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As the country enters alert Level 3 today, the Department of Home Affairs continues to balance the need to offer access to enabling documents while ensuring that our employees and people visiting our offices interact in a safe environment.

During alert Level 3, the Department of Home Affairs will provide marriage services and receive requests for late registration of birth, by appointment. This is in addition to the services rendered in level 4, namely: 

• Issuance of uncollected Identity Documents, 
• Issuance of temporary identity certificates,
• Registration of births and deaths, 
• Reissue of birth and death certificates, 
• Issuance of passports to those in export and cargo transport.

Home Affairs offices will continue opening Monday to Friday, from 08h30 to 15h30.

For marriages, couples are required to book an appointment, by calling their nearest Home Affairs Office. On the day of the marriage, couples are requested to visit our offices with only their witnesses to keep the numbers of people at our offices at a bare minimum.

An appointment is also required when applying for a late registration of birth (LRB), which refers to a birth registration application lodged after 30 days of such a birth.

Children born during the lockdown will not follow the LRB process. This includes children who were born from 26 February 2020 but could not be registered because of the lockdown.

Between 27 March 2020 and 28 May 2020, a total of 133 251 births were registered. Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal each registered more than 27 000 children during this period.

Deaths registered were 68 768.

A total of 55 761 temporary identity certificates were issued, showing a high demand for these certificates as is the case also for re-issuance of birth certificates. In total, 51 844 birth certificates were replaced. To support economic activity and food security, 475 passports were issued to those in export and cargo transport.

Only 66 665 uncollected smart ID cards were cleared. This is a drop in the ocean considering that the number of uncollected smart ID cards exceeds 411 000

The Department invites citizens whose smart ID cards are not yet collected to visit offices where they had applied, to collect their valuable smart IDs – your ID is your identity.

All offices were disinfected. People visiting our offices are requested to wear masks and to observe social distancing protocols inside and outside the offices.

As part of coordinated security operations, the Inspectorate will ensure that any undocumented or illegal nationals who are detained will be subject to deportation.

Refugee reception offices remain closed. However, permits issued lawfully, and expired during the lockdown, would be deemed to be valid until 31 July 2020.

No visa or permitting functions will be open in SA and at Missions abroad during level 3 lockdown.