BBMINOZ Posted March 23, 2017 Report Share Posted March 23, 2017 Hi Everyone. Its been a while since I was last on this site and am reminded what a wonderful resource it is! I wondered whether anyone has had any recent experience with applying for a child passport in South Africa or has any input in this regard. We live in Melbourne but are travelling back to SA for a holiday next week. My husband and I have Dual Citizenship and our 10 year old son automatically retained his South African citizenship when we received our Australian citizenship. I understand that we all need to enter and exit South Africa on our South African passports. I only recently realised that our son's SA passport expires on 14 May. Our planned date of departure from SA is 17 April - so his passport is not valid for the required 30 days after departure. We are going to apply for a new passport when we are in SA but are obviously concerned as to how long this may take. We have previously used a company called DontQ to assist with an adult passport application a few years ago. They are advising that they can assist us with getting the passport in 5-7 working days but there are obviously no guarantees. Has anyone else had any experience in using this company? Does anyone know of any other options to assist with expediting the process? Our other problem is that we understand that one of the parents has to go in to Home Affairs in person to collect the passport and give a thumb print at that time. We also have logisitc issues in this regard and wondered if anyone knows whether there are any other options for collection? Has anyone had any experience with trying to leave SA where passport is expiring within 30 day period? Does the computer system automatically red-flag this? I'd appreciate any advice or input from others who have experienced similar as feeling mildly panicked at this stage! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichKen Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) In terms of home affairs, from a local perspective, it is usually about 7 days, if you do it yourself at a good home affairs office - this was our experience applying for two child passports last year that were already expired. Not sure where you will be in SA, but they are really quick these days with ID cards and passports in general. Queues move fairly quickly once in, if you get there early. We were actually pleasantly surprised with the actual friendly service. On the passports and ID side we have had no issues with getting documents quickly from home affairs. Don't, however try birth/marriage certificates though, this is still a very looooooong wait. Of course I am not sure what impact (if any) your dual citizenship may have on this processing time. Edited March 24, 2017 by MichKen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBMINOZ Posted March 24, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 That is good to know, thank you. Which Home Affairs did you apply at? I think the DontQ crowd take us to Harrison Street. We'll be in the Sandton area so not sure whether Randburg Branch would be any better?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichKen Posted March 24, 2017 Report Share Posted March 24, 2017 Randburg is pretty good from what I have heard. We used Edenvale office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubie Posted March 25, 2017 Report Share Posted March 25, 2017 It takes 3 days to get a child passport if you do it yourself at any Homeaffairs . We applied for our daughter in October 2016 on a Saturday morning and the SMS for collection came in on the Wednesday afternoon from Home affairs. For our son we applied on 03 March 2017 and we got confirmation to collect on 08 March 2017. We used the Roodepoort office. So in a nutshell it takes about 3 to 4 days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBMINOZ Posted March 28, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2017 That is such a relief to hear - thanks so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.