Price changes for ID verification in South Africa

The Department of Home Affairs has increased the cost of using South Africa’s digital ID verification system, which it says has received a notable upgrade.

This is according to a Government Gazette published by Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, amending section 22 of the Identification Act, 1997.

The system enables government departments and private financial businesses to verify client identities using biometric features against the National Population Register (NPR).

Home Affairs announced an upgrade to the system and new fees in March, which it believed would net an extra R2 billion.

However, following controversy about the proposed changes, the original Gazette was withdrawn and replaced by a simplified set of prices that will come into effect from 1 July 2025.

The department said it previously charged users 15 cents per real-time verification against the NPR, which has not changed since the service’s launch in 2013.

Home Affairs will now increase this to R10 per transaction for any person, organisation, body, society, or institution requesting such information.

As an alternative, users can also pay to verify identities against the NPR in batches that do not take place in real time. This will cost R1 per transaction.

These costs do not apply to state departments, municipalities, or statutory bodies that can utilise the service free of charge.

Home Affairs said its current fees are far below market-related rates, affecting investment, and that many users have exploited this.

According to the notice published in the Government Gazette, the new fees are as follows:

• Any person, organisation, body, society or institution that requests information to be provided in real-time — R10 per transaction
• Any person, organisation, body, society or institution that requests such information in batches, which will not be provided in real-time — R1 per transaction
• Any state department, municipality or statutory body — No charge

“The under-pricing of this service has deprived the State of the resources required to maintain and enhance the NPR,” said Home Affairs.

“Some users then went on to exploit the unreliability of the system created by their excessive use, to create third-party verification services that charge prices vastly in excess of those paid to Home Affairs.”

A much-needed upgrade

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said the system had previously been “plagued by problems,” with an error rate of 50% and delays of up to 24 hours.

The department previously described issues where the system would routinely take 24 hours to respond, and when it finally did, the responses were littered with errors requiring manual verification.

However, Schreiber says that, in addition to the initial upgrade, the fee increase will help strengthen the system over time through continued investment.

“Ongoing reforms will dramatically improve the quality of the department’s digital verification service,” Schreiber said.

“It will also raise the required funding to invest in a stronger, more secure and more effective Population Register.”

In a separate interview, Schreiber said that the upgraded system will help reduce waiting times when clients require identity verification to obtain a social grant or open a bank account.

He added that when the system is impaired, as it has been in the past, it negatively affects the ability of banks, insurance companies, and other financial service providers to verify clients and conduct business.

Home Affairs said that the system’s failure rate has now been reduced to below 1% and that the non-real-time option will also help to incentivise users to stop overloading the online verification system.

“A healthy NPR is also a prerequisite for a functional Digital ID, as the NPR must become the central database against which identities are verified as Home Affairs becomes a digital-first department,” Schreiber said.

“This investment in the NPR is an investment in national security, in financial inclusion, and in the value of our cherished South African identity that will pay off handsomely for our country.”