Johannesburg – Naturalized South African citizens and legal permanent residents – Over 1.4 million numbers can now apply for SA Smart Card IDs.
Home Minister Dr. Leon Schreiber announced the move on Sunday (May 11, 2025) and said, “If the first citizens and legal permanent residents in South Africa's history are open on Monday, May 12, 2025, they will be able to apply for a smart card ID including the ehomeaffairs platform.”
“This step marks the most important milestones in our home affairs digital transformation journey, and much more,” Minister Schreiber said after months of hardworking information technology reform.
He said for years the failure forced South Africans and permanent residents born abroad to continue using only unsafe green barcoded ID books, excluded from obtaining a more secure smart ID.
“It also prevented them from making reservations using the ehomeaffairs platform,” Minister Schreiber said.
“In rare cases, a small number of naturalized citizens were able to obtain their smart IDs only after being given permission from the Minister and following a boring manual process.”
The minister said the department's digital transformation drive changed all this, bringing about changes to more than 1.4 million eligible South Africans and legal permanent residents.
For the first time he said they will now be able to use ehomeaffairs and get smart IDs like all the other eligible people.
Minister Schreiber said: “This breakthrough in digital transformation reform brings dignity directly to more than 1.4 million people, including hundreds of thousands of South African citizens who were treated unequally and violated their dignity.
“For years, these South Africans were treated as second-rate citizens by being excluded from access to smart IDs and excluded from ehomeaffairs.
“We have now brought this major reform within just a few months thanks to the hard work of our teams led by the pinnacle of digital transformation.”
Minister Schreiber added: “However, the benefits of correcting this inequality exceed these 1.4 million direct beneficiaries, which is also a victory for improving national security.
“Naturalized citizens and permanent residents are the last group eligible for South African ID documents and have been excluded from obtaining smart IDs.
“Thanks to these years of fraud relief, all eligible individuals in South Africa are now able to obtain their Smart ID for the first time.
“This eliminates the scam linked to this document by fully adopting smart IDs and removing the green barcoded ID book.”
Minister Schreiber said all citizens and legal permanent residents are eligible for smart IDs.
“The department is already striving to achieve this goal by dramatically increasing the number of bank branches that adopt smart ID and passport applications,” he said.
“It's clear that we're making progress more rapidly than ever by using digital transformation to provide home affairs.”
Minister Schreiber said naturalized citizens and permanent residents will obtain Smart IDs and open for extended opening hours the following weekend to manage the expected increase.
Saturday, May 17th, 2025: 08:00 – 13:00 Saturday, May 24th, 2025: 08:00 – 13:00 May 31st, 2025: 08:00 – 13:00
