There are several different services that South Africans can use to renew their car licence disc, from the Post Office to banks and supermarkets, but doing it online has to be one of the easiest options out there.
I recently renewed my car’s licence online using the electronic National Administration Traffic Information System (eNatis), and it was incredibly quick and convenient, giving me a new disc in just a few days.
Just a few clicks
For those who are unfamiliar with eNatis, you will have to create an account the first time you visit the website, with a password and an email address of your choosing.
The process for doing so is very straightforward and requires a lot of the information you’d expect from any government website, such as your initials and surname.
It also asks what type of identification you are using, ranging from a traffic register number to a Republic of South Africa (RSA) ID card or book, or a foreign ID.
In my case, I selected the RSA ID and put in my 13-digit ID number, after which I found my vehicle’s details were already logged on the system.
I double-checked to ensure that all the information was correct, and with that out of the way, the first half of the process was already done.
Once logged in, I went back to the site’s homepage and selected the “Renew Motor Vehicle Licence” button, which took me to a page that lists all of the vehicles registered under a person’s name.
If a model is due to have its licence renewed, it will be displayed on a drop-down menu that shows its registration and licence number, as well as the expiry date of the current licence.
Clicking on a listed car will take you to another screen that shows the cost of the renewal, which is only displayed as a single figure with things like the administrative costs bundled into it.
For my car, a Hyundai i20 hatchback, the fee came to R504, and I then had the option of selecting how I would receive my new disc.
You can opt to pick up the disc yourself at no cost from the nearest driver’s licence testing centre (DLTC), but it’s far more convenient to pay to have it delivered to a destination of your choosing.
I chose to have the licence delivered to the office, and the delivery fee brought the total up to R603, which I paid online with a credit card.
All in all, the entire process took around 20 minutes, and half of this was spent on registration, so it will naturally be quicker on future visits.
As for the turnaround time, I applied for my new licence on a Monday evening and received an SMS from the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) on Tuesday morning informing me that my request had been received and that a parcel should be out for delivery within three to five work days.
I didn’t have to wait nearly that long, however, because I got another SMS on Wednesday morning with a tracking link, telling me that my package should be delivered by the end of the day.
It also said that I should keep some form of ID on me for the courier to verify when it delivers the disc.
The new licence arrived on my desk by late morning on Wednesday, meaning that it only took around 36 hours to get a new disc, from registering on eNatis to receiving it in the mail.
Suffice to say that I was impressed with the system, and I will definitely be using it again in the future.
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