Law
South Africa Visa Overview: Seven Things to Settle Before You Fill in a Form
A strategic overview of South Africa's three-tier visa system, the 2026 changes, and the timing rules that quietly decide applications.
Bo Lyu
Candidate attorney in immigration & administrative law, Cape Town. PhD in English literature (Gao Xingjian); lecturer in Chinese literature. I also write on US macro & financial regulation.
Law
The Visitor's Visa and the ETA: Tourism, Family and Business
How section 11 governs four visas, the new Electronic Travel Authorisation, and why converting status in-country is nearly impossible.
Law
The Study Visa: From Offer to Arrival, and the Truth About Accompanied Study
Regulation 12's eight documents, guardianship for minors, the 20-hour work cap, automatic lapse, and the truth about accompanied study.
Law
Work Visas and the 100-Point System: Critical Skills, General Work and Intra-Company Transfers
South Africa's 100-point work-visa system explained in full, with the official scoring table and three widely believed myths corrected.
Law
Permanent Residence, Business Visas and Retirement Visas: Thresholds, Amounts and Lapse Clauses
Every section 26 and 27 permanent-residence route, the R5m business and R12m financial-independence thresholds, and the provisos that make permits lapse.
Law
Ten Pitfalls: The Details That Sink an Application at the Last Moment
Ten high-frequency mistakes drawn from statutory provisos and refusal letters, plus a pre-submission checklist and four remedial routes.
Law
The Papers an Agent Filed, Held Against You Years Later
How Lu v Minister of Home Affairs reframed section 29(2) good cause as a self-standing test that fraud allegations cannot pre-empt.
Law
Dawood: Why an Official's Discretion Must Be Written Into the Law
The Constitutional Court's foundational ruling that a law limiting constitutional rights must supply guidance, or the discretion becomes arbitrary.
Law
The Ten Working Days After a Refusal: Four Points of Attack from Koyabe and Mushore
Why you must exhaust the section 8 internal appeal first, and the four grounds Mushore used to dismantle a Home Affairs refusal.
Law
Delay Is Itself Unlawful: De Saude and the 30/60-Day Timetable
How De Saude makes a failure to decide reviewable under PAJA and supplies copyable deadlines to compel Home Affairs.
Law
When Will a Court Order Your Permit Directly? The Trencon Four Requirements
How the Trencon four requirements decide when a court substitutes its own decision to issue a visa or permanent residence rather than remitting.
Law
Stopped at the Airport: A Valid Visa, and the Right to an Interpreter
Refused entry despite a valid work visa, a couple won interim relief partly because port-of-entry questioning lacked competent interpretation.