Expats’ happiness with their lives in South Africa has improved considerably over the past year, but they still face several pressing issues, particularly those related to safety.

This is according to the latest Expat Insider 2024 survey by InterNations, where South Africa ranks 29th out of 53 countries in the overall rankings of “Best Destinations for Expats in 2024.”

This is a 19-spot improvement from 2023, climbing out of the bottom 10 after spending four consecutive years there.

“In early 2024, more than 12,500 expats from around the world shared with us their thoughts on what it’s like to live and work abroad [representing] 175 nationalities living in 174 countries or territories,” said InterNations.

“This gain [in South Africa’s ranking] was spurred on by improvements across all five indices,” being Quality of Life, Working Abroad, Expat Essentials, Ease of Settling In and Personal Finance, said InterNations.

Looking at these individual indices rankings (out of 53), South Africa placed:

• Personal Finance  18th;

• Expat Essentials  22nd;

• Ease of Settling In  23rd;

• Working Abroad 40th;

• Quality of Life  43rd.

As shown above, South Africa’s ranking is skewed by the Working Abroad and Quality of Life indices, with the country ranking among (and the) lowest in several subcategories of these indices.

Specifically, South Africa ranks the lowest out of all the measured countries in terms of Safety and Security.

“The ranking is pulled down by personal safety and political stability, both of which are also dead last (53rd),” said InterNations.

“Justifiably so, as more than half of expats (54%) in the country rate personal safety as poor, compared to just 8% globally �` and for political stability, a much higher share than the global average rate it negatively, 47% vs 16% globally.”

Additionally, the country is weighed down by the Travel & Transit subcategory, ranking 52nd. This is due to poor affordability (53rd) and availability of public transport (52nd). 

Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65%) agree that it is not easy nor safe to get around South Africa on foot or by bicycle (vs. 13% globally).

Conversely, South Africa does best in the Personal Finances Index (18th) as well as the Housing (9th) and Leisure Options (10th) subcategories.

South Africa achieves its best position in the Personal Finance Index, ranking 18th. It scores well in the general cost of living, placing 15th, and in disposable household income, being adequate for a comfortable lifestyle, where it ranks 19th.

Impressively, 73% of expatriates in South Africa report that their disposable income is sufficient or more than enough, exceeding the global average of 70%. 

Despite these positive indicators, South Africa receives a relatively modest ranking of 31st for expatriates’ satisfaction with their financial situations.

Looking at the subcategories, Environment & Climate (ranked 16th) and Healthcare (ranked 23rd) showed strong performance as well. Specifically, the natural environment ranks third and climate & weather fifth in their respective areas of satisfaction. 

InterNations said that outcome is expected, considering over ninety-five percent (95%) of participants positively rated South Africa’s nature and wildlife. This is notably higher than the global average of eighty-two percent (82%). 

Furthermore, eighty five percent (85%) of respondents are satisfied with the weather, which greatly surpasses the global satisfaction rate of fifty-eight percent (58%).

Healthcare availability is above average (22nd) and of good quality (13th), but it could be more affordable (32nd) with better equal access to healthcare services (38th), given that the majority of these responses are looking at private healthcare.

Nearly a third of expats (32%) rate the current access negatively (vs. 21% globally).

According to the survey, the average age of expats is just over 51 years old, with the majority being male.

The biggest sectors for expats is seen to be hospitality, construction and information technology. 

Looking at the overall rankings, the top 10 best countries for expats are:

Rank Country

1 Panama

2 Mexico

3 Indonesia

4 Spain

5 Colombia

6 Thailand

7 Brazil

8 Vietnam

9 Philippines

10 UAE

According to the rankings, the bottom-ranked countries for expats are:

Rank Country

53 Kuwait

52 Türkiye

51 Finland

50 Germany

49 Canada

48 Norway

47 Italy

46 Malta

45 Ireland

44 UK

‘The days of ‘system offline’ need to come to an end, because I want to be the Minister of ‘System Online’,’ says Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber.
Leon Schreiber laid out his priorities as Minister of Home Affairs during his maiden budget vote speech in Parliament on Monday, saying his department would prioritise, among other things, dealing with the visa backlog and stabilising the department’s online system.
The Department of Home Affairs has a budget of R10.49-billion for the 2024/25 financial year – a slight increase from R9.75-billion in the previous financial year.
Schreiber’s speech covered five key issues.
Visa backlog
Schreiber said the department had assigned a “dedicated team” to deal with the permit backlog.
“I am pleased to report that we are starting to see progress. Our dedicated team has already reduced the backlog by processing 92,886 applications out of a total of 306,042. This is a reduction of 30%,” he said.
A day after Schreiber was sworn into office, he extended a temporary concession for foreigners with pending visa applications, including those who were appealing against rejections, to 31 December 2024, Daily Maverick’s Georgina Crouth reported. The concession was needed to protect applicants and deal with ongoing delays in visa processing.
In April this year, the department revealed in response to a parliamentary question that the visa backlog had increased by 18,000 – from 74,000 in August 2023 to 92,000 in February 2024.
Schreiber said that “clearing this backlog is the only way to avoid another extension of the concession on visas, waivers and appeals that has already been granted three times”.
“This is an abnormal situation, and we must get this problem under control so that extensions are no longer necessary. For this reason, I have asked to be provided with daily reports on the state of the backlog until it is eradicated,” he said.
The ANC supported the department’s budget. ANC MP Mosa Chabane said, in addition to clearing the backlog on processing visa applications, “capacity should be increased within the permits and refugee section”.
Immigration Advisory Board
In the House on Thursday, Schreiber announced that he was, in terms of Section 4(2) of the Immigration Act of 2002, reactivating the Immigration Advisory Board as a matter of urgency.
South Africa has not had an Immigration Advisory Board in more than a decade, which is in breach of the Immigration Act, Daily Maverick reported. Schreiber said the department is “inundated with costly court cases”, often due to an inability to process applications timeously.
“This board provides a powerful platform for key stakeholders to engage with the department on an ongoing basis about problems affecting the sector,” said Schreiber.
“Importantly, the advisory board can provide the minister with evidence-based advice on tackling critical matters, such as the court-ordered process of consultation on the future of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit.”
“The Advisory Board will serve as a vital forum where problems can be ironed out before they escalate to the courts,” said Schreiber.
ActionSA MP Lerato Ngobeni said the party will be watching the work of the board closely, “because South Africans have simply had enough”.
“ActionSA will not support any budget that fails to unapologetically put South Africans first,” she said.
Border management
“Even as we work to implement the GNU [government of national unity] mandate for a better visa system to welcome people who want to contribute to South Africa legally through their skills, investments and as tourists, we must acknowledge that there is another side to this coin,” said Schreiber.
“South Africa needs to do much more to combat illegal immigration.”
To tackle illegal immigration, Schreiber said the department would increase the number of inspections at restaurants, spaza shops, farms and mines by more than 50%, to “take action against people illegally employed, including deportations.”
These inspections will be done in collaboration with other departments, including Employment and Labour and the SA Police Service, according to Schreiber.
Schreiber’s predecessor, Aaron Motsoaledi, was frequently questioned throughout his term about his hardline views on foreigners, and with Schreiber’s promised crackdown on illegal immigration, it seems he has set a similar tone for the department.
In response to Schreiber’s speech, uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party MP Mariam Muhammad said “serious defects in our immigration system” had to be addressed, adding that it was “time for a comprehensive overhaul of the migration system guided by a clear policy framework that balances compassion with security”.
Online systems and reducing queues
People wait in long queues at the Soweto Regional Home Affairs Office. (Photo: Gallo Images / Fani Mahuntsi)
Another priority of the department, Schreiber said, was to stabilise its online system.
Home Affairs offices lost more than 36,000 hours of work in the first half of 2023, primarily due to system downtime, News24 reported. The department has in the past been hamstrung by offline systems, causing long queues outside offices.
“It is unacceptable that, in the year 2024 and the age of artificial intelligence, we still do not have a reliable IT system at Home Affairs. The days of ‘system offline’ need to come to an end, because I want to be the minister of ‘system online’,” he said.
He said the problem of long queues had to be similarly tackled.
“While technological upgrades will also assist in this regard, I intend to review the way in which queues are managed at Home Affairs offices to identify appropriate business process reforms that optimise the online booking system and better manage queues on the ground,” said Schreiber.
DA MP Nicole Bollman welcomed the minister’s pledge to end system failures, saying the steps outlined by Schreiber were “promising, but swift implementation is essential”.
“Over the past five years, Home Affairs has lost 77 years’ worth of office hours due to systems being offline. This extensive loss of hours highlights the critical need for reliable IT systems. We also welcome the minister’s indication that online booking systems will be extended to other civic services beyond IDs and passports,” said Bollman.
Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) falls within the department’s budget vote.
The IEC, according to Schreiber, has a budget of R2.3-billion for the 2024/25 financial year.
The 29 May polls were beset by operational and technical challenges which caused long queues at voting stations. Some MPs in the House on Monday called for a probe into what went wrong to rectify the issues before the 2026 municipal elections.
“Honourable members, we cannot shy away from the fact that the IEC struggled during the 2024 election; however, the attacks on its credibility have been unwarranted. We need to, as a portfolio committee, probe where it went wrong and what interventions are needed,” said IFP MP, Liezl van der Merwe.  
Schreiber said the IEC was set to undertake a review of the election.
“This process will include key stakeholders, including political parties represented in this House. South Africans expect the review process to be thorough so that operational and technical challenges are addressed ahead of the 2026 local government elections,” he said

South Africa’s new minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, says that the department is making headway in reducing its massive visa backlog, which has been cut to around 213,000 applications.
Schreiber, who took over as minister as part of the Government of National Unity in June, said that the department has set up a dedicated team to reduce the backlog and has cut through 92,886 applications out of a total of 306,042.
“This is a reduction of 30%. But we must do more because clearing this backlog is the only way to avoid another extension of the concession on visas, waivers and appeals that have already been granted three times,” he said.
One of Schreiber’s first acts as minister of Home Affairs was to extend the temporary concession for foreign nationals awaiting the outcomes of their visa, waiver, and appeal applications.
Long-term visa holders in South Africa have thus been given legal permission to remain in South Africa until 31 December 2024.
The reported number of visas in the backlog is significantly higher than the figures presented by former minister Aaron Motsoaledi earlier this year.
In May, Motsoaledi said that the backlog was at 92,000 visas at the end of January 2024. This means that over 200,000 applications were added to the pile in the months that followed.
The former minister placed the blame on very specific visa categories, such as spousal and family visas, which required the department to engage in a lengthy verification process to ensure that the applications were legitimate.
“Applicants for relative and/or spousal permits wait as long as two years for their visa due to the requirement that their notarial agreements and other documents such as birth certificates, bank statements and marriage certificates submitted as proof of existence of a spousal or parental relationship are verified,” he said at the time.
Schreiber described the backlog as “abnormal”, saying that it needs to be brought under control as soon as possible. The previous administration set a target of clearing it by November 2024.
“This is an abnormal situation, and we must get this problem under control so that extensions are no longer necessary. For this reason, I have asked to be provided with daily reports on the state of the backlog until it is eradicated.”
Presenting the DHA’s Budget Vote in Parliament on Monday, Schreiber said Home Affairs was vital to ensuring that South Africa remains competitive and can generate rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth to create jobs.
He committed to executing the reforms established in president Cyril Ramaphosa’s Operation Vulindlela - where the focus for Home Affairs is increasing the availability of scarce skills in the labour market.
Projects already in place under this banner include the critical skills list changes seen over the past few years, as well as the new Trusted Employer Scheme (TES) and remote work visa changes.
The TES will allow major investors and large employers to follow a streamlined process in getting skills into the country with improved turnaround times, while the new remote visa will make it easier for foreign workers to set up and work temporarily from South Africa without falling ill of local tax laws.
However, Schreiber said that for South Africa to be effective in unlocking scarce skills and growing tourism to create jobs, Home Affairs must urgently clear the backlog in the processing of permits.

Schreiber said he would reach out to the departments, including the South African Police Service (Saps), for joint operations.
Leon Schreiber, minister of Home Affairs, during the swearing-in ceremony of the new national executive members at Cape Town International Convention Centre on 3 July, 2024 in Cape Town.
Home Affairs Leon Schreiber says in the coming year, the department will intensify inspections at restaurants, spaza shops, farms and mines by over 50% to take action, including deportations, against people who are illegally employed.
The initiative was started under his predecessor, Aaron Motsoaledi, who earlier this year called for harsher sanctions against business owners who knowingly employ undocumented foreigners.
Motsoaledi was speaking at a stakeholder engagement and service delivery monitoring session in Gqeberha in February.
“Anyone who knowingly employs an illegal foreigner or a foreigner in violation of this act shall be guilty of an offence and liable, upon conviction, to a fine or imprisonment not exceeding one year. Additionally, a second conviction of such an offence shall be punishable by imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine,” said Motsoaledi.
“A third subsequent conviction of such an offence shall result in imprisonment not exceeding five years without the option of a fine.”
At the time, Motsoaledi also confirmed that the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) and the Department of Small Business Development were collaborating to tighten laws to prevent undocumented foreigners from operating businesses in the country.
During the department’s budget speech on Monday, Schreiber said he would reach out to the departments for joint operations.
Home Affairs on immigration
Schreiber further said the department was working on the provision of smart ID cards to naturalised citizens.
He said 280 cards have been issued and another 697 were in progress.
“Once the system has been adjusted to verify compliant applications, all naturalized citizens will be able to visit any Home Affairs office equipped with live-capture facilities to apply for their smart ID cards,” he said.
Schreiber also announced that Home Affairs would urgently reactivate the Immigration Advisory Board. It will provide him with “evidence-based advice” on tackling matters, such as the process of consultation on the future of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP).
Last month, the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruled that Motsoaledi unlawfully terminated the ZEPs.
The court found that Motsoaledi had failed to consult with ZEP holders.
BMA deportations
Also last month, the Border Management Authority (BMA) deployed an additional 400 junior border guards, after an eight-month training programme.
The majority of the guards are deployed at Beitbridge to Zimbabwe, Lebombo and Kosi Bay to Mozambique and Maseru and Ficksburg to Lesotho.
Their tasks include addressing the scourge of illegal entry, the smuggling of illicit cigarettes, stolen high-value vehicles and stock theft.
To date, the BMA’s guards have intercepted and deported over 296,000 individuals who had attempted to enter the country illegally.
Over 303 vehicles were intercepted when criminals attempted to illegally take them out of South Africa.
“South Africa needs to do much more to combat illegal immigration. We must do so both because it is central to our national security. But also out of our commitment to economic growth,” said Schreiber.
“The reality is that no one will want to visit or invest if we allow our country to lose control over its borders and internal security. This problem needs to be tackled in a sustained, integrated and collaborative way,” he said.

South Africa’s ride-hailing market has grown considerably over the past several years, becoming a massive R7 billion industry with no signs of slowing down.

Vincent Lilane, Business Development Representative at inDrive, highlights that approximately 21% of South Africans now rely on e-hailing services, marking a substantial shift in urban transportation dynamics.

Despite this growth, the sector faces several critical challenges that could impede further development if left unaddressed.

Issues such as equitable pricing structures for drivers and passengers, concerns over passenger and driver safety, and the need for greater empowerment of drivers are among the key hurdles identified.

“Remember, drivers are the lifeblood of this industry, and their well-being directly impacts its success,” with many earning well below minimum wage,” said Lilane.

South Africa’s ride-hailing market, with an estimated R6.01 billion in revenue in 2023, is highly competitive. Strong local players such as Uber, Bolt, and inDrive to name a few are battling it out and itching for market dominance.

The industry itself is gearing up for further growth. By 2029, it is projected to reach R8.11 billion in annual revenue and serve a user base of around 14.5 million people, according to Statista.

Lilane said that this is “fueled by influences such as evolving customer preferences, unique local conditions, and underlying macroeconomic factors.”

“However, to unlock its full potential, the industry must address present challenges while simultaneously capitalising on growth opportunities,” he added.

Lilane said that doing so is likely to greatly maximise the ride-sharing industry’s job creation and GDP contributions, benefiting both the economy and people.

“By empowering drivers, prioritising safety, and embracing new possibilities, the e-hailing industry could serve as the driving force in shaping a transportation ecosystem that benefits all South Africans �` passengers, drivers, and businesses alike,” he said.

Pricing woes

Shedding light on a critical challenge for the ride-sharing industry, Lilane said that achieving fair pricing for both drivers and passengers is essential.

“The sad reality is that South African drivers tend to earn less than minimum wage (of R27.58 per hour),” said Lilane.

This is because their earnings are eroded by:

Rising fuel prices;
Vehicle rental fees;
The elimination of incentives and bonuses; and
Increased commissions for each transaction.

“Longer hours are often the only way to compensate, impacting driver well-being and potentially compromising safety,” said the inDriver representative.

While it is hoped that the recently enacted Economic Regulation of Transport Act (which looks to consolidate the economic regulation of transport within a single framework and policy) will positively impact their earnings, “drivers must be given more control over pricing,” said Lilane.

He said that this, in turn, will empower them “to achieve sustainable incomes and economic stability.”

Lilane argues that driver control over pricing could also benefit passengers. “This would allow them to access more competitive fares, a critical factor during the current cost-of-living crisis where affordable transportation is a major concern,” he said.

Lilane also urges the ride-hailing industry to reintroduce and expand incentive programmes and bonuses as a way to reward drivers, especially with 85% reporting that these are essential for their earnings, that are already often well below minimum wage.

Safety issues

“The rapid growth of ride-hailing in South Africa has coincided with a concerning rise in threats to the safety of both drivers and riders across all operators in this space, tarnishing the reputation of the entire industry as a result,” said Lilane.

This has been taking effect in the headlines, with numerous reports of passengers being attacked, robbed and more by some drivers, while many drivers themselves have faced the same ill fate.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t unique to South Africa, as similar incidents are reported globally,” said Lilane.

There are various safety challenges in the industry, including that of insufficient driver background checks, lax enforcement of vehicle maintenance, and passenger harassment of drivers among others.

Lilane emphasises that there needs to be shared responsibility approach, such as offering in-app support for both parties to address any violations promptly.

New frontiers for e-hailing

Liliane noted that e-hailing can extend beyond passenger services in South Africa to significantly impact the freight and cargo sector, especially in underserved remote areas.

He said that by leveraging technology and networks, these platforms could offer dependable cargo transport, opening new revenue opportunities for drivers and enhancing the country’s logistics infrastructure.