Permanent residents in SA and Smart IDs: What the LAW says
The South African | 13.08.2026 13:24
Permanent residents in SA are fully entitled to apply for Smart ID cards, as of a law change in May 2025. For years, naturalised citizens and permanent residents had no path to the Smart ID. The Department of Home Affairs’ excuse was plausible. It said its IT systems had no way of linking the citizen’s database to a non-citizen one.
