Home Affairs Raises Fees: Increased Charges for Online ID and Biographical Verification

Johannesburg – The Department of Home Affairs has raised the fees for its verification service.

On Monday, 23 June 2025, the department disclosed the price increase, announcing: “After implementing significant enhancements to the service, Home Affairs has officially published a revised price structure.”

The department established the new, cost-reflective price for real-time verifications at R10 during peak hours, while offering a low-cost alternative for batch transactions at just R1 during off-peak periods.

Addressing the reasons behind the price increases, the department explained that it was tackling the “unsustainable under-pricing” of its verification services.

For more than a decade, banks and financial service providers have been charged merely R0.15 for real-time verifications against the National Population Register (NPR).

“This rate is significantly lower than market-related rates for similar services in the private sector and far beneath the actual costs incurred by the State in maintaining the online verification service (OVS), which has deprived Home Affairs of essential resources to manage the NPR,” the department clarified.

“The severe under-pricing has fostered profiteering and misuse by certain users, overwhelming the NPR and leading to failure rates exceeding 50%, which contribute to system failures at Home Affairs offices and threaten national security.”

Home Affairs Minister Dr. Leon Schreiber encouraged users to prioritize national security over minor profit gains.

Minister Schreiber announced that, following a successful pilot program and additional improvements, Home Affairs will roll out an upgraded NPR verification service for all companies and government users starting 1 July 2025, ensuring swift and reliable identity verification.

This significantly enhanced service aims to improve service delivery from government departments and promote financial inclusion in the private sector, accompanied by suitable tariff adjustments that followed comprehensive public consultation and the approval of the Minister of Finance.

Since 2013, Home Affairs has offered the service known as the Online Verification System (OVS) to third parties connected to the NPR, enabling registered users to verify their clients’ identities and biographical details against the Home Affairs database.

“However, since its inception over a decade ago at an underpriced rate, the demand for OVS has greatly surpassed its original design capacity,” the department remarked.

“There have been no significant upgrades to the system since then, while demand and infrastructure maintenance costs have escalated each year.”

“Due to this stagnation in upgrades and escalated demands, coupled with excessive usage by some institutions because of unsustainably low prices, verification checks against the NPR currently face an alarming failure rate exceeding 50%.”

The department indicated that even successfully completed verifications can take hours, undermining the purpose of real-time verification.

“Both of these challenges directly hinder services requiring such verifications, whether through the OVS or Home Affairs offices,” the department stated.

“In fact, the inadequate investment and strain on the OVS are contributing factors to the ‘system offline’ issues at frontline offices.

“Furthermore, an unreliable NPR poses a direct threat to national security by impeding the State’s ability to verify identities.

“The underpricing of this service, with fees as low as R0.15 per verification, has deprived the State of the essential resources needed to maintain and upgrade the NPR.”

The department noted that some private sector users of the OVS have taken advantage of this artificially low price to boost their corporate profits at the public’s expense, overwhelming the NPR with queries and frequently resulting in failure rates exceeding 50%.

“Certain users have exploited the system’s unreliability, caused by their excessive usage, to establish third-party verification services that charge markedly higher prices than what is paid to Home Affairs,” the department reported.

“This unsustainable cycle must end.

“The artificially low pricing structure has resulted in such critical under-investment in the NPR that it now endangers financial inclusion, the government’s ability to combat identity and financial crime, and national security.”

“Home Affairs is working to put a stop to this cycle.”

The department announced that from 1 July 2025, the new OVS will be accessible to all users.

The upgraded OVS embodies a streamlined, modern system that functions as intended.

It now operates in real-time, with the failure rate reduced to below 1%.

“For the first time, the new system will also provide an option for users to conduct ‘non-live batch verifications’ during off-peak hours at a much lower rate than real-time verifications,” the department noted.

“This will offer a cost-effective alternative to real-time verifications and encourage users to ease the overload on the OVS’s live queue, alleviating the ‘system offline’ challenges at Home Affairs offices.

“Consequently, and for the first time in over a decade, Home Affairs has adjusted the fees for a single real-time verification check to R10 per transaction.”

For non-live batch verifications, where a user wants to verify multiple records simultaneously during off-peak periods, the fee will be R1 per verification field request.

There will remain no charge for this service for other government departments.

Minister Leon Schreiber stated, “This is a matter of national security, plain and simple.

“Every responsible State must take the necessary steps to ensure an operational population register.”

The minister indicated that this upgrade also fosters financial inclusion and significantly aids South Africa’s efforts to exit the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list.

“I appreciate the numerous stakeholders who expressed support for this crucial reform during our public consultations, and I urge all OVS users to prioritize national security over narrow profiteering,” remarked Minister Schreiber.

“A robust NPR is vital for a functional Digital ID, as it will serve as the central database for identity verification as Home Affairs transitions to a digital-first department.

“Investing in the NPR is an investment in national security, financial inclusion, and the integrity of our cherished South African identity that will yield substantial benefits for our nation.”

*Organizations interested in connecting to the new OVS should email: Verifications@dha.gov.za.

A copy of the gazette with the new fee schedule can be accessed here.