The Department of Home Affairs has made substantial progress in accelerating the smart ID card rollout, issuing over 4 million cards in 2025.
Smart ID card issues in South Africa were primarily driven by severe systemic inefficiencies in the department, including chronic IT failures and limited branch capacity.
Frustration
The delays frustrated citizens who required the smart ID card to open bank and retail accounts, for local travel and for proof of identification, among other uses.
New record
However, according to the department, it has set a new record in issuing identity cards.
“The department of home affairs issued a record 4 002 964 smart ID cards in the 2025 calendar year, the highest rate of delivery in the history of the department,” it said.
“This milestone represents a 17% increase on the 3 427 468 smart IDs issued during 2024, which was itself a new record at the time. The 2025 performance is about 1.3 million more than the number of smart IDs issued during the 2023 and 2022 calendar years.”
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Milestone
Minister of Home Affairs Leon Schreiber said the rollout is a historic milestone.
“The milestone of delivering over four million smart IDs in a calendar year for the very first time demonstrates how our commitment to digital transformation is expanding inclusion and access at a scale never seen before.
“Smart IDs are vastly more secure than the fraud-prone green barcoded ID book. Thanks to the ongoing digital transformation of home affairs, over four million more people gained the ability to securely open a bank account, access employment and obtain social grants in 2025,” Schreiber said.
GNU
The department said the “historic breakthrough” it its vision to deliver home affairs @ home through the pursuit of digital transformation.
“It is thanks to the purposive focus of the government of national unity (GNU) on technology upgrades and improved efficiencies at both the department of home affairs and Government Printing Works, which physically produces the smart ID.”
“One of the key upgrades has been the department’s investment in repairing the Online Verification Service, which was previously underfunded and abused by some external users. Correcting this has led to higher uptime and better performance of the population register at home affairs offices, directly contributing to giving more South Africans access tosSmart IDs than ever before,” the department said
Benefits
Among the benefits of these cards is that identity checks can be automated so that fewer things can go wrong.
The green bar-coded ID book, which the smart ID is intended to replace, has become a soft target for fraudsters and is estimated to be 500% more vulnerable to fraud than the smart ID.
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