The Intra Company Transfer Visa is specifically designed for Multinational companies that have a branch, subsidiary or affiliate company in South Africa. It provides the mechanism by which foreign companies may second or transfer resources that work for their overseas operations to the South African company.

These resources are often required to work for the South African company either in an executive capacity or also to provide technical knowledge and expertise. This need may be particularly relevant during the start up and expansion phase of a multinational as it needs to employ resources in South Africa that are already well versed in the company’s operations.

Key features of the Intra Company Transfer Work Visa include the following:

• The South African Company must be a subsidiary, branch or affiliate company of the overseas multinational company;
• The Visa can be granted for a maximum period of 4 years;
• The employee that is being transferred to the South African company must have worked for the overseas company for a minimum period of 6 months before being transferred to South Africa;
• The South African company must undertake to ensure that the skills and knowledge of the foreign employee will be transferred to a specified South African citizen or permanent resident, and a skills transfer plan must be submitted showing how this will be done.

The advantages of an Intra Company Transfer Work Visa are the following:

• It is the least onerous of the various work visas in terms of fulfilling the various requirements;
• The application can further be compiled in a relatively short time period, and it should not take longer than approximately 4 weeks to gather all the relevant documents.
• The visa allows for multiple entries and thus the employee can travel into and out of South Africa at will.

The Intra Company Transfer Work Visa also has certain disadvantages:

• The visa is not renewable.
• Should the employee wish to continue working in South Africa after the visa period has expired then they will have to lodge a new application in their home country. The application would further have to contain special motivation with regards to why a new visa is required.
• The period spent working in South Africa will not be counted towards a permanent residence application.

In summary the Intra Company Transfer Work Visa presents a very practical solution to many multinational companies resourcing requirements, especially with regards to skilled executive and technical functions.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you require further information.