South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs has moved from talk to paperwork on charging for its Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), publishing draft regulations that would introduce a ZAR 500 processing fee for the digital permit, a decisive step in Pretoria’s push to modernise and monetise its borders.
The proposal, gazetted by Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, appeared in Government Gazette No. 55072 on 27 July 2026. It gives the public until 11 August to weigh in, with the department eyeing an effective date of 17 August if the amendments survive the comment period unchanged.
The ETA platform has been running since October 2025, but Home Affairs has been absorbing the cost of running it. Schreiber’s explanatory note makes the logic explicit: visa fees were temporarily waived when the platform launched because it lacked an integrated payment system, meaning no fees for Visa or ETA have been collected despite ongoing maintenance costs.
In effect, the state has been subsidising a digital service it now wants to put on a self-funding footing.
The fee structure is more nuanced than a flat R500 for everyone. For nationals of countries that already require a South African visa, the ETA processing charge stacks on top of the existing visa fee R500 plus the R425 visa fee, for a combined R925 per application.
Framed against the status quo, that’s being sold as a discount rather than a burden: travellers in that category currently pay outsourced agents such as VFS Global R1,975 per application, so the new arrangement more than halves their total cost even as government, rather than a contractor, pockets the fee.
For visa-exempt travellers, the category that would include most short-stay tourists from countries with reciprocal arrangements, the R500 ETA fee is being pitched, at least initially, as optional.
Visa-exempt travellers can choose to obtain an ETA by paying the R500 fee under what the department calls an “initial voluntary approach,” designed to encourage uptake without eroding existing visa-free travel privileges.
Schreiber has framed the whole exercise as a deliberate insourcing move: the department says it is bringing a previously outsourced function in-house and enhancing state capacity, at a price point for tourists that is less than half what they currently pay.
The underlying ETA system itself remains unchanged by this fee proposal. It permits multiple entries for tourism or business, an initial stay of up to 90 days, and one further 90-day extension processed online.
Approval is tied to a QR code that can be presented digitally or on paper at immigration checkpoints, including automated gates where they’ve been installed.
The rollout has been incremental rather than universal. It began as a G20-linked pilot for diplomats, then in February 2026 expanded to ordinary passport holders from Mainland China, India, Indonesia and Mexico entering through OR Tambo, Cape Town International, or Lanseria, the same three airports still cited as the system’s entry points.
Home Affairs has signalled ambitions to broaden this to travellers from all visa-required countries, which is presumably where Nigerian applicants would eventually fall in scope.
One rule hasn’t softened: there is no fallback at the border. Travellers who need an ETA or eVisa and arrive without one cannot obtain one on arrival and will be denied entry, a point immigration lawyers tracking the rollout have flagged repeatedly as the single biggest risk for unprepared travellers.
Industry commentary has already framed this as more than a fee tweak.
One analysis argued the reform points to a deliberate move toward digital, insourced visa processing for short-term travel, with government trading a modest state-levied fee for a substantial cut in outsourced costs, a trade-off aimed as much at airlines, hotels and tour operators watching South Africa’s visa friction as at individual travellers.
Whether the R500 fee survives the comment period intact is still an open question; public submissions close 11 August, giving airlines, tourism bodies, and prospective travellers roughly ten days from now to make their case before Pretoria decides whether the price of admission goes up.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
South Africa’s ETA is no longer free. From August 17, 2026 (pending public comment closing August 11), applicants will pay a ZAR 500 (~$30) processing fee R925 total for travellers who also need a visa, or an optional R500 for visa-exempt tourists.
The one rule that hasn’t changed and matters most: there is no ETA or visa on arrival; travellers who need one and show up without it will be turned away at the border. Apply online, in advance, every time.
