South Africa visitor visa from India

Not for a straightforward holiday by air. Since 12 February 2026, Indian ordinary passport holders can apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation instead of a visa, and the system was publicly launched on 12 August 2026. You apply online at eta.dha.gov.za, pay ZAR 500, and in most cases the outcome comes back instantly, which is a genuine change from what this route used to involve. The older visitor's visa through VFS has not disappeared, and it is still what you need in three situations: if you are arriving by land rather than by air, if you are landing at an airport the ETA does not cover, or if you are travelling for a purpose the authorisation does not allow. Work out which of the two applies to your actual itinerary before you start, because the answer is decided by the route rather than by the passport.

ZAR 500, about ₹3,000, which is the processing fee the Department of Home Affairs adopted on 17 August 2026. It is paid by card at the point you submit the application rather than afterwards, so the payment and the application are a single sitting. Because the fee is set in rand, the rupee equivalent moves with the exchange rate and the figure here is an approximation rather than the amount that will leave your account. The practical warning on this route is about the card rather than the fee. Indian cards are frequently declined on a first international transaction, and a decline mid-application is more disruptive here than a simple retry, because the form and the payment are tied together. Enable the card for overseas use with your bank before you start, and use one you have paid abroad with if you have the choice.

Four: O. R. Tambo in Johannesburg, Cape Town International, Lanseria, and King Shaka in Durban. Check that list against your ticket before you apply, because arriving at an airport outside it means the authorisation does not cover you however valid it is. A lot of the guidance published earlier in 2026 lists only the first three, since King Shaka was added afterwards, so an article that looks recent can still be a version behind. The Home Affairs portal is the thing to trust here rather than a travel site, and it is worth a look on the day you apply. Land borders such as Beitbridge and Lebombo are due to be added later in 2026, which will change this answer. Until they are, arriving overland or at any other airport needs the older visitor's visa through VFS.

Up to 90 days per visit, with multiple entries while the authorisation is valid, and one extension of up to 90 days that you can apply for online from inside the country. On paper that is a generous allowance and for an ordinary holiday it is more than anyone needs. Home Affairs also says the ETA is not designed to allow repeated extended stays, and that sentence is doing real work rather than sitting there as boilerplate. Treating the authorisation as a way to live in South Africa in three-month instalments is a reliable way to have a border officer cut your next stay short or refuse entry altogether, and the refusal happens at the airport rather than at the application stage where you could argue with it. If the plan is longer-term residence, this is the wrong document to build it on.

A South African Electronic Travel Authorisation does not permit work. The Department of Home Affairs states directly that work is not permitted on an Electronic Travel Authorisation, so there is no grey area to read into it. The authorisation covers tourism and visits, and that does include business meetings and conferences, which is the distinction people most often need. Attending is fine. Delivering is not. Any paid activity, or work that displaces a role a local person would otherwise fill, needs a work visa applied for separately and in advance rather than converted from an ETA after you arrive. Working on the authorisation puts both your current entry and every later application at risk, and South Africa records the outcome in the same system that will read your next one. If the trip has a working component, sort out the right permission before the flights.

A South African ETA does not cover a land crossing from Zimbabwe, so you still need a visitor's visa. The ETA authorises arrival by air at four named airports, so a land crossing sits outside what it covers even when the authorisation itself is valid, paid for and completely unused. Validity is not the test. The mode and point of entry are. This matters most on the classic version of this trip, which flies into Johannesburg, drives up to Victoria Falls, and comes back into South Africa overland: the outbound leg is covered and the return leg is not, and the problem is discovered at a border post rather than at an airline desk where somebody might have caught it. Plan the whole route before you apply, because the answer changes what you should be applying for in the first place. A trip with any land re-entry needs the older visitor's visa through VFS.