Frequently asked questions

The unabridged certificate is the full record — on a birth certificate, both parents' names and ID numbers; on a marriage certificate, both spouses' full particulars. The abridged version is a summary that foreign authorities treat as incomplete and routinely reject. For anything international, you need unabridged.

Tell us the destination and purpose — the receiving authority determines everything. As a rule of thumb: emigration and visas need unabridged birth certificates; spousal visas add the unabridged marriage certificate; marrying abroad needs a letter of no impediment; ancestry citizenship claims usually need vault copies of the original records.

There is no full online application for unabridged certificates — applications are lodged at a Home Affairs branch, or at a South African mission abroad. You are entirely free to do that yourself at no service cost. People use us to avoid the queues, the follow-up and the risk of applying for the wrong version — that trade is worth it for some people and not others, and you should decide with the facts in front of you.

Errors on the register — a misspelt name, a wrong date, a marriage recorded incorrectly — must be rectified by Home Affairs before a correct certificate can be issued. We handle rectification of marriage records (R2,950); other corrections we assess case by case. Send us a photo of the document and we will tell you honestly what is involved.

"No record found" on the live register often means the record sits in the historical archive — common for older events — which is a vault retrieval. Where a record genuinely does not exist, Home Affairs issues a formal no-record letter, which is itself apostille-eligible and frequently exactly what the foreign authority requires. Either way, you find out before spending the larger amount.

A standard reprint typically takes around two weeks through our route. Archive retrievals take six to twelve weeks for marriage records and eight to sixteen weeks for vault copies. Home Affairs controls the clock on all of these — we lodge correctly, follow up persistently, and give you a realistic estimate rather than a guarantee, because a guarantee from anyone would be fiction.

What genuinely speeds an application up is being lodged correctly the first time and followed up until issued — which is the service. Nobody can lawfully buy a faster queue position inside Home Affairs, and you should be wary of anyone who says they can.

Work backwards from the appointment using the slow end of each range — certificate, apostille, courier — and start earlier than feels necessary. But check the freshness rule first: many authorities require certificates issued within the last three to six months, and starting a year early can mean paying twice. Tell us the date and we will tell you honestly whether the timing works.

Yes — that is most of our work. Everything happens by email and WhatsApp: you send your details and a certified copy of your ID or passport, we handle the South African end, and the finished documents are couriered to any address worldwide.

Usually not — a certified copy of your foreign passport plus your South African details (ID number if you have it, full names as registered, date and place of the event) is generally enough for us to locate the record. Send us what you have and we will tell you if anything is missing.

Yes. We regularly courier apostilled packs directly to immigration consultants, citizenship lawyers and foreign registries. Give us the address and reference, and we include whatever cover documentation the recipient requires.

If the certificate is going to a foreign government, university or registry in one of the 125+ Hague Convention countries — almost certainly yes. For non-Hague countries such as the UAE and Qatar, you need embassy attestation instead. The apostille page explains both; tell us the destination and we confirm which applies.

No. An apostille on a government-issued document is issued by DIRCO or the High Court, and its validity comes from them — not from whoever lodges it. An attorney's involvement does not make it more valid; it makes it more expensive.

If the destination country is not English-speaking, usually yes — attached to the apostilled original so they are accepted together. R1,000 per page, arranged through accredited sworn translators.

Easy Home Affairs Certificates is a service of Easy Services Group, a private South African document services company based in Bryanston, Johannesburg, operating since well before this website existed. We are not the government, and we say so on every page.

After we have confirmed what your case needs and quoted the full total — certificate, legalisation, courier — as one number. Work begins on payment. If we have not yet begun work, our fee is refundable in full; the details are in the terms.

We collect only what the application requires, share it only with the government bodies and couriers involved, and handle it under POPIA. This website itself sets no cookies and runs no trackers. The full policy is in the privacy policy.

If you live near a quiet Home Affairs branch, have flexible time, and need a straightforward standard reprint with no legalisation — applying yourself costs you queue time and nothing else, and we will tell you so. Our value is in the follow-up, the tricky records, and everything after the certificate: apostille, translation, courier, and getting a multi-document pack to arrive together.