SA Migration International

News Articles

South Africa Visa Photo Requirements

Source: SA Migration, 06/02/2023

As it is now possible for travelers from select countries to obtain a South African eVisa online, it is important to understand the requirements before submitting an application, including whether there are any South Africa visa photo specifications that must be met.
Foreign citizens who need to apply for a South Africa tourist visa from an embassy are also advised to familiarize themselves with the expected visa photo size and how many photos are required to submit a completed application.
Do You Need to Supply a Photograph on a South Africa eVisa Application?
No, supplying a recent photograph of the traveler is not currently required when submitting a South Africa visa online application.
The requirements to obtain a South Africa tourist visa online only require the applicant to have:
• A passport from an eVisa-eligible country valid for at least 30 days from the intended date of arrival in South Africa.
• Two blank pages within the passport to receive entry/exit stamps from South African border control agents
• A valid credit or debit card to pay the eVisa processing fee.
When entering the country with an approved South African online visa, the holder may also be asked to provide the following documents to immigration officials:
• A confirmed ticket for return or onward travel
• Evidence of sufficient funds to cover the entire stay in South Africa
• A certificate of vaccination against yellow fever, only if the traveler has passed through the yellow fever belt of Africa or South America en route to the country.
Nevertheless, eVisa-eligible citizens wishing to travel to the country for purposes other than tourism or business are required to apply for one of the other South Africa visa types from a diplomatic mission.
In this case, it will be necessary to submit a number of other supporting documents, including a recent passport photo of the applicant.
What Type of Photograph Is Required for a South Africa Embassy Visa?
The photo requirements for a South Africa visa from an embassy are the same no matter the type of visa the applicant requires, whether a visit visa, work visa, study visa, or other visa type.
The South Africa visa image requirements state that the photograph provided must:
• Be in color
• Be taken against a plain white or light grey background
• Show the entire face of the applicant, centered in the photograph, as well as their shoulders. The face should take up around 70-80% of the entire South Africa visa photo size
• Be clear, in focus, and evenly lit. There should be no shadows showing on the face
• Have been taken within 6 months prior to submitting the application
• Be taken at the same level as the subject, not from above or below
• Not be digitally manipulated in any way.
When taking the picture, the applicant must not:
• Smile, as it is necessary for the applicant to have a neutral expression similar to that required for a South Africa passport photograph
• Wear any headgear such as hats or scarves, except if worn for religious reasons
• Wear glasses, as this can result in glare and obscure the features of the subject
• Face away from the camera. The head of the subject should be facing squarely into the camera
• Include any objects or other persons in the photo.
It is not possible to support small children while having their picture taken, as any hands or arms should not be visible. Therefore, infants should be photographed lying down, from above.
What Is the Size of an ID Photo for a Visa for South Africa?
The South Africa visa photo size is 35 x 45 mm (3.5 x 4.5 cm). The print resolution of the photograph must be at least 600 dpi, especially if taken using a digital camera.
In addition to meeting the ID photograph size requirements, applicants must ensure that the photo is printed on high-quality paper and that one copy is signed and dated by a counter signatory to certify that it contains the likeness of the traveler.
Do You Need Two Pictures for a South Africa Visa Application?
Yes, it is usually necessary to provide 2 passport-style photos when submitting a South Africa visa application at an embassy, regardless of the type of visa the applicant requires for their purpose of travel and length of intended stay in the country.
The two photographs included with the application should be identical, meaning they should be copies of the same image.
As failure to meet the South Africa visa photo specifications is the most common reason for rejection of an application, applicants are advised to make sure the photographs meet all of the mandatory requirements listed above before submitting them for approval at an embassy.

Search

Latest News

As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us.... Read more...

EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record?... Read more...

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers.... Read more...

An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells.... Read more...

An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail. Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells.... Read more...

North Korean hackers have been exploiting the updating mechanism of the eScan antivirus to plant backdoors on big corporate networks and deliver cryptocurrency miners through GuptiMiner malware. Researchers describe GuptiMiner as `a highly sophisticated threat` that can perform DNS requests to the attacker`s DNS servers, extract payloads from images, sign its payloads, and perform DLL sideloading. Delivering GuptiMiner via eScan updates In a report released today, cybersecurity company Avast says that the threat actor behind GuptiMiner had an adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) position to hijack the normal virus definition update package and replace it with a malicious one named ‘updll62.dlz.’... Read more...

Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19... Read more...

DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications.... Read more...

Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before.... Read more...

Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17... Read more...