Life Partner visa is issued to someone in a long term relationship.
This
type of South Africa life partner visa is available to people in either
heterosexual or same-sex relationships and can apply for a life partner
temporary residence visa or a permanent residence depending on the
length of the relationship in question.
An application for temporary
residence life partner visa requires that the partners are in a proven
relationship for 2 years. Foreigners who are life partners of South
African citizens or permanent resident holders may apply for permanent
residence if they have been together for 5 years or more in terms the
Immigration Act.
To obtain permanent residence, you would have to
have been living with your partner for more than 5 years. This came
about with the new regulations.
The life partner visa is very similar
to the spousal visa but accommodates same sex partnerships. You will
have to prove financial and emotional support and may be called upon to
be interviewed by the department.
SA Migration Intl will guide you
through the entire process and make sure that your application is fully
compliant with the immigration law to ensure a successful outcome. Once
your application has been submitted we ensure you will be able to track
the progress of said application either directly via VFS or via our
followup processes via our application tracking system and be kept fully
up to date with the progress of your application.
Once we confirm that you will qualify for the visa we will ensure you have a successful application.
If you need a life partner or spouse visa for South Africa please contact us now!
www.samigration.com"
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber revealed the information in a recent parliamentary Q&A, where he noted that the department exhausted “all efforts” to determine that no South African citizens or permanent residents had the necessary skills and qualifications to fill the positions before issuing the visas to foreign nationals.
“This was done in collaboration with the Department of Higher Education and Training. The methodology used to determine the critical skills is detailed in a Technical Report on Critical Skills published on the website DHET,” he said.
Out of the 4,913 visas issued since 1 January 2020, 1,794 were issued to Zimbabwean nationals for hundreds of different jobs.
The biggest job category for which Zimbabwean nationals were issued a critical skills visa was trainee auditors, followed by integrated development, software developers, nursing, and ICT systems analysts.
After Zimbabwe, the second biggest import country for critical skills in South Africa is India, where 918 visas have been issued.
The table below outlines the top 20 countries that have been issued critical skills visas to South Africa:
# Country Visas
1 Zimbabwe 1,794
2 India 918
3 The Democratic Republic of Congo 295
4 Nigeria 286
5 Cameroon 90
6 Germany 85
7 China 84
8 The United Kingdom 82
9 Kenya 75
9 The USA 75
11 Lesotho 63
12 France 62
13 Pakistan 58
14 Zambia 50
15 Swaziland 48
16 Angola 45
17 Uganda 41
18 The Netherlands 39
19 Ghana 36
20 Botswana 35
Critical skills
South Africa’s critical skills list was updated for the first time since 2014 in February 2022, sparking controversy in the medical field at the time as most of the jobs cut from the list came from that sector.
In response to this, the list was updated again in August 2022, where 39 more occupations—largely from the medical field—were added to the list.
The last time the list was updated was in October 2023, when vets were added to the growing number of scarce skills in the country—however, general practitioners and doctors remain off the list.
You can view South Africa’s full Critical Skills List here.
The department previously acknowledged that there has been “fierce criticism” of the critical skills list, mainly emanating from the professions that were cut.
It said that the Critical Skills List ought to be updated every four years due to the ever-changing skills shortage in South Africa.
In lieu of more regular updated to the critical skills list, the department is engaging in other ways to make it easier for the country to draw in the skills it needs.
The department is forging ahead with the Trusted Employer Scheme (TES), which should help businesses acquire international workers to address their skill shortages.
The country has also moved to implement a remote working visa, which should draw additional skills into the country.
International workers are seen as a short- and medium-term solution to the current skills shortage that many corporations in South Africa face, with skilled workers – especially those with STEM and IT skills – often heading in the other direction.
South Africa’s battle with skills is happening on all fronts.
Within the country itself, there is a dearth of skills that match the growing needs of businesses—and the skills that are present are either snapped up by companies, head for the exit due to various ‘push’ factors, or are working remotely for international companies.
Other countries outside of South Africa are also looking for skills, and local talent is ripe for the picking.
Countries like Australia, Canada, Germany and the UK have all pointed to dire shortages of skills in certain fields and expressed a willingness to draw these skills to their shores—and for South African talent with itchy feet, the prospects are often too inviting to ignore.
South
Africa’s plan to attract more professionals to its skills-starved
economy through the introduction of a so-called nomad visa for remote
workers has been slowed by the need to amend tax regulations.
The
impediment comes after an initial delay when changes to the visa regime
had to be temporarily withdrawn because mandatory public consultation
procedures hadn’t been followed. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his
intention to introduce a remote-working visa in his 2022
state-of-the-nation address.
“There is just a tax-related matter
that needs to be addressed in the regulations,” Leon Schreiber, the
country’s Home Affairs Minister, said in a response to queries. “Once
that is done, the department will commence with the rollout.”
South
Africa’s byzantine work permit regime, which means that securing a work
permit can take well over a year, has been flagged as a hurdle to
economic growth by both the presidency and the country’s main business
organisations.
Still, a backlog of more than 300 000
applications for all kinds of residence permits has been halved since a
new cabinet was announced on June 30 after the formation of a coalition
government.
The home affairs ministry initially proposed allowing
people employed and paid by companies elsewhere to live in the country
for as long as six months a year without paying tax, as long as they
earned at least R1 million annually.