Registry entry

South Africa Ordinary Passport Application (Form BI-73)

Apply for an ordinary South African passport as an adult (16 years or older) applying for the first time, in person at a Department of Home Affairs office within South Africa, using Form BI-73 ('Application for a South African Passport or Travel Document'). It does not submit the application; the live dha.gov.za source and the applicant's local Home Affairs office are always authoritative (see VERIFICATION.md). This document models the domestic, ordinary/permanent 32-page passport pathway specifically; Form BI-73 also covers Maxi, Diplomatic, Official, Crew Member, Temporary, and Emergency passports/travel documents (each with its own supporting-document and fee requirements not modeled here) and a Child Passport/Endorsement pathway requiring parental consent (Section C of the form), out of scope for this first-time-adult document. Applying from outside South Africa, at a South African mission/consulate abroad, is a separate process with different fees, out of scope here.

Registry entry

za/dha/passport-application-first-adult

Jurisdiction
South Africa · national
Version
1.0.0
Verification
draft
Authority
Department of Home Affairs, Republic of South Africa

Authoritative source BI-73

Machine access

Schema document
registry/za/dha/passport-application-first-adult/1.0.0/schema.jsonapplication/schema+json
Verification record
registry/za/dha/passport-application-first-adult/1.0.0/VERIFICATION.mdtext/markdown
Registry catalog
registry/index.jsonone record per schema id

Field reference

27 fields across 4 steps, read from the published schema.json, with names, types, requiredness, and validation as the document states them. The live government form remains the authoritative source.

Application type and particulars of applicant

  • applicationType enum required

    The type of document requested on Form BI-73. This schema's required-document set and fee model the ordinary_passport pathway; the other values are captured because they appear as tick-boxes on the same form, but their own supporting-document and fee requirements are out of scope here.

    enum: 9 values
  • deliverToPostalAddress boolean required

    If false, the completed passport is instead collected in person from the Home Affairs office where the application was lodged.

  • surname string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    length: 1–100classification: sensitive-pii
  • forenamesInFull string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    length: 1–150classification: sensitive-pii
  • previousSurname string optional

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. Leave blank if the applicant has never used a different surname.

    length: 0–100classification: sensitive-pii
  • maritalStatus enum required

    As printed on Form BI-73: unmarried, married, widower, widow, or divorced.

    enum: unmarried | married | widower | widow | divorced
  • gender enum required

    Form BI-73 offers only Male and Female tick-boxes; unlike some other jurisdictions' passport forms it has no third option.

    enum: male | female
  • dateOfBirth date required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. Full date, YYYY-MM-DD.

    classification: sensitive-pii
  • identityNumber string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. The 13-digit South African ID number as printed on the applicant's ID book or smart ID card; a passport can only be issued to an applicant in possession of one (Form BI-73, Instruction 1(e)).

    patternclassification: sensitive-pii
  • countryOfBirth string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data.

    length: 1–80
  • placeOfBirth string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. Town or city of birth.

    length: 1–80

Postal address and contact numbers

  • postalAddressLines string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. Free-text postal address as it appears on the multi-line 'Postal address' box on the form.

    length: 1–240classification: sensitive-pii
  • postalCode string required

    South African postal codes are 4 digits.

    pattern
  • homeTelephone string optional

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. In international E.164 format, e.g. +27211234567.

    pattern
  • workTelephone string optional

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. In international E.164 format, e.g. +27211234567.

    pattern
  • cellNumber string required

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. In international E.164 format, e.g. +27821234567. Used by the Home Affairs office to notify the applicant when the passport is ready.

    pattern

Citizenship and travel-document history

  • acquiredOtherCitizenship boolean required

    Section D must be completed by all applicants.

  • otherCitizenshipCountry string optional

    Required when acquiredOtherCitizenship is true.

    length: 0–80
  • otherCitizenshipPlaceObtained string optional

    Required when acquiredOtherCitizenship is true.

    length: 0–80
  • otherCitizenshipMeans string optional

    Required when acquiredOtherCitizenship is true, e.g. by marriage, naturalisation, descent, or registration.

    length: 0–120
  • otherCitizenshipDate date optional

    Required when acquiredOtherCitizenship is true.

  • previouslyIssuedTravelDocument boolean required

    Section D must be completed by all applicants. South African passports or other travel documents presently in the applicant's possession must be submitted with the application unless lost, stolen, or damaged.

  • previousTravelDocumentDate date optional

    Required when previouslyIssuedTravelDocument is true.

  • previousTravelDocumentNumber string optional

    Personal identifier; handle as sensitive data. Required when previouslyIssuedTravelDocument is true.

    length: 0–20classification: sensitive-pii

Declaration

  • declarationTruthfulComplete boolean required

    Must be true. The applicant also concurs that if the passport is not claimed within 3 months of the date of issue, it will be destroyed and the fee forfeited.

  • declarationDate date required

    Date the applicant signs the declaration in Section E.

  • declarationPlace string required

    Town or city where the applicant signs the declaration in Section E.

    length: 1–80

Verification record

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice. It documents the provenance of the published fields and flow and states the current verification claim honestly.

Current claim

  • status: draft
  • verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
  • verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-05

The document was derived directly from the official government-hosted form PDF, cross-checked against a legible mirror copy of the identical current form. The full field-by-field comparison the practice requires (manual-source-review-v1 → Procedure step 2) has been completed for Sections A, D, and E of Form BI-73 against a directly-retrieved government copy. It remains draft, not verified, because two supporting-document requirements (BI-529 triggering condition, DHA-9 fingerprint procedure) are sourced only from a secondary consular checklist rather than a domestic first-party source — see "What is NOT yet independently verified" below.

Access notes

dha.gov.za is directly reachable and its bi-73.pdf returned HTTP 200. That government-hosted copy, however, is a large (7.5 MB), low-contrast scanned image with no extractable text layer (confirmed with pdfjs-dist: 0 characters of text content across all pages). Its field layout — every label, tick-box, and section on all 4 pages — was read directly from that scan and cross-checked page-by-page against a legible, high-resolution mirror of the identical current BI-73 (plus the companion BI-529) distributed by the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C., which shows the same G.P.S. 017-9750 print code, the same BI-73 form reference in the top-right corner of every page, and byte-for-byte identical section text and field layout. gov.za's own media-statements page (the fee-approval announcement) was also directly reachable.

Sources examined

What was confirmed against the source

| Source element | Field(s) / document(s) | |---|---| | Section A, Particulars of applicant (application type tick-boxes, surname, forenames, previous surname, marital status, gender, date of birth, identity number, country/place of birth, postal address, home/work/cell phone) — read directly, verbatim, from both the government scan and the mirror copy | applicationType, deliverToPostalAddress, surname, forenamesInFull, previousSurname, maritalStatus, gender, dateOfBirth, identityNumber, countryOfBirth, placeOfBirth, postalAddressLines, postalCode, homeTelephone, workTelephone, cellNumber | | Section D, Citizenship (must be completed by all applicants): other-citizenship table (country/place/means/date) and prior-travel-document question (date/number) | acquiredOtherCitizenship, otherCitizenshipCountry, otherCitizenshipPlaceObtained, otherCitizenshipMeans, otherCitizenshipDate, previouslyIssuedTravelDocument, previousTravelDocumentDate, previousTravelDocumentNumber | | Section E, Declaration (truthfulness statement, 3-month forfeiture clause, date, place, signature) | declarationTruthfulComplete, declarationDate, declarationPlace, declarationSignature | | Instruction 1(e): identity number required, ID documents submitted with application | identityDocumentCopy | | Instruction 1(f): full fingerprint set required for applicants 16+ | fingerprints (procedure sourced only from the secondary consular checklist — see below) | | Instruction 3(a): two 35mm x 45mm photographs | passportPhotos | | Instruction 2: fees payable in cash at a Home Affairs office; gov.za fee-approval statement for the ZAR 600 domestic amount | applicationFee | | Section C (parental consent for a minor) exists on the form but is explicitly scoped out — this document is first-time-adult only | not modeled (out of scope, stated in description) |

What is NOT yet independently verified

  • Whether Form BI-529 (Determination of Citizenship Status) is required unconditionally for every domestic first-time application, or only when the applicant's answers to Section D raise a citizenship question. The only source that lists it as a required accompanying document is a South African consular office's requirements checklist for applications lodged abroad, where citizenship questions are inherently more likely to arise; this document models it as requiredWhen acquiredOtherCitizenship: true pending confirmation from a domestic Home Affairs source.
  • The DHA-9 fingerprint-collection procedure (fingerprints document) is sourced only from the same secondary consular checklist, since it is a biometric process rather than a fillable form with a directly-citable primary source page.
  • South Africa's Smart ID Card vs. green bar-coded ID book — the identityDocumentCopy document does not distinguish between the two currently-valid identity-document formats; both are accepted per general DHA guidance, but this was not confirmed against a BI-73-specific instruction.
  • This document covers the domestic, ordinary/permanent 32-page pathway only. The Maxi, Diplomatic, Official, Crew Member, Temporary, and Emergency Passport pathways share the same BI-73 form but have their own supporting-document and fee requirements, not modeled here. Applying at a foreign mission/consulate is a separate, higher-fee process, also out of scope.

Path to a verified claim (next step)

To advance to status: verified, a reviewer applies manual-source-review-v1 (Procedure step 2) against a domestic Home Affairs office's own published checklist (rather than a consular/abroad checklist) to confirm the BI-529 and DHA-9 items above, resolves any discrepancy by shipping a new schema version (immutability — VERSIONING §3, practice Procedure step 5), and records the outcome here plus sets status: verified with a current verification.lastVerifiedAt/nextReviewBy.

Re-verification

Per the practice's Cadence, nextReviewBy is set to 2027-01-05 (6 months). Re-check the sources on or before that date and on any source.url change.

View the raw record (VERIFICATION.md)

Version history

  • 1.0.0 draft latest this page has verification record schema.json

Independent and non-affiliated

GovSchema is an independent, open-source project. This reference is not produced, reviewed, or endorsed by Department of Home Affairs, Republic of South Africa or any government. The authoritative source is always the live government form and its official instructions.