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One Cape Town household can hold three different citizenship questions. A German engineer has held permanent residence since 2021 and wants to know when she can naturalise. Her husband was born in Durban, took British citizenship in 2012 without asking Home Affairs to let him keep his South African citizenship, and has assumed ever since that he lost it. Their daughter was born in Cape Town in 2022, and nobody is sure what she is.
The engineer can apply once she has five years of ordinary residence behind her as a permanent resident, with no year abroad for more than 90 days. Her husband never lost his citizenship: the Constitutional Court struck down the rule that would have taken it and deemed everyone caught by it never to have lost it. And because he was a citizen on the day their daughter was born, she is a South African citizen by birth.
Each answer comes from the South African Citizenship Act 88 of 1995, as amended, and each depends on a date: the date of a birth, the date permanent residence was approved, the date another nationality was taken up.
Three routes to South African citizenship, compared
| By birth | By descent | By naturalisation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it covers | A person born in South Africa or abroad to a parent who was a South African citizen at the time of the birth | A person who was a citizen by descent before 2013, or a child born outside South Africa and adopted by a South African citizen under the Children’s Act | A foreign national who holds permanent residence |
| Where it sits in the Act | Section 2 | Section 3 | Sections 4 and 5 |
| What decides it | The parent’s status on the day of the birth | Status held before 2013, or the adoption with the birth registered | Residence, character, language and a decision by the Minister |
| What makes it usable | A registered birth; a birth abroad is registered with Home Affairs | The registered birth, and for an adopted child the adoption order | A certificate of naturalisation, issued after a declaration of allegiance |
Citizenship by birth
A child born to a South African parent is a citizen by birth whether the birth happens in Johannesburg or in Munich. That has been the rule since 1 January 2013, when the South African Citizenship Amendment Act 17 of 2010 came into force. Before that date, a child born abroad to a South African parent was a citizen by descent, so older documents and older advice still use that label. A birth abroad has to be registered with Home Affairs before the child can be issued South African documents.
For children born in South Africa to parents who are not citizens:
- Parents with permanent residence. The child qualifies to be a citizen by birth on turning 18, provided they have lived in South Africa from birth to that date and the birth is registered.
- Parents without permanent residence. The child may apply for citizenship on turning 18, on the same two conditions. This is an application, not an automatic status.
A child born in South Africa who has no other nationality, and no right to one, is a citizen by birth once the birth is registered.
Citizenship by descent
Since 1 January 2013, descent covers two situations. A person who was already a citizen by descent before that date keeps that status. And a child born outside South Africa and adopted by a South African citizen under the Children’s Act is a citizen by descent, with the birth registered under the Births and Deaths Registration Act.
Citizenship by naturalisation
This is the route for a foreign national who has made South Africa home. Section 5 of the Act lets the Minister issue a certificate of naturalisation to an adult who:
- holds permanent residence;
- has been ordinarily resident in South Africa for a continuous period of at least five years immediately before the application;
- is of good character and intends to keep living in South Africa;
- can communicate in any one of South Africa’s 12 official languages, South African Sign Language having become the twelfth in June 2026;
- has an adequate knowledge of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship; and
- is a citizen of a country that allows dual citizenship, or renounces that citizenship and proves it.
The Citizenship Regulations add a hard limit on travel: an applicant who has been absent from South Africa for more than 90 days in any year of those five does not qualify. The Act has required five years since 2013; the 2012 Regulations said 10, and an amendment of 7 July 2023 brought them back into line.
Two details catch people out. Time spent in South Africa on a temporary visa does not count as residence under the Act, so the clock effectively starts at permanent residence, which is why the permanent residence approval date matters so much. And a refused applicant cannot apply again for at least a year from being told of the decision. The spouse of a South African citizen has a separate naturalisation route under section 5(5), but the Regulations set its residence period at 10 years, so it is rarely quicker.
On approval, the applicant signs a declaration of allegiance before the certificate is issued, and can then apply for a South African identity document and passport.
Keeping citizenship: dual nationality after the 2025 judgment
For almost 30 years, section 6(1)(a) of the Act stripped citizenship from any adult South African who voluntarily took up another nationality without first obtaining the Minister’s permission to retain it.
On 6 May 2025, in Democratic Alliance v Minister of Home Affairs (CCT 184/23), the Constitutional Court declared section 6(1)(a) invalid from its promulgation on 6 October 1995 and ordered that citizens who lost their citizenship under it are deemed not to have lost it. The Constitutional Court’s judgment summary sets out the order.
- Not everyone is covered. Home Affairs states that the judgment does not help people who formally renounced their South African citizenship, which some countries require before they naturalise someone, or people who lost it under older law before 6 October 1995.
- The population register may still be wrong. Home Affairs opened a Citizenship Reinstatement Portal on 24 November 2025, where a former “lost” citizen verifies their identity online and the record is corrected. Its citizenship reinstatement FAQs explain who qualifies. Reinstatement does not issue a passport; that is a separate application at a Home Affairs office or a mission abroad, which our note on Home Affairs service centres abroad covers.
- Children may be affected. A child born while a parent was wrongly recorded as having lost citizenship is a citizen by birth, as in the household above. The birth still has to be registered.
Home Affairs also expects South African citizens, including dual citizens, to enter and leave South Africa on a South African passport.
How citizenship can still be lost
The 2025 judgment removed automatic loss for taking up another nationality. It left the other grounds in place:
- Renunciation. A citizen who holds, or is about to take up, another nationality can make a formal declaration renouncing South African citizenship. Their minor children can lose it too if the other parent is not a citizen.
- Foreign military service in wartime. Loss follows for a dual citizen who serves in another country’s armed forces while that country is at war with South Africa, or for a citizen by naturalisation who fights, under another country’s flag, in a war that South Africa does not support.
- Deprivation by the Minister. A naturalised citizen can be deprived of citizenship if the certificate was obtained by fraud, false representation or concealment of a material fact, or was issued in conflict with the Act. A dual citizen can be deprived after a prison sentence of 12 months or more in any country for a crime that is also an offence here, or where the Minister is satisfied it is in the public interest. Deprivation is a decision the Minister has to make and justify; it never happens by operation of law.
Before you apply
Most citizenship questions turn on a document someone assumes exists: a registered birth abroad, a permanent residence approval date, a travel record that stays under 90 days a year. Checking those first is cheaper than finding the gap after a refusal. Our South African citizenship service starts there, with the route that fits your family and the evidence behind it.
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