Easy Home Affairs CertificatesGet your unabridged birth or marriage certificate — handled for you, start to finish.
A document concierge for Home Affairs paperwork: we prepare the application, lodge it, follow it up until the certificate is issued, and courier it to you — anywhere in the world. If it is going abroad, we apostille it in the same run.
- Our fee
- R2,750per certificate
- Typical turnaround
- ~2 weeksHome Affairs controls the clock
- Apostille, if needed
- R1,650added to the same run
The two certificates almost everyone needs
Nearly every emigration, visa, foreign marriage or citizenship application built on South African paperwork comes down to the same two documents — and in both cases, the version you were originally handed is usually the wrong one.
Unabridged birth certificate
The full birth record showing both parents' names and ID numbers. Foreign embassies, immigration departments and universities reject the older abridged version that names one parent. R2,750.
Unabridged marriage certificate
The full computerised marriage record with both spouses' ID numbers. The handwritten certificate from your wedding day is not accepted abroad. R2,750.
We also obtain death certificates, letters of no impediment, divorce records, vault copies and every other civil document Home Affairs issues. See the full list →
What you get for R2,750
One fee covers the work we do: preparing the application correctly, lodging it at the Department of Home Affairs, following it up until the certificate is issued, and collecting it. Two things sit outside that fee, and we would rather say so plainly than advertise a "no hidden fees" flat rate and surprise you later:
| Item | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Unabridged certificate (birth, marriage or death) | R2,750 | Our fee — application, follow-up and collection |
| Local courier (South Africa) | R250 | Optional — only if you want it delivered |
| International courier | R800–R1,300 | By destination zone |
| Apostille (Hague countries) | R1,650 | If the certificate is going abroad |
No VAT is added. The price you are quoted is the price you pay. Older records that must be pulled from the Home Affairs archive cost more and take longer — the pricing page lists every case honestly.
Going abroad? Do the apostille in the same run
A Home Affairs certificate is usually only half the job. If you are handing it to a foreign government — for a visa, residency, marriage registration or citizenship claim — that government needs proof the certificate is genuine. For the 125+ countries in the Hague Convention that proof is an apostille; for the rest it is embassy attestation.
Almost half the people who come to us for a certificate need it legalised too. Doing both in one run means the document goes straight from Home Affairs to the apostille queue without travelling back and forth, and you are not starting a second process from scratch a month later.
Apostille of your certificate is R1,650. Tell us the destination country when you start and we will confirm whether an apostille is enough or the document needs embassy attestation as well. How the apostille step works →
We check the record before you spend anything
The most expensive mistake in this process is applying for the wrong thing — a standard reprint when the record sits in the pre-1980 archive, or an unabridged certificate when a foreign authority actually wants the original vault record.
Tell us what you are applying for — the visa, the citizenship claim, the marriage — and we work backwards from what that authority accepts. If your record needs the slower archive route, we say so upfront, with the real price and the real timeline, before you commit to anything.
Applying from outside South Africa
You do not need to fly home. Most of our clients are already overseas — mid-emigration, mid-visa, or years into life abroad when a foreign authority suddenly asks for a South African certificate. Send us your details and a copy of your ID or passport by email, and we handle the South African end: the application, the follow-up, the collection, the apostille if you need it, and the courier to any address worldwide.
Read the full detail on Home Affairs certificates →
Beyond birth and marriage certificates
Vault copies & archive records
Original birth, marriage and death records retrieved from the Home Affairs archive — for ancestry citizenship claims, pre-1980 records, and cases where the modern register is incomplete. R3,000.
Letter of no impediment
The single-status certificate confirming you are legally free to marry, required for most weddings abroad. R3,250, and it usually needs an apostille too.