Permanent Residency to Citizenship???

[Spizz]

I'm a permanent resident for 20 years already and I'm thinking (for work reasons) that a SA passport would be beneficial to me. It would also be nice to vote, as useless as that might be. But has anyone not born here gone down this roue and how easy is it? Can you outline the process?

I don't have a Home Affairs in my town and the number of '404 not found' messages on the HA website is truly impressive, so any advice is welcome.

And please guys, the 'why' and 'are you crazy' comments are not welcome. I'm just doing a bit of looking into it and believe it or not but a South African passport helps me in a lot of my travels that the UK one doesn't.

 

[RedViking]

Bump. Please assist @Spizz. We need more people like him in South Africa.

 

[CuriousSoul]

I went down that road and it has taken extraordinarily long. Here is a short timeline summary: I received permanent residence in 2000 and started my citizenship enquiries with DHA in 2014 or so. Eventually got the application in at Pretoria in 2016 I think and after hundreds of calls, emails and in person visits to Byron Place, I attended the ceremony and received my Naturalisation certificate in 2020 at Akasia Home Affairs. Even then, my ID number was only changed in 2025 and only then did I receive my smart ID and passport.
It has truly been a frustrating and very delayed process for me.
However with the DHA "overhaul", one can hope this process does not take as long as it did for me, however be prepared for a lot of paperwork and patience.

 

[Spizz]

I went down that road and it has taken extraordinarily long. Here is a short timeline summary: I received permanent residence in 2000 and started my citizenship enquiries with DHA in 2014 or so. Eventually got the application in at Pretoria in 2016 I think and after hundreds of calls, emails and in person visits to Byron Place, I attended the ceremony and received my Naturalisation certificate in 2020 at Akasia Home Affairs. Even then, my ID number was only changed in 2025 and only then did I receive my smart ID and passport.
It has truly been a frustrating and very delayed process for me.
However with the DHA "overhaul", one can hope this process does not take as long as it did for me, however be prepared for a lot of paperwork and patience.

Thanks. Yeah the PR process took years as well and I guess I’m hoping that the overhaul will makes things smoother and that’s also why I’m thinking about this now. I did find a site the other day and have registered with My Home Affairs. The details are on my laptop at home and I’m in Europe just now so will pursue when I’m home again soon. Just need to do the facial recognition thing to progress.

But thanks again, hopefully things have smoothed out recently.

 

[Londo]

I will be interested in up to date information.

In the 2000's my wife applied for naturalization. Submitted all the required info, some of it hard to get like police clearances in SA and other countries, etc. Her application got stuck in the system, despite making many calls and visits, and always getting promises of progress.

Many years late, around 2015, I spoke to a HA person, asking about applying again. She said that my wife should not as the applications she was aware of just don't move through the system.

I suspect/hope that it is better now. But who knows?

 

[Spizz]

I will be interested in up to date information.

In the 2000's my wife applied for naturalization. Submitted all the required info, some of it hard to get like police clearances in SA and other countries, etc. Her application got stuck in the system, despite making many calls and visits, and always getting promises of progress.

Many years late, around 2015, I spoke to a HA person, asking about applying again. She said that my wife should not as the applications she was aware of just don't move through the system.

I suspect/hope that it is better now. But who knows?

I’ll continue in the next couple of weeks when I get home. I’ll update the thread as I go.