Entry/Exit to SA - dual citizenship for children

[mloio]

Hi

We're needing to travel to SA, but my son's SA passport has expired (his other passport is still valid).

Now many people say you can only enter/exit SA on a SA passport if you're a SA citizen.

From from my reading of the regs, this only applies to "major" citizens ie. not "minors" and so children/non-adults can enter on foreign passports even if SA citizen.

And from the Home Affairs website: http://www.dha.gov.za/index.php/civic-services/travel-documents

General information about South African passports

A passport is a document issued by a national government for international travel and it certifies the identity and nationality of the holder.

Applicants should note that In terms of section 26 of the South African Citizenship Act, 1995, it is a punishable offence for a South African citizen of 18 years and older to leave or enter South Africa on a foreign passport.

BUT I'm still getting conflicting info from people, including a consulate official !

Can anyone verify the real situation on this issue?

Thanks very much

Mike

[elleneo]

Email the consulate then print out the email they reply and take it with you when travelling in case questions arise

[miran]

http://www.sahc.org.au/citizenship/Dual_Citizenship.htm

This is on the High Commission Canberra's website. It doesn't mention age for dual citizens that must use SA passports to travel into and out of South Africa.

(Edit) I do understand the confusion 100% The actual Citizen Act defines a major as being over 21 or legally married.

You can apply on your child's behalf to give up his South African citizenship, but I hear that can take quite a while.

Sorry for not helping, and actually adding to the confusion.

Edited August 2, 2015 by miran

[monsta]

Hey,

They asked for my sons RSA passport. But then we did tell them that he is a dual citizen.

But also think about your birth certificate. If its issued by home affairs then he definitely can't travel on an Aussie passport. You need the corresponding passport from the country that issued the birth certificate.

So an RSA birth cert with only an Aussie passport is useless.

[elleneo]

Then what would one do if not a dual citizen? Wouldn't you just say , yes he was born in South Africa but is now an Australian with an Australian passport?

There are plenty of people born in countries that differ from their current passport. Not everyone retains the citizenship of their birth country, people move all over the world and they and their child are born in one country,move and gain citizenship of another etc

What you saying is he has to have a passport to match his birth country ...and no offence but that doesn't make sense...

Edited August 3, 2015 by elleneo

[Peterthe1]

Hi. I have dual citizenship (German/RSA) but I have a letter from RSA Home Affairs allowing me to have dual citizenship (I received this back in the 80's through Naturalisation when I did National Service). When I left SA in 2002 Home Affairs told me that, with Dual Citizenship, whichever Passport I used when leaving the country, I must use the same Passport when returning.

Next year will get interesting when I get my Australian citizenship (Triple citizenship), but I think I will probably let the Green Mamba (SA Passport) expire then and only renew it if/when I ever (read never) need it.

[Nev]

If you have south african citizenship you MUST enter RSA on the RSA passport, that is the law there, so the moment they hear the little one (or you for that matter) is dual they will want his RSA passport.

You have 3 options, get him a RSA passport to use, dont tell them and possibly land in deep dwang if you get caught, or renounce his citizenship

Highlighting is mine:

"

1. Dual Citizenship: A South African citizen, who is also a citizen of another country, must use their South African passport when entering or departing South Africa.

"

http://www.sahc.org.au/passports.htm

Edited September 3, 2015 by Nev

[OubaasDik]

Hi. I have dual citizenship (German/RSA) but I have a letter from RSA Home Affairs allowing me to have dual citizenship (I received this back in the 80's through Naturalisation when I did National Service). When I left SA in 2002 Home Affairs told me that, with Dual Citizenship, whichever Passport I used when leaving the country, I must use the same Passport when returning.

Next year will get interesting when I get my Australian citizenship (Triple citizenship), but I think I will probably let the Green Mamba (SA Passport) expire then and only renew it if/when I ever (read never) need it.

IF you get your Aus citizenship without getting the permission certificate, then even if you enter SA on a valid SA passport, you are, IN PRINCIPLE, there illegally, since your SA passport is no longer valid since you are no longer an SA citizen. This is in spite of the SA constitution saying that no one can deprive you of SA citizenship ....

[mloio]

Hi everyone

Thanks! But there's really so much confusion.

1 ) The passport application form refers to section 26 of the act.

2 ) If you then go look at this section in the citizenship act it says it's only an offense for adult SA citizens to enter/depart on a foreign passport

3 )The SA Home Affairs website agrees with this and says it's only an offense for adult SA citizens to enter/depart on a foreign passport

http://www.dha.gov.z...ravel-documents

General information about South African passports

A passport is a document issued by a national government for international travel and it certifies the identity and nationality of the holder.

Applicants should note that In terms of section 26 of the South African Citizenship Act, 1995, it is a punishable offence for a South African citizen of 18 years and older to leave or enter South Africa on a foreign passport.

ie. Actual legislation (the law) and home affairs website says doesn't apply to kids.

So, how can the consulate say it applies to everyone incl. kids??

Edited September 10, 2015 by mloio

[Nev]

I think that confusion is an apt description for home affairs

Based on your post i agree that kids should be ok by law, you may have some difficulty debating south African law with passport control though, especially if you enter on a RSA passport and they dont.

If you enter on a Auz passport i think they wont have any issues with the kids on Auz passports, it shouldn't even come up, just have your cancelled citizenship letter with you

[Jordy]

Then what would one do if not a dual citizen? Wouldn't you just say , yes he was born in South Africa but is now an Australian with an Australian passport?

There are plenty of people born in countries that differ from their current passport. Not everyone retains the citizenship of their birth country, people move all over the world and they and their child are born in one country,move and gain citizenship of another etc

What you saying is he has to have a passport to match his birth country ...and no offence but that doesn't make sense...

According to South African law, a child under 18 cannot forfeit their South African citizenship if they apply for citizenship of another country without applying for retention of RSA citizenship. Whereas if an adult applies for foriegn citizenship without applying for retention of RSA citizenship then they automatically forfeit their RSA citizenship. So children automatically get dual citizenship.

[elleneo]

Yes jordy, I understand that, what I'm getting at is that just because the child was born in SA doesn't mean he is still a citizen ( his parents could have forfeited for him)

To say that a child has to have a South African passport because he was born in sa is presuming he is still a dual citizen. I have a friend whose twins were born in SA and forfeit their citizenship when they became Australian. So now what does she do because the birth certificates are South African but passports are Aussie?

Monsta said " you need the corresponding passport to the country that issued the birth certificate "

How can that be true if you child is no longer a citizen of the country he was born in? ie if you are all Aussies travelling on Aussie passports because u forfeited your child's sa citizenship ( by filling in a form etc) if u immigrated to the USA, forfeited da citizenship but all your kids have sa birth certificates?

I'm merely pointing out that

[Jordy]

Yes jordy, I understand that, what I'm getting at is that just because the child was born in SA doesn't mean he is still a citizen ( his parents could have forfeited for him)

Sorry I misunderstood what you were saying, because to me 'forfeit' means to involuntarily loss the rights to something, which the RSA law says a minor cannot do. Did you mean to say 'renounce' which means to deliberately choose to give up your rights to something?

I have a friend whose twins were born in SA and forfeit their citizenship when they became Australian.

In this example, the twins did not forfeit their South African citizenship simply because they became Australian. The RSA law says minors automatically are granted dual citizenship. The only exception to this law is when the new country does not allow dual citizenship, then if both parents adopt the new country's citizenship the minor will will also forfeit RSA citizenship. But Australia allows dual citizenship so the minor twins automatically retain RSa citizenship.

So did the parents renounce the minor twins citizenship? If so what is the procedure for a parent to renounce their minors South African citizenship? I cant find anything online on how to do this.

[elleneo]

Yes, forfeit,by definition is to " lose OR give up something, Use form BI-246 on the South African consular website under citizenship, deaths and births to forfeit renounce, give up or tell the, to shove ( although technically temporarily) South African Citizenship.

Check the bottom of the form, you sign on behalf of the minor child.

Pardon the typo in my twins example, I meant to say forfeited.

Edited September 14, 2015 by elleneo

[Peterthe1]

IF you get your Aus citizenship without getting the permission certificate, then even if you enter SA on a valid SA passport, you are, IN PRINCIPLE, there illegally, since your SA passport is no longer valid since you are no longer an SA citizen. This is in spite of the SA constitution saying that no one can deprive you of SA citizenship ....

As far as I'm concerned, I'm not to worried if I loose my SA Passport/Citizenship. As things stand now, I've got no interest whatsoever to return to SA (due to economic climate, crime, etc). If things ever get to the point that I want to go back, I'll be able to get in on any other Passport and if things get to the point ​ that I want to go back for good, then I'll worry about sorting things out at that point. In other words, why worry about retaining a pretty useless Passport for a good one.

[SurferMan]

Agreed Peterthe1,

I am eiligble for Aussie citizenship next month, you can bet the first thing I will do is renounce ALL our citizenship of SA, including the kids!

[OubaasDik]

... and you thought the initial application forms were a pain - the citizenship means forms all over again ....

Just a hint - I made envelopes for each family member with all the copies and all the forms that each would need and checked and rechecked each envelope about 20 times. The pharamcist was quite sick of seeing me by the time I'd had everything certified.

[RedPanda]

Can your pharmacist certify copies?

[Nev]

yep, the pharmacist is the person to get certifications from here, they can get grumpy if you bring more then a couple of pages thoguh, you can also still take the pages to the police station if you want as well

[RichardH]

The pharmacist was quite sick of seeing me by the time I'd had everything certified.

Shew doing this in Flu season would send most pharmacists over the edge!

[OubaasDik]

I offered the pharmacist money, but they were not allowed to accept money for this service, but they did point ("pointedly") to a charity collection box with "suggested" donations per page.

Police got very grumpy when I asked them to do more than one or two pages, although they did take my birth certificate, and copy it onto A3 for me, instead of over two pages of A4 - it's from a country that doesn't exist anymore and was typed on a typewriter that must have had a platen 2 ft wide.

[RedPanda]

Hey, another person who cannot go back to the country of their birth!
Although Bophuthatswana also no longer exists, I could at least get a South African UBC, so it was neat and small.

[Rhyss]

On 17/5/2015 at 4:22 PM, mloio said:

Hi

We're needing to travel to SA, but my son's SA passport has expired (his other passport is still valid).

Now many people say you can only enter/exit SA on a SA passport if you're a SA citizen.

From from my reading of the regs, this only applies to "major" citizens ie. not "minors" and so children/non-adults can enter on foreign passports even if SA citizen.

And from the Home Affairs website: http://www.dha.gov.za/index.php/civic-services/travel-documents

General information about South African passports

A passport is a document issued by a national government for international travel and it certifies the identity and nationality of the holder.

Applicants should note that In terms of section 26 of the South African Citizenship Act, 1995, it is a punishable offence for a South African citizen of 18 years and older to leave or enter South Africa on a foreign passport.

BUT I'm still getting conflicting info from people, including a consulate official !

Can anyone verify the real situation on this issue?

Thanks very much

Mike

mloio, have you traveled to SA yet? If so what was the outcome of the passport for minors?

[SurferMan]

We become Aussies today. Will let you know how the renouce part goes for the kids. We automatically lose SA passports today. 

[RYLC]

1 hour ago, SurferMan said:

We become Aussies today. Will let you know how the renouce part goes for the kids. We automatically lose SA passports today. 

 

AWESOME!!  Congratulations

[Mara]

Surferman, now the country will never be the same again