Visa South Africa
 

Hi all,

Our family would like to stay in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana for over 90 days. A regular visa is only for 90 days.

How can we solve this without having to apply for other visa (we don’t work or retire)?

Would it be possible to go to our home country (or e.g. Kenya) and return to get another 90 days? Or do you only get 90 days per calender year?

Thanks a lot!

It's absolutely no problem to extend your visa after three months for another period of 90 days. Just go to the Office for Home Affairs in the nearest provincial capital. This is granted immediately, that is, you don't have to wait for days ;o)

What I suppose doesn't work if eg. you enter in South Africa and intend to extend your visa while you're in Namibia....
The best would be to get informed by your local SA or NAM consulate regarding a visa loner than 180 days. I haven't used that yet.

Hi Vaufi,

Thank you for your response. Have you tried this yourself and if so, when was it? Reason for asking is that I read that some people were denied an extension or only got a few days extra.

This was a few years ago, but should still force. I travelled for just under 180 days before leaving the country for ma next destination.


I tried to verify the possibility of the visa extension, but couldn't find any info on that. And, of course, the visa regulations may vary regarding the different citizenships. I'm a German passport holder.


You might find more infos here: https://www.dha.gov.za/index.php/applying-for-sa-visa


Good luck!

Thank you! Hopefully this is a solution (Dutch passport holder). The thing is that we are a family of four and we preferably would be allowed to stay for a longer time, giving us time to apply for decent visa and to get the kids to school. I was told that getting retirement visa would take a year.

All further input is much appreciated.

I presume that there won't be a difference between Dutch and German citizenship regarding a visa.

I have no idea how the regulations are for visa over 180 days. It's probably a financial question. I once met a lady from PWC (auditors) in Cape Town. She could have organised a permanent residence visa for me at the cost of € 600. But I never made use of it. For a whole family that is a totally different story....
Good luck!

Are you from a visa exempt country like UK? 90 days free per country, so you can go to Botswana 90 days, Namibia 90 days, SA 90 days. I think it used to be the case that you got a fresh 90 days each time you re-entered a country as well, but maybe they changed that to stop people abusing the system. I did once extend my Botswana visa (or rather, buy a visa after the free 90 days), and it was easy to do in Gaborone.

Botswana now do a multiple entry for a period up to five (5) years is BWP 500.00 (US$50.00). That's cheap. So long as you're not working, and are a genuine tourist, they are very welcoming and helpful. It's a great country.

https://www.gov.bw/visa-applications...n-tourism-visa

Yep, German citizen.

Not necessarily - our nightmare with Botswana immigration tells a different story. We applied for 90 days multi-entry, and sent everything to the Consulate in Washington (which is the only place we are permitted to apply for a visa). On being advised that the visa was ready we flew to New York (intercontinental flight) and drove to Washington (we had to do this so that the RSA visas we had acquired would not expire prior to receiving the Botswana visa). On arriving at the Consulate we were given a 30 day visa, and our diplomatic questions regarding the reason our application for 90 days were rebuffed. We were finally told that they never give a 90 day visa to someone applying for the first time, and that we could request an extension once in Botswana.

On arriving in Botswana (having had to change our overall plans to fit the new restricted period) we went to Gaborone where our request for an extention was deinied because we "still had lots of time on the 30 day visa" and were told to tray again when there were only a few days left. We duly showed up at the Immigration office in Kasane a few days before the visa expired, and were told that we would have to come back the day before expiry, since it was still too early to obtain an extension.

At this point we decided that Botswana clearly had no interest in helping us enjoy the country and spend money there, and left for Zambia. We had been diplomatic and respectful throughout.

This may be an isolated case, however it's worth noting that one may not necessarily get even 90 days!

PS: the country is indeed great, and the people are too, however the bureaucracy is not.

Wow! These regulations must be new! In the past a visa for one of the five countries in Southern Africa (SA, NAM, LES, BOT, ESW) included all of them, that meant you could travel from Johannesburg via Botswana to Namibia, visit Lesotho or Eswatini without the necessity of a separate visa.



Now, I don't know whether this only applies to certain passports, but the above link of Botswana doesn't seem to differentiate....


One thing is for sure: Esp. Botswana favours the more expensive tourism, like "fly-ins" to high-priced lodges, offering all-inclusive stays with local safari guides etc. These tourists leave a lot of money in the country.

It's certainly true that Botswana's approach to tourism favours "high end" travel, and I think it's good to avoid the "volume" end of the spectrum in terms of reducing impact. All the same, travellers in their own vehicles and using campsite do bring income and employment, and usually take care of the environment.

We had to get a visa for RSA (which runs from issue date not entry date), a visa for Botswana (as described), and a visa for Namibia - all separate. The RSA visa had to be obtained from Caracas, the Botswana visa from Washington, and the Namibia visa from São Paulo (however they did allow us to get the visa in London as an exception). The processing and delivery times meant that we had to get the RSA visa first, then fly to Washington to get the Botswana visa, and then fly to London - otherwise by the time we would have arrived in RSA we'd have lost most of the time on the RSA visa.

I spoke with the RSA Consul here and he was helpful in the process. I spoke with the Namibian High Commission in London and they were also helpful. The Botswana Consulate was unhelpful and intransigent. The official in Gaborone spent half the time telling us how important tourism was to Botswana and the other half telling us that she could not give us an extension beyond 30 days.

I realise that this post (and my previous one) don't really add anything to the thread, so offer apologies for venting.

Wow, that's a bad story. I think your nationality probably makes a difference. And applying in Washington might not be so good. We've always found them to be helpful and efficient, although my wife lived there a long time, and that familiarity with their way of doing things (slow, slow, very very polite) helps.