Due to the significant backlog and long processing times DHA have issued a new Directive that extends the previous concession to applicant’s that have pending visa or waiver applications. Applicant’s that have outstanding applications have now had their visas extended until the 31^st December 2023.

These applicants can also leave South Africa without being declared undesirable on their departure despite the fact that their existing visas have expired. They must show their VFS Receipts when they leave the country. If the applicant is from a visa exempt country then they may travel directly back, but if they are not from a visa exempt country then they are required to have a Visitors Visa when they reenter the country.

The directive does not however apply to short term visa holders, and states that should such applicants not have received their extension outcome by the 31^st March 2023 then they must make arrangements to leave the country by the 30^th April 2023, to avoid being declared undesirable.

The directive is not well drafted and leaves a number of questions unanswered including the following:

1. The directive advises that the extension applies to long term visa holders and then specifically mentions the following categories: Work, Business, Study, Relative and Accompanying Spouse. Certain categories are not included in the list, such as, Retirement and Volunteers Visas, which begs the question whether this exclusion is intentional and whether holders of such visas are excluded. The previous directives did not specify specific visa categories but simply referred to “foreign nationals who are awaiting the outcome of visa applications”. It surely cannot be the intention to exclude certain long term visa categories, and one must assume the directive is applicable to all such categories.
2. The directive states that it is only valid regarding applicants that have submitted applications on or before the 31^st March 2023. DHA has a huge backlog which is not going to be cleared soon so what about applicants that submit their applications after this date. We must assume that a new directive will be issued to cater for them, but this creates horrible uncertainty.
3. Finally, the question is whether short term visa holders whose visas expire before the 30^th April must leave the country despite the fact that they have submitted extension applications. The directive refers to short term visa holders whose visa validity was issued for less than 90 days. Most short term visas are issued for exactly 90 days so was this a mistake in the way it was drafted and does it apply to persons whose visas were issued for exactly 90 days or was specifying “less then 90 days” deliberate. This is a crucial issue that must be clarified.

We will update this as soon as we have further news.