Citizenship by Birth — born in RSA to permanent-resident parents, resident to majority (s2(3))

A person born in the Republic to parents who have been admitted for permanent residence, and who is not already a citizen, qualifies to be a South African citizen by birth if he or she has lived in the Republic continuously from birth until becoming a major (age 18) and the birth is registered under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 51 of 1992 (s2(3) of the Citizenship Act 88 of 1995). Entitlement crystallises at majority rather than at birth.

• The s2(3) PR-parent route conditions are CONJUNCTIVE and maturity-gated: the child must have lived in the Republic continuously from birth until majority (age 18) AND have a registered birth. Entitlement therefore crystallises at majority, not at birth.

Timeline: delayed. Document burden: medium. Required: residency, physical presence.

Primary statute: SA Citizenship Act 88 of 1995 s2(3). Operative 2013-01-01–present. Authority: Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

• DISCONFIRMATION (no pure jus soli post-2013): mere birth in the Republic does NOT confer citizenship. A SA-born child of non-citizen parents acquires citizenship only via a qualifying channel — s2(3) PR-parent-plus-lived-to-majority, the s2(2) statelessness safeguard, or the s4(3) deferred naturalisation claim at majority. The pre-2013 birth rules differed (era-split). - Diplomatic-immunity children — CURRENT POSITION from the decoded post-2010 s2: the section as substituted by Act 17 of 2010 contains NO express diplomatic/consular carve-out. The reason is structural — post-2013 there is no pure jus soli to carve out from: birth in the Republic alone does not confer citizenship. A child born in RSA to foreign diplomats/officials therefore acquires SA citizenship only through the same qualifying channels as any other child of non-citizens — s2(1)(b) (a SA-citizen parent), s2(2) (statelessness safeguard, if the child has no other nationality/right), or s2(3) (parents admitted for permanent residence + lived-to-majority). Diplomats' children, who ordinarily hold their sending state's nationality, fall outside s2(1)-(3) on the facts, so an express exclusion is unnecessary. (The original 1995 Act's express diplomatic carve-out was dropped in the 2010 substitution; that earlier text is NOT primary-decoded here and is carried as context only.)