South Africa Entry Requirements 2026: Visas and Rules

Most overseas visitors don’t need a visa for South Africa. If you hold a British, Irish, American, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand passport, or one from nearly any EU country, you get up to 90 days on arrival as a tourist. What catches people out is the small print: passport pages, children’s paperwork and, since July 2026, an online customs declaration that everyone has to file.

Everything below was checked on 7 October 2026. Rules here change with little warning, so check the official pages I link at the end before you fly.

Who gets in without a visa

The Department of Home Affairs keeps the official list. The current version was issued on 9 December 2025. These are the figures for ordinary (tourist) passports.

Passport	Visa-free stay
United Kingdom, Ireland	90 days
United States, Canada	90 days
Australia, New Zealand	90 days
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden	90 days
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland	90 days
Japan, Israel, Singapore, Brazil, Argentina	90 days
Cyprus, Poland	30 days
South Korea, Hong Kong	30 days
China, India, Mexico	visa needed (or the new ETA, see below)

Note the two EU odd ones out. Cyprus and Poland ordinary passports only get 30 days, which matters if you’re planning a long self-drive. If you need longer than your exemption allows, you have to apply for a visa in advance through a South African embassy or VFS centre rather than hoping to extend it later.

Passport, pages and tickets

Your passport must be valid for at least 30 days after the day you leave South Africa. It also needs at least two unused pages for the entry and exit stamps, and the endorsement pages at the back don’t count. Airlines check this at check-in and can refuse to board you, so if you’re tight on pages, renew before you go.

You should also be able to show a return or onward ticket. Home Affairs regulations treat a one-way ticket as grounds to refuse entry, and airlines often ask for it before boarding. Having proof of where you’re staying and enough money for the trip is sensible too, though in practice tourists are rarely asked.

Travelling with children

The rules on children were the big headache from 2015, when every child had to carry an unabridged birth certificate. That was relaxed in late 2019, and I couldn’t find any newer change as of October 2026.

For a child travelling on a passport from a visa-exempt country, the official requirement is now just a valid passport, whether they’re with both parents, one parent or travelling alone. Home Affairs still strongly advises carrying a copy of the birth certificate and, if a parent isn’t on the trip, a consent letter from the absent parent (no older than six months) with a copy of their passport. I’d carry them. It costs nothing and saves an argument at a desk.

Children who need a visa submit those documents with the visa application instead. South African children travelling on their own passports follow seperate, stricter rules.

The ETA: do you need one?

South Africa launched its Electronic Travel Authorisation on 12 August 2026, after a pilot that started in October 2025. It was built for nationals who used to need a full visa, starting with China, India, Indonesia and Mexico, and by early October 2026 it had been opened to travellers from 45 countries. Approvals come back within 24 hours and the authorisation sits in your phone’s wallet.

If your passport is visa-exempt, the ETA is optional. You can apply for one to use the faster ETA queue at the airport, but you don’t need it to get in. Home Affairs has said it will become compulsory over time, but only for short visits by nationals of countries that need a visa. Applications are made at eta.dha.gov.za.

The traveller declaration (new from 1 July 2026)

This one applies to everybody. Since 1 July 2026, SARS requires every person entering or leaving South Africa by air, land, sea or rail to submit an online traveller declaration. That includes children and babies, one declaration per person. You file it on the SARS traveller management system (website or app) no more than 24 hours before your departure flight.

SARS says nobody will be refused entry just for not having done it, and there are officials and self-service kiosks at the border to help. But doing it the day before saves time in the arrivals hall.

Yellow fever

You need a yellow fever vaccination certificate if you’re over one year old and arriving from a country with yellow fever risk, or if you spent more than 12 hours in transit at an airport in one. Most of the risk list is in West, Central and East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia among them) plus much of South America. Without it you can be refused entry or held in quarantine for up to six days. Flying direct from the UK, Europe, North America or Australia, you don’t need one.

Customs allowances

Each adult can bring in, duty-free: 200 cigarettes, 20 cigars, 250g of tobacco, 2 litres of wine, 1 litre of spirits, 50ml of perfume and 250ml of eau de toilette, plus other goods worth up to R5,000. Above that you can pay a flat 20% on a further R20,000 of goods. Cash in rand must be declared above R100,000 since 1 July 2026 (it was R25,000 before, and some foreign government advice pages haven’t caught up yet).

Where to check before you fly

The official sources are the Department of Home Affairs visa exemption list at dha.gov.za and the SARS traveller declaration pages at sars.gov.za. Your own government’s travel advice is worth a look as well.

Once you’re in, the next cost to plan is park entry. The fees page has every daily conservation fee we track with the date it was checked, and the park fee calculator adds them up for your route.