DIRCO Ends Walk-In Apostilles on 1 September 2026 — What South African Teachers Bound for Korea Must Do Now

From 1 September 2026, DIRCO is closing its walk-in counter. In its own words: “FROM 1 SEPTEMBER 2026, THE WALK-IN SERVICE WILL BE DISCONTINUED AND ONLY CLIENTS WITH CONFIRMED BOOKINGS WILL BE ASSISTED.”

Until 31 August, five walk-ins a day are still assisted. After that, no booking means no service.

If you are a South African teacher preparing documents for a Korean E-2 visa, this changes how you plan — not whether you can go.

What replaces it

DIRCO releases 80 booking slots a day, from 08:30, every day except Wednesdays. If you have a confirmed booking and five documents or fewer, you are generally dealt with the same day.

Two things worth knowing, because most people get them wrong.

The service is free. DIRCO states plainly: “DIRCO’S LEGALISATION SERVICES ARE OFFERED FREE OF CHARGE.” Any fee you pay is for someone’s time, courier costs and queue position — never for the apostille itself. Anyone implying DIRCO charges for the stamp is misleading you.

You do not have to go yourself. A family member or friend can submit for you, as can a courier company, with a letter of authority. Registered agencies may also submit on your behalf. But note the trade-off DIRCO publishes: registered service providers should allow 1 to 2 weeks; courier submissions 3 to 4 weeks. Sending it in is slower than standing there.

The two documents Korea actually wants

For an E-2 visa you need an apostilled police clearance certificate and an apostilled degree. DIRCO accepts police clearance certificates directly. It does not accept your degree directly — it accepts an educational verification letter from SAQA, Umalusi, the DBE or QCTO.

That distinction is where most South Africans lose a month.

The mistake that costs you four weeks

DIRCO apostilles the SAQA letter, not your degree.

If you take your degree certificate to DIRCO first, you will pay for an apostille that Korean immigration will not use, then discover you still need SAQA verification, then queue again. Two apostilles, one wasted, and roughly four weeks gone.

The correct order:

1. Email verificationsletter@saqa.org.za with your full name, ID number, certified copies of your qualification and a signed consent form. Certification must be less than three months old.

2. SAQA sends a quotation. You pay. SAQA’s stated minimum turnaround is 25 working days; operators commonly report four to six weeks in practice, longer for complex or foreign qualifications.

3. Then DIRCO apostilles the SAQA letter.

Start SAQA before you do anything else. It is the longest pole in the tent and it runs in parallel with your police clearance.

Your police clearance, and the trap inside it

You will need ink fingerprints taken at a SAPS station on form SAPS 91(a). Scanned or electronic prints are rejected — the physical inked card has to reach the Criminal Record Centre in Pretoria. You will also need a certified copy of your ID or passport, certified within the last three months, and proof of payment with the correct reference. Operators consistently quote the fee at R190, though confirm the current amount with SAPS before paying.

SAPS gives an official target of around 15 working days. In practice, applicants and agents widely report six to eight weeks, sometimes longer in peak periods.

The most common reason applications come back is the simplest one: smudged, faint or incomplete fingerprints. If the print is unreadable you start again, and you lose whatever weeks you had already spent. Ask the officer to redo any print that looks light. It is worth the awkwardness.

One more detail that catches people out: uncollected certificates are destroyed after three months.

The timeline nobody tells you about

Do the arithmetic and it is uncomfortable.

SAPS police clearance — 6 to 8 weeks, often longer.

SAQA verification — 4 to 6 weeks.

DIRCO apostille — same day if booked; 1 to 2 weeks via a registered provider; 3 to 4 weeks by courier.

End to end, unassisted — four to six months.

Now the part that matters: DIRCO accepts police clearance certificates that are less than six months old.

Your clearance is aging from the day it is issued, while your degree verification is still crawling through SAQA. Run the two sequentially instead of in parallel and you can genuinely arrive at DIRCO with a certificate too old to use — and start the whole police clearance again.

Start both on the same day. That is the single most useful sentence in this article.

If you are aiming at March 2027

Korean contracts starting 1 March 2027 mean arriving in late February. Working backwards, your documents need to be finished and in hand by early January at the latest, which means starting SAPS and SAQA around October or November 2026.

If you are reading this in December wondering whether you can still make March, the honest answer is that it will be tight and depends on SAPS moving faster than usual.

What to do this week

1. Book your DIRCO slot the moment you know your date. Slots release at 08:30 and there are only 80. From 1 September there is no fallback.

2. Email SAQA today if you have not already. It is the long pole.

3. Get fingerprinted properly, not quickly.

4. Do not pay anyone who implies DIRCO charges for the apostille. DIRCO does not.

A note on where TEIK fits. Our partner schools in Korea do not hire South African teachers, so we are not able to place you ourselves — and I would rather say that plainly than let you spend weeks wondering. But South Africans are fully eligible for the E-2 visa, other recruiters do place them, and the documents above are the same wherever you end up. This guide is here because nobody else in this industry writes it down.