Want a new passport? Prepare to fork out between R600 and R1,200 as Motsoaledi approves new fees

Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi has hiked the fees for SA passports and travel documents, saying people travelling out of the country do not need to be subsidised by the government.

The new fees come into effect on November 1.

“The changes to passport and travel document fees were informed by the outcome of a benchmarking exercise with other countries which found that our tariffs were up to three times lower,” the home affairs department said in a statement.

“The decision was also informed by the fact that production costs are much higher than what people are paying for our passports. This means the government is heavily subsidising passport holders when such a subsidy is not realised for ordinary ID applicants.

“We believe that the people who are able to travel out of the country are financially better off than ordinary citizens and they don’t need to be subsidised in the manner we have been doing.” 

The fees were last adjusted in 2011.

The new fees for applications within SA are:

• Adult passport R600 for 32 pages (current fee R400); R1,200 for 48 pages (maxi, current fee R800)
• Child passport R600 (current fee R400)
• Official passport R600 (currently no charge)
• Diplomatic passport R600 (currently no charge)
• Document for travel purposes R600 (current fee R300)
• Crew member certificate R600 (current fee R350)

The fees for applications outside SA, made at missions, embassies or consulates, are: 

• Adult passport R1,200 for 32 pages (current fee R400); R2,400 for 48 pages (maxi, current fee R800)
• Child passport R1 200 (current fee R400)
• Emergency travel certificate R140 (current fee R140).

“Once more, we wish to advise our people that there is nothing called an emergency passport. The emergency travel certificate mentioned above is a document available only to South Africans stranded abroad. It helps them to come back home and when they arrive, the usefulness of the document lapses. There is no emergency travel certificate for South Africans who need to travel abroad.”

The first application of an ID document is free and the cost to reissue an ID document is R140.