Home Affairs’ plan to deliver passports to your door

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has announced plans to launch a new service that will deliver passports to South Africans living abroad.

This new service will launch on 1 November 2025, and it will allow the DHA to refine and perfect the process before rolling out the doorstep delivery option to clients in South Africa.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Shreiber announced the new service in his address to the South African community in The Hague in The Netherlands on Wednesday, 22 October.

This marks the first time that Home Affairs has provided clients with the option to select courier delivery for a critical enabling document instead of forcing them to travel to an office for a second time just for document collection. 

From 1 November, the courier delivery option for passports will be available at all of the new Home Affairs service centres around the world. 

Turnaround times will range from 24 to 72 hours and will attract a fee between $30 (about R520) and $60 (about R1,040). 

The service will initially be available at the existing service centres located in 18 cities, with more set to be launched over the coming months.

“This bold reform not only promotes inclusivity by resolving long-standing problems experienced by South Africans abroad when applying for a passport,” Schreiber said.

He added that it amounts to another watershed moment for #TeamHomeAffairs “as we work with urgency to reform our department from a laggard to a world leader in identity management”.

“Through our vision to deliver Home Affairs @ home, we are pushing forward relentlessly to eliminate the need for clients to travel large distances and stand in long queues to obtain enabling documents,” he said. 

“Instead, our digital transformation journey means that we are using technology to decentralise access and bring our services to South Africans right where they live – anywhere in the world.”

He explained that once the DHA is comfortable that doorstep delivery is working smoothly for South African expats, it will scale up the service and roll it out to all South Africans.

“This latest step demonstrates that the tech-driven service delivery revolution underway at Home Affairs continues to gather momentum as we work to deliver dignity for all,” the minister said.

This new service, along with the department’s extended partnerships with local banks like Capitec, FNB and Standard Bank, is set to signficantly expand access to routine Home Affairs services in the coming years.

The department plans to roll out smart ID and passport services to 1,000 bank branches over the next few years, a significant increase from the 30 branches that currently offer these services.