Your driving licence card could soon last 10 years. There is just one catch

Every five years, millions of South Africans lose a morning to it. The online booking. The queue. The eye test. The fingerprints. Then the wait for a card from a machine that keeps breaking.

That could soon happen half as often.

On Tuesday, 6 October, the Department of Transport briefed Parliament on new rules that would make licence cards for ordinary cars and motorbikes last 10 years instead of 5. The news spread fast. "Good news for anyone with a driving licence" was one of the most searched lines in the country that week.

It is real. But it is not law yet, and there is a catch in the fine print.

Which licence codes get 10 years?

The longer card is for the codes most people hold. That means A1 and A for motorbikes, B for ordinary cars, and EB for a car towing a heavier trailer.

Heavy vehicle codes stay on the old cycle. Codes C1, C, EC1 and EC will still need a new card every 5 years, according to IOL and BusinessTech. Professional driving permits, which taxi, bus and truck drivers need, still last only 2 years.

The reason is safety. Drivers of heavy vehicles and passengers carry more risk, so their health and eyes get checked more often.

The card itself is changing too. It moves from laminated paper to a tougher plastic called polycarbonate, the kind of material used in many bank cards.

Photo: Coolcaesar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

When does the 10-year licence start?

Nobody has given a date. That is the part most headlines left out.

Cabinet approved the plan at the end of July. Transport Minister Barbara Creecy published the draft rules on 17 August, and the public had about a month to comment.

What is left are two final steps. Cabinet has to approve the rules a second time. Then the minister has to publish them in the regulations. Only on that day does the 10-year card become law.

"This reform will ease the burden on motorists, reduce the frequency of renewals," Creecy said when Cabinet first signed off, according to The Citizen.

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The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) welcomed it, with a sting. "This decision is almost six years overdue, but it is a victory for motorists and for common sense," CEO Wayne Duvenage told the Mail & Guardian.

Do I still have to renew my licence card now?

Yes. This is the catch that matters most right now.

The change is not backdated. Your card still expires on the date printed on it. "Motorists must therefore continue to renew expired driving licence cards until the new law takes effect," the department said in a statement carried by SAnews.

So if your card runs out next month, book your renewal as normal. Driving on an expired card can still get you fined.

There is one bit of relief in the draft. An expired car or motorbike card would stay valid for up to 3 months, as long as you have already applied for a new one, according to Parliament's statement. That covers the gap while the new card is printed.

It is a draft rule, so it can still change before the final version.

Will the driving licence fee go up?

Probably. Nobody is saying by how much.

The state-owned card factory has been told to draw up a "new pricing model" for the longer-lasting card, IOL reported. A card that lasts twice as long may cost more upfront.

Right now a renewal costs about R220 to R300, depending on where you go, according to MyBroadband.

OUTA wants every cent explained. "Government is not a profit centre," said OUTA's Stefanie Fick, who wants the costs published line by line.

Readers were not all celebrating either. "What 'good' news?" one person asked under TopAuto's report on 7 October. For drivers already paying for petrol that now costs over R30 a litre, a bigger fee every decade is still a fee.

Photo: Kevin Gessner / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Why is the licence card machine always broken?

South Africa has one machine that prints every licence card in the country. Reports say it is more than 26 years old.

It broke down from February to May 2025. By then the backlog had hit 733,000 cards, Minister Creecy said, according to BusinessTech. More than 2.2 million cards were printed between May and early December 2025 to catch up.

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A new machine was supposed to fix this for good. The tender went to French company Idemia, and its budget grew from R486 million to R899 million. Then the High Court set the award aside on 6 January 2026, TimesLIVE reported. The tender went out again in February. No winner has been named.

For now, the Government Printing Works and Home Affairs are helping to print cards.

How much would 10-year cards cut the queues?

A lot. South Africa prints about 3 million licence cards a year, according to The Citizen.

If most ordinary drivers only renew every 10 years, the number of people needing a new card each year would roughly halve over time. Fewer people at licensing centres means shorter queues for everyone, including truck and taxi drivers who still renew more often.

It also takes pressure off that old printer while the state looks for a new one.

Can I renew my driving licence on a banking app?

No. This is a common mix-up.

Banking apps such as Capitec and FNB let you renew your car's licence disc, the one on your windscreen. That is a different thing.

Your driving licence card still needs a visit in person, because you need an eye test and fingerprints. In Gauteng you book that slot online through the NaTIS website first. Other provinces vary, so check with your local licensing office.

If you are budgeting for it this month, the renewal fee sits next to your rising taxi fare and the fixed charges on your municipal bill as one more thing to plan for.

What happens next?

Bigger changes are already being planned. A working group led by the Presidency is looking at digital driving licences linked to a digital ID, according to Parliament. One day your licence could live on your phone.

For now, the plastic card is the prize. Two signatures stand between millions of drivers and a renewal they would face only once a decade.

The next time you stand in that queue, it could be the last one until the 2030s.