Good news for South Africans living in Australia

The Department of Home Affairs has announced the launch of two new service centres in Australia to assist South Africans living abroad who need access to Smart IDs and passports.

Following a successful trial of the services in the United Kingdom, the department said it will extend the programme to Australia, with the two service centres opening this week.

Minister Leon Schreiber noted that many South Africans living or travelling overseas are often left frustrated by Home Affairs service levels, which take months to deliver.

Through the new service centres, he said the turnaround times from Smart ID and passport applications will be reduced from upwards of 12 months to just five weeks.

The new facilities will launch in Sydney and Melbourne this week, and more locations will be announced later.

The locations of these launches are as follows:

• Sydney, 16 July 2025 at 10:00 (Australian time): Level 6, 88 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia 2000
• Melbourne, 18 July 2025 at 13:00 (Australian time): Level 5, 332 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia 3004

Delivering his budget vote speech last week, Schreiber said that bringing Smart ID and passport services to more South Africans is the key goal of the department’s Home Affairs @ Home drive.

The department recently opened up Smart ID applications to permanent residents and naturalised citizens as part of this initiative.

It is targeting full access for all qualifying citizens by the end of the calendar year, so that it can cease the processing and issuing of new applications for the insecure green ID books.

It plans to roll out Smart ID and passport services to an additional 100 bank branches by the end of the year, with an ambitious three-year plan to extend this to 1,000 branches by 2028.

This is all part of the wider goal of discontinuing the green ID book by the end of 2029.

Notably, the extension of dedicated Home Affairs services in Australia is just the start.

Schreiber said that the services will also be heading to New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates, followed later in the year by France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The services will be available in North America in 2026, he said.

Starting where South Africans are found

Following the pilot in the UK, the focus on Australia makes sense, given that these are the biggest destination countries for South African expats.

The latest available migrant data from South Africa from the United Nations shows that the UK has the biggest population of local expats as of mid-2024.

This is followed by Australia, with over 210,000 South Africans now calling the land down under their home.

A notable point in the UN’s data is the remarkable popularity of the Netherlands, which is growing each year.

Not only is the country the sixth-most popular destination for South Africans overall, but the flood of over 10,000 expats to the country over the past four years is also one of the biggest increases.

The surge in expats moving to the Netherlands represents a 52.6% growth in the South African population residing there.

Countries with the biggest South African population, 2024