A South African passport doesn’t get one far in Europe or North America, but it is fairly welcome across most of Africa, South and Central America and parts of Asia.Â
According to visaguide.com, as of December 2023 South Africans can travel to 74 countries without a visa, 26 countries with an e-visa, 26 countries with a visa upon arrival and 97 countries with a visa that requires application in person. That’s 100 countries we can arrive at announced. which isn’t bad at all.
Trying to find a definitive and up to date list that also includes the lengths of stay allowed is proving difficult, but here are some decent leads.
I’ve used this wikipedia entry, but I can confirm straight away that some of this info is definitely wrong (eg Moz for 3 months), but it is a good starting point. Unfortunately the table is a bit messy and doesn’t order neatly with stays recorded variously as 180 days or 6 months, for example).
Here’s my list of standout countries offering long-term stays:
 12 months
Georgia tops the list by a long way as the only place to offer a full year.
180 days / 6 months
90 days / 3 months
Most of these need to be confirmed so I have bolded the definites instead of marking TBCs everywhere.
- Benin
- Argentina
- Bahamas
- Bolivia
- Botswana
- Chile
- Costa Rica
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Cuba
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- Gambia
- Ghana (no visa; 90 days cumulative for 1 year, else visa needed)
- Grenada
- Guatemala
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Honduras
- India
- Ireland
- Israel
- Japan
- Kiribati
- Lesotho
- Madagascar
- Malawi (no visa)
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Namibia (no visa)
- Nepal (no visa)
- Nicaragua
- Paraguay
- Russia
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Suriname
- Tanzania (no visa)
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Zambia (no visa)
- Zimbabwe
45 days
- Comoros
- Tajikistan
 30 days