Bad news for anyone applying for a new driver’s licence card in South Africa

The expected turnaround time for a new driver’s licence card application is currently sitting at around two months.

Transport department spokesperson Collen Msibi recently confirmed to MyBroadband that the card backlog was at 539,947 on 11 August 2025.

This immense backlog is the result of a three-month breakdown of South Africa’s singular licence card printing machine that occurred earlier this year.

In fairness, the current backlog is better than it was a few months ago in May 2025 when there were 746,748 outstanding orders.

While the 207,801 cards cleared marks a 38% improvement in the backlog, the waiting time for a new card being ready for collection has increased significantly.

Msibi stated that the turnaround time is now set at approximately eight to nine weeks, up from four to six weeks in June.

To put this in perspective, a new card is normally meant to be ready within two weeks of applying.

The backlog is also expected to last several months into 2026, as the Department of Transport (DoT) previously estimated that the demand would be cleared within four to six months.

This previous estimate would have seen the backlog cleared sometime between November 2025 and January 2026.

Based on the catch-up rate of roughly 2,187 cards per day over the last three months, it will take another 247 days to clear the queued orders.

That’s just over eight months, which puts the new clearance date sometime in April 2026.

All of this is assuming that the printing machine does not break down again which, given its track record, is not a possibility that can be ruled out.

It’s also unlikely that this timeline will improve, given that the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) is already operating at maximum capacity.

Between the machine’s return and 11 August, the DLCA printed 834,275 licences for both new and backlogged applications – the equivalent of 8,781 cards per day.

However, Msibi claimed that the DLCA is producing as many as 22,320 cards per day.

In a normal workday, the DLCA can only generate 7,440 cards; however, the department is currently running the machine 24 hours per day with employees working overtime.

A single printer supplying a country

There are concerns that the intense output will cause the printing machine to break down again.

This one machine has been producing the country’s licence cards since 1998, costing millions of rands in maintenance and repairs every year.

Even without a breakdown, the fact that a single printer has to supply the entire country means that DLCA employees are still regularly working overtime to keep up with demand.

Msibi revealed that the DLCA receives approximately 10,500 to 11,000 new orders every day, which would result in a monthly backlog of 91,800 to 106,800 cards if the machine only ran during regular work hours.

When the printer suffers a complete breakdown, it accumulates a backlog of around 315,000 to 330,000 cards for every month it is offline.

In light of this, the DoT has finally decided to acquire a backup printer to reduce the impact of the main machine’s breakdowns.

In July 2025, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy revealed that her department had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government Printing Works (GPW) for a backup solution.

She said that the backup device should be ready within three months, meaning it should go online in October 2025.

While this is good news for motorists, it has also raised questions as to why the department has put up with a single unreliable printer for so long.

The Automobile Association has also asked why the GPW can’t produce driver’s licences, considering it is already capable of printing the nation’s smart ID cards.