Renewing Car & Drivers Licences During South Africa’s Lockdown
The South African Department of Transport has published the new rules and regulations for renewing your car license during the national lockdown.
The new regulations have stated that the grace period for renewing your car license and drivers’ license will be extended to 30 days. This means that the government has given us a grace period of 30 days after the lockdown officially ends. While we are looking at your car, if you have been wondering how you can save some money try this 5-minute online car insurance comparison, where you can see premiums from different companies side-by-side:
The biggest changes are the following:
- During the lockdown if the following expires: driving licence, car licence disk, temporary permits, roadworthy certificates and professional driving permits, they will be valid for an extra 30 days after the lockdown ends, unless stated otherwise by the minister.
- For a motor trade number licence the grace period has been extended to 6 months after the expiry date unless this is deemed otherwise by the minister
- Driving licence testing centres and vehicle testing centres will stay closed during the full lockdown period and will start reopening slowly as the levels of lockdown decrease.
NOTE: these extra grace periods only apply to those licenses that expire during the lockdown. If your car license or driver’s license expired before the lockdown started (27 March) then the 30-day grace period would not apply to you and you will be liable for fines.
How to renew your car license during the South African lockdown:
Picture this… the lockdown has ended and now everyone needs to go renew their vehicle licence disks because we were only given 30 days grace period.
The queues are long, wrapping around the building and it takes you hours to get to the front, not to mention the lack of chairs so you have been standing all day long. Sound like a good time? Yeah, I imagine myself doing something a little different once the lockdown ends and it includes cocktails not traffic officials.
To avoid all the madness and wasting your time which we now know we need not take for granted, we suggest using a company called ChatBack. (ChatBack’s services are currently only available for the Gauteng based consumers but are rolling out for other cities over the next couple of months).
This way you can avoid going to the licencing department altogether and simply renew your car’s licence through WhatsApp. The licensing department has put all renewals on hold until the lockdown is over but ChatBack is still working and will get everything ready for processing for the day the lockdown in South Africa ends.
Here’s how it works:
- Click Here to WhatsApp ChatBack (all you need is your registration number)
- Pay R199 + your registration fee
- You get your car’s licence delivered within in 5 days (after the lockdown ends that is)
The EXTRA’s that you get when using ChatBack, did someone say vouchers!?
- A GetBack booklet with over R600 worth of grocery vouchers redeemable at any Checkers or Shoprite
- Additional vouchers worth R2 000 that you can get online. Go to the back of the booklet to find out how
- An exclusive 20% discount for Streamline scratch and dent repairs.
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