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

South Africa is getting driver’s licence cards with a 10-year validity period, but anyone who needs to apply for a new card before the extension is approved will be stuck with the current 5-year expiration date.

This week, the Department of Transport (DoT) officially gazetted a proposed extension for the country’s driver’s licence cards, doubling the validity period for the most common licence types.

This includes the following licence codes:

• A – Motorcycles
• A1 – Light motorcycles
• B – Light motor vehicles
• EB – Light motor vehicles pulling a trailer

These four categories cover the main vehicle types used by private motorists. According to the gazette, these licences will expire 10 years from the date on which they were ordered from the Card Production Facility.

Licence cards for medium and heavy commercial vehicles, including code C1, C, EC1, and EC, will continue to be valid for a period of 5 years from the date they were ordered.

Similarly, professional driver’s licence permits will still need to be renewed every 2 years.

While the change is great news for motorists, as they will only need to apply for a new driver’s licence once per decade instead of twice, the catch is that these changes have yet to take effect.

Until the extension is made official, driver’s licences will continue to have a 5-year validity period. This means that motorists whose cards have expired or are about to expire will still need to apply for another 5-year card.

Under the amended National Road Traffic Regulations, a new sub-regulation has been added to Regulation 108.

The newly added section 4 (b) states that “The existing driving licence card for code A1, A, B, or EB driving licences issued for a period of five years shall remain valid until the new driving licence card has been issued in terms of subregulation (3) but not for more than three months after the expiry date of such driving licence card.”

In other words, motorists will only receive a new card with a 10-year validity period once the laws come into effect, and they apply for a renewal.

Until then, you will need to apply for a 5-year card, even if the new laws are only months away from enactment.

The 10-year extension proposal is now open for public comment for the next 30 days. Once the comment window closes, the department will move to implement the legislative changes.

The good news is that the department appears to be fast-tracking the matter. It previously said it planned to secure Cabinet’s approval by the end of the 2026/27 period (March 2027).

Instead, Cabinet approved the extension in July this year. One month later, the proposal has been gazetted and made available for public comment.

A plan that has been in the works for several years

Motorists and civil action groups have been calling for an extension to South Africa’s driver’s licence card validity period for many years.

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) first called for an extension in September 2020, when the Covid-19 lockdowns disrupted licensing services, resulting in a large production backlog.

Since then, the country has also run into issues with its sole licence card printing machine, which is decades old and has broken down on several occasions.

When the printer last broke down in February 2025, it resulted in a backlog of roughly 750,000 cards that wasn’t cleared until the beginning of 2026.

OUTA and other groups argued that a 10-year validity period would halve the number of renewal applications made each year, reducing the severity of production backlogs.

Despite the merits of an extension, the government has dragged its feet on the matter for years. Former Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula first announced that the department had approached Cabinet in October 2022.

At the time, the department planned to extend the validity period from 5 to 8 years, instead of 10. These early promises went nowhere.

Mbalula’s successor, Sindiswe Chikunga, later confirmed in 2024 that the Road Traffic Management Corporation had concluded a study supporting a move to an 8-year validity period.

However, her department soon backpedalled, citing bizarre reasons as to why the country could not adopt a longer licence system, including “driver fitness” and “communicable disease” concerns.

These excuses were dismissed by civil action groups, who claimed the real reason the extension was scrapped was because the less frequent renewals would lead to a loss of revenue.

Since then, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has confirmed that the department’s short and medium-term goals include extending the licence validity period from 5 to 10 years.