Best places to renew your driving licence card

The number of slots available for driving licence card renewal appointments on the Road Traffic Management Corporation’s (RTMC’s) online booking system has significantly improved in the past eighteen months.

Launched on the eNatis website in February 2022, the facility allows motorists to secure a slot and pay the prescribed renewal fee before presenting themselves to their chosen driving licence testing centre (DLTC) for capturing of their fingerprints, photos, and eye tests.

Upon visiting the DLTC, they must also complete a DL1 form and provide a certified copy of their ID document. The licence card can then be collected at the same DLTC, typically after six to eight weeks.

The platform was launched just before a severe backlog in driving licence card renewals peaked at 2.8 million in March 2022.

That was caused by a myriad of issues — including corruption, system deficiencies, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a two-month breakdown of the country’s only licence card printer.

When MyBroadband previously assessed slot availability in Gauteng on 22 August 2022, we found 15,386 available across 30 sites in the province.

In our latest analysis on 21 May 2024, we found 23,374 slots available at 32 sites.

The two sites with the highest availability remained Waterfall Park in Midrand and Eco Park in Centurion. Waterfall Park had seen an impressive availability jump from 3,412 to 14,090.

Both these facilities were launched in October 2021, when the renewal backlog had already become a serious problem.

A MyBroadband staff member recently tested the service at Eco Park on 4 November 2024 and found the overall application and biometric capturing process to be seamless. His licence was ready for collection exactly a month after his renewal appointment.

Waterfall Park DLTC

In our latest assessment, we also looked at availability in the only other province that supports the service — Eastern Cape.

We found 11,609 slots available from eight sites at the time of our visit to the portal.

The locations with the best availability were the Buffalo City Traffic office in Gonubie, with 4,395 slots, followed by the Motherwell DLTC, with 2,342 slots.

While the high number of booking slots is to be welcomed, it is disappointing that the system is still not available in seven provinces.

When MyBroadband previously questioned RTMC spokesperson Simon Zwane about this, he said the corporation was not to blame for the lack of support in other provinces.

“The RTMC has made the service available to all provinces and will be able to roll it out as soon as the provincial authorities indicate their readiness to have the services,” Zwane said.

The Western Cape provincial transport department told MyBroadband it had not implemented the system due to the “many challenges” experienced with it in Gauteng, where many people complained about the system’s downtime and lack of slot availability.

“The department is not averse to implementing new ways of doing things but is not prepared to implement it in a way that will hamper the service and cause frustration to the public,” said the department’s head of communication, Jandré Bakker.

The table below shows the locations with the highest number of open slots for booking a licence renewal in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape.