Seed capital moved into your savings pot at 1 September 2024.
Savings-pot seed
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Remaining vested pot
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Seed as % of value
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Why a savings pot started with anything at all
When the two-pot system began on 1 September 2024, the new savings pot would otherwise have started empty, because it only fills from one-third of future contributions. To give members something to access from day one, the law seeded each savings pot with a slice of money taken from existing retirement savings. This calculator works out that opening balance. You enter your vested fund value just before the changeover, and it returns the seed amount, what stays behind in the vested component, and the seed as a percentage of your value.
This is a backward-looking tool. The seeding was a once-off event tied to a single date, so the figure it produces is your historical starting balance in the savings pot, useful for reconciling against what your fund actually moved across or for understanding how much early-access cash you began with.
Ten percent, but never more than R30,000
The seeding rule has two parts and the calculator applies both. The seed is 10 percent of your vested value as at the changeover, but it is capped at a maximum of R30,000. So the formula is the smaller of those two numbers. For a vested value up to R300,000 the 10 percent figure bites, because 10 percent of R300,000 is exactly R30,000. Above R300,000 the cap takes over and the seed stays flat at R30,000 no matter how large the fund. The 10 percent rate and the R30,000 cap are the figures this calculator applies, and although they were set in the legislation, it is worth confirming them against SARS, the South African Revenue Service, or your fund if you are reconciling an exact balance.
A R250,000 vested value, below the cap
Say your vested retirement value was R250,000 at the end of August 2024. Ten percent of that is R25,000, which sits below the R30,000 ceiling, so the seed is the full R25,000. That leaves R225,000 in your vested component under the old preservation rules, and the seed is 10 percent of your value. Had your fund been worth R400,000 instead, 10 percent would be R40,000, the cap would kick in, and your seed would be limited to R30,000, which is just 7.5 percent of that larger value.
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What the seed does and does not unlock
The seed is real, accessible money, but accessing it is not free. A savings-pot withdrawal is added to your taxable income and taxed at your marginal rate, so pulling R25,000 in a year you already earn well could hand a meaningful chunk to SARS. The seed also drained your preserved savings by that amount, money that would otherwise have compounded to retirement. A useful way to think about it: the seeding did not create wealth, it relabelled a slice of your existing savings as reachable. Whether reaching for it is wise depends entirely on your marginal rate and how urgently you need the cash.
Who should run this
Anyone who had retirement savings before September 2024 and wants to know their opening savings-pot balance, or to sanity-check the number their fund reported. The common mistake is assuming everyone got R30,000. Members with smaller funds got 10 percent, which can be far less, and that is exactly what the calculator shows when you enter a value under R300,000. If the figure here does not match your fund statement, the gap is usually a different vested value at the cut-off date, so start by confirming that input.
Is the seed a fresh contribution or a transfer?
It is a transfer of money you already had, not a new contribution. Nothing extra was added to your fund; an existing slice of your vested savings was simply moved into the savings pot. That is why it does not earn you any contribution tax deduction, unlike the contributions you make from your salary.
Did the seed have to be taken in cash?
No. Seeding only moved money into the savings pot. It did not force a withdrawal. You can leave the seed invested in the savings pot indefinitely, where it keeps growing, and only withdraw if and when you choose, subject to the once-a-year limit and the R2,000 minimum.