What does getting married mean for your money?
In South Africa, saying “I do” also signs you into a property regime — and if you sign nothing, the law chooses for you. Without an antenuptial contract, a marriage is automatically in community of property: one joint estate, where assets and debts belong to both of you, from before the wedding and after it.
An antenuptial contract (ANC), signed before a notary before the wedding, changes that default. It keeps the estates separate — either completely (without accrual), or separate during the marriage with the growth shared when it ends (with accrual). The regime you marry under decides what happens to money in the marriage, at divorce, and at death.
The default: in community of property
With no antenuptial contract, a marriage is automatically in community of property. Everything each spouse owned before, plus everything earned or owed afterwards, merges into one joint estate, and each spouse holds an undivided half-share.
Debts are shared too — a creditor of one spouse can claim against the joint estate, and debt one spouse ran up before the wedding becomes a joint problem. Big transactions need the other spouse’s consent: selling or bonding the home, standing surety, or major credit agreements.
The sharpest edge is insolvency: if the joint estate is sequestrated, both spouses are sequestrated together — one spouse’s failed business can take the other’s half down with it.
The antenuptial contract — the before-the-wedding document
An ANC has to be signed before a notary before the marriage, and registered at the deeds office within three months. Its job is to opt out of community, and to choose accrual in or out — accrual applies to every ANC automatically unless the contract expressly excludes it.
After the wedding the simple route has closed: changing regime later means a joint High Court application, which is slow and costly. What the contract means specifically at death is covered in the estate article — this one stays on the day-to-day and divorce side.
Out of community, without accrual
An ANC that expressly excludes accrual creates two fully separate estates, for life. What each spouse brings, earns, builds — and owes — stays theirs alone. Neither needs the other’s consent for their own transactions, and one spouse’s creditors cannot reach the other’s estate.
The plain flip side: a spouse who steps back from earning — to raise children, say — builds no automatic claim on the other’s growth during the marriage. Since a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling, though, a divorce court may order a fair redistribution of assets even in these marriages; that discretion applies at divorce, not at death.
Out of community, with accrual
Here the estates stay separate during the marriage — each spouse manages, owns and owes alone — but the growth since the wedding is shared when the marriage ends, by divorce or death.
Each spouse’s accrual is the net value of their estate at the end, minus the commencement value declared at the start, with that starting figure adjusted for inflation so only real growth counts. If a commencement value was never declared, it is treated as nil — and the whole end estate then counts as growth. Inheritances, legacies, donations received during the marriage, and anything the ANC excludes, are left out of the calculation.
The spouse whose estate grew less has a claim for half the difference between the two accruals. It is a money claim, not automatic co-ownership of particular assets.
A worked accrual example
Illustrative figures, to show the mechanics — the real inflation adjustment uses published CPI over the actual marriage:
- Thabo declares a commencement value of R200,000; Lerato declares nothing, so hers is treated as R0.
- Twenty years later the marriage ends. Adjusting for inflation lifts Thabo’s starting figure to, say, R400,000.
- Thabo’s estate is now R2,600,000, so his accrual is R2,600,000 − R400,000 = R2,200,000.
- Lerato’s estate is R1,000,000, so her accrual is R1,000,000 − R0 = R1,000,000.
- The difference is R1,200,000; Lerato’s claim is half of it — R600,000. Each keeps their own estate, and Thabo’s owes Lerato R600,000.
What each regime means at divorce
- In community — the joint estate is split equally (a court can order forfeiture of benefits in limited cases).
- Without accrual — each keeps their own estate, subject to the court’s post-2023 discretion to order a fair redistribution.
- With accrual — separate estates, plus the accrual claim worked out as above.
At divorce, a spouse married in community or with accrual can also share in the other’s pension interest under the Divorce Act — a thread the divorce article picks up in full.
What each regime means at death — briefly
In community, the joint estate is halved first, and the will disposes of the deceased’s half only. Without accrual, the will deals with the whole separate estate. With accrual, the accrual claim is settled before the will distributes. The full estate treatment lives in the marriage-and-estate article.
One money point belongs here rather than there: donations between spouses are fully exempt from donations tax, whatever the regime — unlike gifts to anyone else, where only the R150,000 annual exemption applies.
Customary marriages and civil unions
A customary marriage is in community of property by default, on the same “sign nothing, get the default” rule, unless an antenuptial contract is signed before the marriage. A civil union carries exactly the same property regimes and defaults as a civil marriage.
Terms used on this page
- antenuptial contract (ANC)
- A contract signed before a notary before the wedding that opts a couple out of the default joint estate — keeping their estates separate, with or without the accrual system.
- in community of property
- The default South African marriage regime when no antenuptial contract is signed: one joint estate where both spouses share all assets and all debts, each owning an undivided half.
- joint estate
- The single merged estate created by a marriage in community of property: everything both spouses own and owe, held in equal undivided halves.
- accrual
- A marriage-contract system where each spouse's estate stays separate during the marriage, but the growth built up since the wedding is shared when the marriage ends — by divorce or death.
- notary
- An attorney with an additional qualification, admitted to authenticate certain documents. An antenuptial contract is only valid if it is executed before one.
- commencement value
- The declared net value of a spouse's estate at the start of an accrual marriage. It is adjusted for inflation and subtracted at the end to measure growth — and deemed nil if it was never declared.
Sources
Reviewed July 2026