On 27 July, South Africa's Department of Home Affairs published Notice R.7744 in Government Gazette 55072: the Draft First Amendment of the Regulations on Fees made under the Immigration Act, 2002. Minister Leon Schreiber signed it on 24 July. Public comment closes on 11 August, and the regulations state they come into operation on 17 August 2026.
Since then, much of the coverage has described the proposal as a new $30 fee for travelers from African countries. That description is misleading.
The proposed fee would actually be more than 50% lower than the current fee for the African travelers who would have to pay it. Some of the countries mentioned in media reports may also not be subject to the fee.
There is another important detail: the proposed rule is not limited to tourists. It covers a wider range of travelers and immigration transactions than the headlines suggest.
What the gazette actually does
The department sets out the difference between the current system and the proposed system in two tables.
Under the current system:
- A traveler who needs a visa pays R1,550 to an outsourced service provider, plus a R425 visa fee. That is R1,975 in total.
- A traveler who needs a visa but is exempt from the visa fee still pays the R1,550 service fee.
- A traveler who does not need a visa pays nothing.
Under the proposed system:
The outsourced R1,550 service fee would be removed.
- A traveler who needs a visa would pay R500 for electronic processing, plus the R425 visa fee. That is R925 in total.
- A traveler who needs a visa but is exempt from the visa fee would pay R500.
- A visa-exempt traveler would pay nothing, unless they choose to use the electronic platform, in which case they would pay R500.
In other words, the department is replacing the outsourced service fee with a much lower electronic processing fee. It says this is part of bringing the function in-house and strengthening the department's capacity. For travelers who need a visa, the change would cut the cost from R1,975 to R925, a reduction of more than half.
The department also explains why it wants to introduce a fee. Its Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) platform was launched in October 2025 to process travel applications around the G20 Summit. At the time, visa fees for the countries being onboarded were waived because the platform could not process online payments.
As a result, the department has not collected visa fees or an ETA processing fee through the platform since its launch. It now says that continuing to operate the platform as a fully subsidized service is not sustainable.
Who pays, and who doesn't
The gazette is clear about who must use the ETA.
For travelers from countries that require a visa, the ETA becomes compulsory when they apply through the electronic platform. For visa-exempt travelers, the ETA is optional. They can choose to use it for the streamlined processing experience, but would then pay the R500 processing fee.
The department says this preserves existing visa-free travel while encouraging travelers to use the platform. But determining exactly which African travelers are exempt from the fee is more complicated.
Home Affairs publishes its exemptions by passport type: diplomatic, official, service, ordinary and special. A country can therefore appear on the exemption list even though its ordinary passport holders still need a visa.
Nigeria and Ethiopia are examples. Both appear on the exemption list, but ordinary passport holders from both countries still require visas to enter South Africa. Egypt appears to be in the same position, although the formatting of the list makes this less clear.
Ghana and Angola are different. Their exemptions extend to ordinary passport holders.
This distinction explains why published estimates of South Africa's African visa exemptions vary from 22 to 32 countries. The number depends on which passport categories are counted. We have asked Home Affairs to clarify exactly how the new fee would apply to each category.
The Africa Visa Openness Index provides a different measure. South Africa scores 0.377 across the other 53 African countries. But this is not a count of visa-free countries. The index gives a score of 1 for visa-free access, 0.8 for visa on arrival and 0 for a visa required before travel. The 0.377 score therefore cannot be converted directly into a number of visa-free countries.
For the travelers who would actually pay the new fee, the picture is clearer. Nigerians, Ethiopians and Egyptians travelling on ordinary passports would still require visas and would therefore pay the new electronic processing fee. For them, the change would reduce the total cost by about R1,000.
There is also one detail in the gazette that may become important later. The gazette describes the ETA as being "initially" optional for visa-exempt travellers. The notice does not explain what happens after that, or when the arrangement might change.
The part that isn't about tourists
The department's explanation focuses entirely on the ETA and travelers. But the Schedule attached to the notice appears to go further. The new line inserted into the fee table describes the R500 charge as an "electronic processing fee, applicable to all visas and permits submitted and processed online."
That wording is broader than an ETA fee.
The same table lists the fee for a business visa, work visa, corporate visa and permanent residence permit as R1,520. On the face of the Schedule, someone applying for any of these online could therefore have to pay the R1,520 visa or permit fee plus the R500 electronic processing fee.
The explanatory memorandum does not mention this group of applicants. Yet these are not tourists. They include people moving to South Africa for work or study, as well as businesses and employers dealing with immigration applications.
This difference in wording matters. The explanatory memorandum describes the R500 as an ETA processing fee, while the Schedule describes it as an electronic processing fee for all visas and permits submitted and processed online.
We asked Home Affairs to clarify this on 5 August.
There is another unanswered question about the existing R1,550 charge.
That amount is not a government fee. It is charged by the outsourced service provider that handles visa applications. The new regulation, however, deals with fees made under the Immigration Act. So it is not immediately clear from the notice what legal or contractual arrangement would actually remove the existing R1,550 charge.
We asked Home Affairs about that too, along with when the ETA would become compulsory for visa-exempt travelers. We had not received a response by publication. We will update this article if the department responds.
The measurement trap
But there is a complication that could have a significant effect on how South Africa is ranked.
The Africa Visa Openness Index, published annually by the African Development Bank and the African Union Commission, is one of the main measures used in debates about free movement in Africa. Its methodology treats a compulsory pre-travel Electronic Travel Authorization in the same way as an e-Visa: both count as permission that must be obtained before travel.
That distinction matters. A country can make travel easier by digitizing the process without actually making its borders more open. To a traveler, the experience may feel very different. In the data, however, both can look like a restriction.
Seychelles is the clearest example. It ranked joint first in the 2024 index because it allowed visa-free entry to all 53 other African countries. It then became the first African country to require an ETA from all incoming travelers.
In the 2025 index, Seychelles scored 0.000 and ranked 54th, last in Africa, below Sudan. Nobody was suddenly refused entry. Seychelles simply added a form that travelers had to complete before departure.
Kenya shows the reverse. Its ETA was treated like an e-Visa in the previous edition, when Kenya ranked 46th. Since then, Kenya has exempted African citizens from both the visa and the ETA, with only Libya and Somalia still requiring one.
Kenya now ranks third.
The country did not redraw its borders. What changed was whether African travelers had to obtain permission before departure.
Mozambique provides a useful middle case.
It introduced an ETA for the 29 nationalities that were already exempt from its short-stay visa requirement. Travelers initially had to apply at least 48 hours before arrival, but Mozambique suspended the system in May 2025 after technical problems. The 2025 index recorded the suspension and did not change the country's score.
Mozambique later rebuilt the system with VFS Global and relaunched it on 11 February 2026. Trade press reports that the requirement became compulsory again on 31 July 2026.
But there is an important limitation. Only three of those 29 countries are African: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal. Citizens of SADC countries, including South Africans, enter Mozambique under a separate arrangement and do not need an ETA.
So Mozambique's ETA affects only three of the 53 African travel scenarios measured by the index. With Mozambique currently scoring 0.842 and ranking seventh, the effect on its overall score is likely to be small.
The difference between these cases is important. Seychelles applied an ETA across all 53 African travel scenarios and went from the top of the index to the bottom. Mozambique applied one across just three and is unlikely to move much. The impact depends on how much open access existed before the additional requirement was introduced.
South Africa currently scores 0.377 and ranks joint 25th, alongside Tunisia and Guinea.
The index has already looked at South Africa's ETA, and it has a view on the fee
This is the part that has received the least attention, and it may be the most important.
The 2025 Africa Visa Openness Index does not treat South Africa's ETA in the same way as Seychelles'. It describes South Africa's system as a pilot launched in October 2025 for G20 meeting participants. Crucially, it applied to people from countries that already required a visa, rather than to travelers who previously entered visa-free.
The index therefore viewed South Africa's ETA as a way of digitizing and largely automating an existing visa process, not as a new restriction on people who could previously travel without one.
But the report makes an important distinction. It warns that ETAs could become a step backwards for free movement if countries that already allow visa-free or visa-on-arrival access introduce them. If they do, the report recommends that the authorizations should be free and require only basic information.
South Africa is now proposing a R500 charge for visa-exempt travelers who voluntarily choose to use its ETA platform.
There is an important timing issue here. The 2025 index was based on data collected in July and August 2025, before South Africa's ETA platform launched in October and before any fee was proposed. The assessment therefore does not reflect the system described in the new gazette.
The gazette says visa-exempt travelers can choose to use the ETA and pay R500. The department expects travelers in this group to use the platform. It also describes their fee exemption as applying "initially."
That leaves a clear question.
The African Development Bank and the African Union Commission have recommended that ETAs introduced for travelers who already enjoy visa-free access should be free. South Africa is now proposing a R500 charge for exactly that group.
We have asked both institutions whether they consider the proposed fee consistent with that recommendation.
A prediction
The obvious prediction is not accurate, so it is worth being precise about what could actually change South Africa's score. For travelers from countries that already require a visa, replacing a paper visa process with an ETA does not change their position in the index. Both require permission before travel. Those country pairs are already scored as closed.
South Africa could therefore cut the cost of that process by more than half without losing any points. The exposure is among the travel routes that are not already scored as closed.
This is where the index's weighting matters. Visa-free access scores 1, while visa on arrival scores 0.8. But both become 0 if travelers must obtain permission before departure. So whatever combination of visa-free and visa-on-arrival access produces South Africa's current 0.377 score, that entire portion is potentially exposed if a compulsory ETA is introduced.
Home Affairs directs nationals who are not exempt from the visa requirement to apply at a mission before travelling, which suggests that South Africa may have little or no visa-on-arrival access. But that point is not necessary to the argument. The 0.377 is not a count of countries. It represents the access that could be lost if a pre-travel requirement is extended to those routes.
There is one piece of arithmetic we can establish with confidence. Across 53 African countries, a score that rounds to 0.377 means the weighted total is 20. No other combination of the index's 1.0 and 0.8 scores falls within the relevant rounding range. That tells us the size of the access at stake without pretending we know exactly how that 20 is distributed between visa-free and visa-on-arrival access.
The timing also matters.
The 2025 index used data collected in July and August 2025. If the 2026 edition follows the same schedule, its data collection is taking place around the same time that South Africa's new regulations are due to come into force on 17 August.
The index has shown that this timing can matter. Morocco introduced a temporary ETA for eight African countries that otherwise had visa-free access during the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations. The arrangement was excluded from the 2025 index because it fell outside the data-collection period.
If South Africa keeps the ETA optional for visa-exempt nationals through the next collection window, those scenarios should remain classified as open and the score broadly unchanged, despite a substantial cut in what applicants pay. If the word "initially" becomes a policy change and the ETA is made compulsory for currently visa-exempt travelers, every affected scenario moves into the index's pre-travel category, and since that is the entirety of South Africa's 0.377, the score should fall towards zero and the ranking from joint 25th towards the bottom of the index. For reasons that have nothing to do with anyone being refused entry.
We will check this against the next edition and publish the result either way.
The question underneath
None of this establishes that South Africa is doing something wrong. A cheaper, faster, in-house system is defensible public administration, and R925 instead of R1,975 is a real saving for a real visa applicant.
What it does expose is a bigger definitional problem: Africa has not yet settled the difference between making travel easier and making access more restrictive.
Across the continent, visa-on-arrival access fell from 28% of travel scenarios in 2020 to 20% in 2025. At the same time, the number of scenarios requiring permission before travel rose from 1,348 to 1,463 in a single year. Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Nigeria and Somalia all moved away from broad visa-on-arrival policies towards requiring visas in advance. The continent's combined openness score fell to 0.448, below each of the previous three editions.
Some of that represents genuine restriction. Some represents the digitization of existing processes. The index does not currently distinguish between the two, yet its numbers are routinely used by policymakers to assess progress towards African free movement.
South Africa has not yet crossed that line with its visa-exempt neighbors. The word "initially" leaves that possibility open.
If that changes, South Africa could find itself in an unusual position: a system introduced to make immigration processing faster and more efficient could end up being recorded as a reduction in visa openness, not because travelers were refused entry, but because they were required to obtain and pay for permission before they travelled.
Comments on the draft regulations close on 11 August 2026 and may be emailed to IMSRegulations@dha.gov.za, addressed to the Chief Director: Legal Services. Enquiries are directed to Adv Moses Malakate on 076 481 4716 or Adv Phumeza Dlabathi on (012) 406 2820. The notice was signed on 24 July 2026 and published as Notice R.7744 in Government Gazette 55072 on 27 July 2026, with commencement stated as 17 August 2026.