordinates around ownership, succession and liquidity. Without that formal governance structure, even a strong farming family can become vulnerable to confusion, delay or conflict.

The bottom line is that, for farming families living across continents, financial resilience requires much more than just preserving assets – it depends on coordinated advice that brings together specialist expertise. It demands an ability to connect the family’s business interests, personal needs and long-term intentions in a way that supports continuity.

Done well, that creates more than efficiency; it gives the family a strong foundation from which to manage change, transfer wealth and protect the farming business for future generations.

Eric Enslin is the CEO of FNB Private Banking and Advisory. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Food For Mzansi.