Writing is on the wall for the green ID book in South Africa

Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber has revealed that bank branches supporting the department’s new digital partnership programme have processed 216,515 smart ID card applications in three months.

Schreiber announced the figure in a recent column for the Sunday Times, in which he outlined some of his department’s major achievements since he became minister in July 2024.

Schreiber said the digital partnership was the first of three flagship reforms the department initiated. The model aims to expand access to physical civic documents by relying on banks’ existing branch networks.

Before the digital partnership went live, 248 Home Affairs offices and 32 bank branches were able to issue smart IDs.

The smart ID is intended to succeed the green ID book, which has become a soft target for forgery and modification.

Capitec and Standard Bank were the first to launch branches that support the service on 9 March 2026, followed by FNB at the end of that month.

All three banks have increased the number of smart ID-processing branches to a total of 178. According to Schreiber, these had processed a combined 216,515 applications in three months.

That works out to roughly 2,406 applications per day. If the pace is maintained, the digital partnership branches could process over 878,000 applications in the year.

For reference, the department issued a record four million smart IDs at its own offices and the 32 bank branches supporting the eHomeAffairs services in the 2025 calendar year.

There were around 16 million green ID books still in use in 2025. Given the significant additional capacity that the bank branches are adding, they could accelerate the plan to take the books out of circulation.

The department and partnering banks plan to increase the number of branches supporting the digital partnership programme to 1,000 by the end of the year.

The department also intends to switch off the country’s green ID book printer in 2026, which would prevent any more of these books from going into circulation.

Smart ID cards are not yet widely available to naturalised citizens and permanent residents, many of whom can only get a green ID book.

The department only started making the newer document available to those born in countries with visa-free access to South Africa in 2025.

However, some Home Affairs offices have continued to turn away smart ID card applicants who met this requirement.

The digital partnership model also does not currently support applications from naturalised citizens and permanent residents.

Schreiber has said that expanding the smart ID card to these people would be a key goal for 2026. In addition, the digital partnership will add support for passport applications and first-time ID applicants.

Schreiber also revealed that the backend technology to support the government’s planned digital ID system was already largely built.

The minister explained that the backend tech was already being implemented in the department’s citizenship reinstatement portal.

That facility was launched in response to a Constitutional Court order that ruled the department’s blocking of millions of IDs was unlawful.

The optional digital ID will enable South African citizens and permanent residents to get access to various public and business services with an in-app ID and identity verification via their biometrics.

The public comment period for the draft digital ID regulations came to an end on 6 June 2026, and the government aims to roll out the feature before the end of 2026.

It has faced some backlash from the public over the system, including concerns raised by conservative libertarian think tank and advocacy group Lex Libertas.

The organisation’s director, Ernst Roets, warned that the system could establish a centralised state-controlled infrastructure with increased surveillance and the ability to cut off people’s access to services.

“In the hands of a government with South Africa’s record and ideological convictions, this is not neutral administrative reform,” Roets said. “It is a serious threat to basic freedoms.”

Schreiber denied that this is the purpose of the system, arguing that it was intended to ease access to services by eliminating the need to carry physical documents or repeatedly apply for paperwork.

“Digital Identity will provide South Africans with an additional secure and convenient way to access services, verify their identity and use their official identity and civic documents in digital form.”