The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has launched South Africa’s Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) platform, which was designed to modernise and digitally transform South Africa’s visa and immigration system.

The ETA improves mobility and migration management in South Africa and unlocks economic growth through tourism, investment and legitimate travel, while combating visa fraud and illegal immigration.

“The ETA's features are live. We initially piloted the ETA during South Africa’s G20 Presidency [in 2025] for travellers from China, India, Indonesia and Mexico,” Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber noted at a launch event on August 12.

Since that small-scale pilot began, the ETA has already processed 216 204 applications.

It also provides vastly enhanced security features, with 6 126 fraudulent applications identified and rejected, including cases involving fraudulent passports, manipulated documents and other indicators of fraud.

“The future of immigration in South Africa is a system that is modern and uncompromising when it comes to security, but welcoming and efficient when it comes to the travellers and investors we must attract to generate growth and jobs,” Schreiber said.

During the next phase of work, the ETA will progressively become compulsory for short-stay visits from countries that require port-of-entry visas to South Africa.

Simultaneously, the ETA will be accessible on a voluntary basis to visa-exempt travellers who want to use the faster ETA queue upon arrival, or who want to easily extend their stay by up to 90 days.

The DHA will inform the embassies of countries as they are systematically added to the ETA over the coming weeks, Schreiber said.

The ETA system will initially be available for travellers who arrive at OR Tambo International Airport, Cape Town International Airport, King Shaka International Airport and Lanseria International Airport.

Further, the ETA uses biometric verification. To enable this functionality, the Border Management Authority (BMA), in collaboration with the South African Revenue Service (SARS), upgraded the Electronic Movement Control System, or EMCS 2.0, at the international airports.

This enables the DHA to confirm that the person standing at a port of entry is the same person who received authorisation to travel to South Africa.

Once South Africa's airports are fully equipped, the department will roll out facial recognition and EMCS 2.0 at all land and sea ports of entry over the coming months, he said.

“However, the ETA is not designed to be just a digital visa for tourists and short visits. Our aim is to turn it into the single-entry point and central platform for an end-to-end digital immigration system, where all visa categories are processed through biometric and machine learning technology.”

Over the coming months, the DHA must expand the platform to also process more complex visa categories, including study visas, spousal visas and work visas, he noted.

ETA PROCESS
To start, travellers will need to register a profile on the ETA page of the DHA's website, which will include one-time pin (OTP) verification of their cellphone numbers and email addresses. The travellers then scan their passports and upload photos of themselves.

Through biometric technology, the ETA platform compares a traveller’s passport photo to their facial photograph to confirm that they are the same person.

The algorithm automatically scans the travellers' passports, and checks more than forty parameters to verify that they are authentic.

Once payment has been made, the ETA uses automated risk analysis to identify indicators of fraud or risk at a speed and scale that no human can achieve, Schreiber said.

If an application is approved, the travellers will receive their ETA within 24 hours, which they can then store directly in the digital wallets on their smartphones.

Once approved travellers arrive at the immigration counter, they are required to look into a camera.

Unlike the previous BMA movement control system, EMCS 2.0 uses facial verification to determine whether a traveller may enter the country, which eliminates the scope for criminals to use fraudulent passports or visa papers.

The face of the traveller becomes the key that determines whether they may enter, rather than physical documents that can be manipulated, Schreiber said.

This feature has also laid the foundation for the DHA to significantly reduce immigration queues.

While the dedicated ETA counters will speed up processing, the ETA and EMCS 2.0 now need to be linked to eGates, which are owned by State-owned Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), he said.

Collaboration between ACSA, the BMA, Home Affairs and SARS has started, and Schreiber encouraged the teams to urgently accelerate the work to integrate the ETA with the eGates.

“This will eliminate the need for, and fraud associated with, manual passport stamping, and enable us to use our new facial recognition capabilities to instantly process South African citizens and foreign travellers using the ETA into the country without any delays.”

Additionally, the ETA enables the real-time detection of persons who have overstayed their visas.

When a person travelling on an ETA leaves the country, their face is again verified at the departure counter.

If someone’s face has not been recorded as exiting in time, they will receive direct communication from Home Affairs warning them that they have been identified as being at risk of overstaying and, therefore, faces possible prosecution.

If that warning is disregarded, the security features of the ETA enable immigration enforcement steps to be taken, Schreiber said.

“The ETA is part of the vision of creating smart and secure migration management and digital government for South Africa.”