This note analyses the effects of the South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee communicating a change in its preferred inflation target in July 2017. Prior to 2017Q3, the MPC indicated its inflation targeting range to be 3–6%. From 2017Q3 onward, the MPC shifted to emphasising the midpoint of the range, 4.5%, as its preferred inflation target. We estimate the implications of this shift by means of a Bayesian vector autoregression-based counterfactual exercise. Our results show that this change in the preferred inflation target allowed a reduction in prices and inflation expectations without negative effects on real output and employment. This was achieved via the reduction in the South African–United States long-term interest rate spread (i.e. by a reduction in risk) and by a subsequent positive effect on asset prices.