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Estate liquidity check: will there be enough cash?

Whether your estate would have the cash to pay your debts, the executor’s fee and estate duty without selling assets.

Before your heirs inherit, your estate pays your debts, the executor’s fee and any estate duty in cash. If there isn’t enough cash, the executor may have to sell assets, such as the family home, to pay them. This tool estimates what your estate would need and what it would have. It leaves out capital gains tax and smaller costs, which it lists with the result.

In rand

Your home, other property, investments, cash, cars and business interests, at today’s value. Leave out retirement funds: they aren’t part of your estate.

In rand
In rand
In rand

Only policies that name your estate. Cover paid to a named person goes straight to them.

In rand

To a husband, wife or permanent life partner. It is deducted before estate duty. Leave it empty if none.

Cash your estate would need

Illustrative

Possible cash shortfall

R220,000 – R236,800

Debts
R260,000
Executor’s feeUp to 3.5% of your assets, plus VAT if the executor charges it
R140,000 – R161,000
Estate dutyAfter R3,500,000 free of duty: 20%, and 25% above R30,000,000
R15,800 – R20,000
Cash needed
R420,000 – R436,800
Cash availableCash and investments, plus life cover paid to your estate
R200,000
Shortfall
R220,000 – R236,800

Common ways to close a gap

  • Life cover paid to your estate, so the executor has cash to settle costs.
  • Keeping more in cash or investments that can be sold quickly.
  • An agreement for an heir to take over the bond, if the bank allows it.

Each has costs and tax effects of its own, so it is worth weighing them up with your whole estate plan.

Not included

  • Capital gains tax on death. For the 2026/27 tax year, the first R440,000 of gains in the year you die is free of tax, and what goes to a spouse rolls over to them.
  • The funeral, the Master’s fees, advertising and the cost of transferring property.
  • Retirement fund death benefits and life cover paid to a named person don’t pass through your estate. Cover on your life generally still counts for estate duty, unless it goes to your spouse, so it could raise the duty above.
  • If your spouse died before you and didn’t use all of their R3,500,000, yours can rise to as much as R7,000,000.

What next?

This is a rough guide, not advice. A planner can check it against your real numbers.

Have a planner check this

How this works

This tool is for education. It isn’t advice and it can’t promise any outcome. Results are illustrative and depend on the assumptions below. Tax figures are for the 2026/27 tax year, checked on 28 September 2026. Announced in Budget 2026 and applied by SARS from 1 March 2026. The Bill that makes them law is still before Parliament.

Assumptions version 2026-27-draft1.

Sources

  1. National Treasury, Budget 2026 Tax Guide
  2. National Treasury, Budget Review 2026, chapter 4
  3. SARS, Budget 2026 frequently asked questions
  4. SARS, tax-free investments
  5. SARS, two-pot retirement system
  6. FSCA, report on two-component related costs and fees (2025)
  7. SARB Exchange Control Circular 6/2026
  8. SARS, estate duty
  9. Administration of Estates Act regulations, regulation 8 (executor’s fees)
  10. SARS, cease to be a tax resident

Speak to a planner

Check the result against your own figures

In a free 20-minute call, a planner can go through your actual funds, tax and plans with you. Send us a WhatsApp message, call or email the office: