We recently sent out our “Save the Date” for our end-of-year function, which always has a way of sharpening the focus on how quickly the year is moving.
Looking at the results across our businesses in 2026, there are reasons to feel positive. We have seen particularly strong performances in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and while South Africa certainly has its challenges, I remain optimistic about the opportunities available to well-run businesses here.
It has also got me thinking about a conversation we are having increasingly often with South African entrepreneurs: Should I be taking my business offshore?
For a period, the story seemed compelling. Build your wealth in South Africa, externalise some of it and establish yourself in a jurisdiction that appears to offer greater stability, while retaining as much of your South African cost base as possible.
There can be very good reasons for doing this. However, I am not convinced that enough entrepreneurs consider what it actually costs to recreate parts of a South African business in London, Dubai or another international market.
We have seen this first-hand with businesses looking at London in particular.
Take office space. Prime office rents in London’s City reached around £95 per square foot annually during 2026. At current exchange rates, that works out to roughly R1,850 per square metre per month. In Sandton, meanwhile, quality office space is currently being marketed at between approximately R100 and R250 per square metre per month.
It is not a perfect like-for-like comparison, but it puts the difference into perspective. Even at the upper end of that Sandton range, prime London office space can cost more than seven times as much before you start adding staff, directors, accountants, lawyers and other professional services charged in pounds.
Legal fees provide another useful example. Research from the UK Law Society puts common partner charge-out rates among mid-sized firms at between £300 and £400 per hour. South African commercial legal fees vary considerably by firm and complexity, but even senior professional services can be substantially cheaper when your cost base remains in rand.
None of this means that international expansion is a bad idea. It means you need to be very clear about what you are trying to achieve.
Are you establishing an international operation because your customers are there? Are you trying to access capital? Are you protecting intellectual property? Are you looking for a more appropriate base from which to service another market, or is the decision being driven primarily by a personal desire to externalise wealth or potentially emigrate?
Those are very different objectives and they may require very different structures.
There is also an operational consideration that spreadsheets do not always capture. It is difficult to run a South African business when its leadership is thousands of kilometres away. If your customers, employees and operations remain predominantly in South Africa, removing senior leadership from the day-to-day business can introduce its own costs and risks.
We have supported businesses looking to establish operations in jurisdictions including Ireland, the UK, Dubai, Mauritius and Botswana. Each offers different advantages depending on what the business is trying to achieve, but questions around tax residency, double taxation agreements, transfer pricing, currency exposure and where economic activity actually takes place need to be considered before the structure is put in place.
Botswana, for example, is one jurisdiction I think South African businesses interested in expanding further into Africa sometimes overlook. The right answer does not always have to be London or Dubai simply because those are the destinations everybody else is talking about.
International expansion should ultimately be a business decision before it becomes a lifestyle decision.
South Africa has its challenges, but it also offers talented people, relatively competitive operating costs and access to interesting markets. There is value in recognising that before assuming the grass, or the balance sheet, will automatically be greener somewhere else.
If you are considering international expansion, our team has experience helping businesses work through the financial and practical implications before making the move.
Authored by Rowan De Klerk, CEO and Founder of The CFO Centre, South Africa
