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SAQA verification letter for overseas work: South Africans, budget R713 and 25 working days minimum

Tips · 2026-10-12 · 10 min read

A SAQA verification letter is the South African Qualifications Authority's official letter confirming a tertiary qualification you obtained in South Africa. It is the document to get when an assessor, employer or registration body abroad wants proof that your degree or diploma is real. To request a SAQA verification letter for overseas use, email verificationsletter@saqa.org.za with the subject line "Verification Letter - Quotation", pay R713 per letter on the 2026/27 tariff and allow a minimum of 25 working days. Once you have it, DIRCO can apostille it for Australia or New Zealand.

What the SAQA verification letter proves, and what it leaves out

SAQA's individual verification letter does one job. It confirms a tertiary qualification obtained in South Africa. That is all.

It is limited to registered qualifications. Three things fall outside it:

• short courses;
• foreign qualifications, meaning anything you earned outside South Africa;
• professional designations.

So a registered degree or diploma from a South African institution is in scope. A weekend certificate, a qualification from another country and the letters a professional body puts after your name are not.

Why SAQA? SAQA says the Department of Higher Education and Training tasked it on 1 December 2019 with verifying the qualifications of graduates who want to work or study overseas. Its statement of 6 February 2020 carries a point people miss: the qualification holder must sign a consent form to start the process. Nothing moves until you have signed.

Who needs one, and who needs a different document

Start with who is asking. The letter is not a visa form. You need it when an assessing authority, employer or registration body abroad asks for verified proof of a South African tertiary qualification, or when that proof has to carry an apostille.

The second case trips up more applicants than the first. DIRCO does not authenticate original qualification certificates or diplomas, or certified copies of them. It does legalise a qualification verification letter. If someone abroad wants apostilled proof of your degree, the SAQA letter is the paper that can carry it.

Graduates are the obvious group: engineers, IT professionals, teachers and the people applying for accounting and finance jobs abroad. But SAQA does not verify every South African qualification. DIRCO spells out who verifies what:

How to request the letter: the email, the subject line, the consent form

1. Check your qualification is in scope. It must be a registered tertiary qualification obtained in South Africa, not a short course, a foreign qualification or a professional designation.
2. Read the document list of whoever is asking. Find out exactly what they want and whether the letter must be apostilled. Each Australian assessing authority has its own procedures, timeframes and charges.
3. Write to the one address SAQA uses. Email verificationsletter@saqa.org.za with the subject "Verification Letter - Quotation". SAQA says requests sent to any other address are not attended to.
4. Sign the consent form. SAQA says qualification holders must sign one to start the process.
5. Pay the tariff on your quotation. It is R713 per verification letter on the 2026/27 tariff.
6. Sit out the turnaround. SAQA gives a minimum of 25 working days.
7. Take the letter to DIRCO if it has to be apostilled, then send it where it needs to go.

The current instructions sit on the individual verification page of SAQA's website, under verification services. Open it on the day you apply. That page decides what SAQA will act on, not a forum thread.

What it costs: R713 now, R742 on the next tariff

SAQA publishes its verification tariffs ahead of time. The revised tariffs came in from 1 April 2026. A verification letter is R713 in 2026/27 and R742 in 2027/28, on the standard service.

The gap between the two years is R29, so this is not a fee worth racing. The tariff is charged per verification letter: a couple who each need one are looking at R1,426 on the 2026/27 tariff. Your quotation is the amount that counts.

The paper trail, with official fees and waiting times side by side:

The 25 working day wait: plan everything else around it

SAQA gives the turnaround as a minimum of 25 working days. Read the word minimum twice: that is five full working weeks if nothing goes wrong. The tariff sheet describes the standard service as 6 to 25 working days, but do not plan on the short end.

The sensible order is slow documents first, expiring documents last:

• SAQA letter first. Of these three, it has the longest stated wait.
• Police clearance later. SAPS says a PCC takes approximately 15 working days. DIRCO legalises only original PCCs not older than six months, and Immigration New Zealand wants a police certificate less than 6 months old when the visa application goes in. Apply too early and it can go stale while SAQA is still working.
• DIRCO last. Legalise the SAQA letter and the other originals once they are all in your hands.

For Australia, the letter is one input into a bigger process. Some applicants for the 482 visa must have a mandatory skills assessment, started before the visa application is lodged or the application is not valid. The Home Affairs skills assessment page shows how to find the authority for your occupation, and our Skills in Demand (482) visa guide for South Africans shows where the assessment fits.

For New Zealand, NZQA runs its own check, the International Qualification Assessment (IQA), which compares a qualification from abroad with New Zealand qualifications. NZQA puts average wait times at 10 weeks. See NZQA's IQA application page for what it wants from you, and our AEWV guide for South Africans for the visa itself.

Once the letter arrives: the DIRCO apostille

South Africa, Australia and New Zealand all belong to the Apostille Convention, so DIRCO puts an Apostille Certificate on South African official documents headed to either country. Its legalisation services page lists qualification verification letters, SAQA's included, among the documents it legalises directly. DIRCO does not charge for this.

Three rules to keep straight:

• Hand in the original SAQA letter. A certified copy will be turned away, and so will the degree certificate itself.
• Do not laminate the letter. DIRCO does not accept laminated documents.
• Finish this before you fly. South African embassies and consulates abroad cannot issue apostille certificates, only certificates of authentication.

DIRCO ended its walk-in service on 1 September 2026 and now works by online booking. We have already set out how DIRCO's apostille booking system works, slots and processing times included, so we will not repeat it here.

Hold a trade certificate? SAQA is not your stop

If you qualified as an artisan in Mzansi, your proof is the trade certificate, and the QCTO verifies it, not SAQA. For emigration, a certificate holder can apply directly to the QCTO for a letter of authentication. The QCTO says a minimum fee is payable but its page gives no amount, so get the figure from the QCTO itself before you pay anyone.

Trades are usually assessed again in Australia, often through Trades Recognition Australia. TRA says its offshore program emails an outcome approximately 15 weeks after your complete evidence is in. Our post on TRA's Offshore Skills Assessment Program for South African trades has the trade list and the costs.

Common mistakes South Africans make with the SAQA letter

• Emailing the wrong address or improvising the subject line. SAQA does not attend to requests sent anywhere other than verificationsletter@saqa.org.za, and the subject is "Verification Letter - Quotation".
• Arriving at DIRCO with the degree certificate. DIRCO does not authenticate original qualification certificates, diplomas or certified copies.
• Starting after the job offer. With a minimum of 25 working days at SAQA and a DIRCO visit after that, an employer waiting on your papers will feel every week.
• Getting the police clearance first. Its six-month clock starts ticking while the slower letter is still in the queue.
• Treating the letter as a skills assessment. It confirms the qualification. Home Affairs only accepts a skills assessment from the relevant assessing authority for your occupation.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a SAQA verification letter cost in 2026?

SAQA's tariff is R713 per verification letter for 2026/27, with the revised tariffs in place from 1 April 2026. The 2027/28 tariff is R742 per letter. The quotation SAQA sends you confirms the amount that applies to your request.

How long does a SAQA verification letter take?

SAQA says the turnaround is a minimum of 25 working days. Its tariff describes the standard service as 6 to 25 working days, but plan on at least 25 and add time for the DIRCO apostille if the letter must be legalised.

Which email address do I use to request a SAQA verification letter?

Send the request to verificationsletter@saqa.org.za with the subject "Verification Letter - Quotation". SAQA says requests sent to any other address are not attended to, so writing to a general inbox or a staff member only costs you time.

Can DIRCO apostille my degree certificate instead of a SAQA letter?

No. DIRCO does not authenticate original qualification certificates or diplomas, and it does not authenticate certified copies either. It legalises qualification verification letters, such as the one SAQA issues, so the letter has to come first.

Does SAQA verify trade certificates or N Diplomas?

No. DIRCO says trade certificates are verified by the QCTO, SETA certificates by the relevant SETA, and N4, N5, N6 and N Diploma certificates by the Department of Higher Education and Training. SAQA's letter covers registered tertiary qualifications obtained in South Africa.

Key takeaways

• The SAQA verification letter confirms a registered tertiary qualification obtained in South Africa. Short courses, foreign qualifications and professional designations are out.
• One address and one subject line: verificationsletter@saqa.org.za, "Verification Letter - Quotation". You sign a consent form to start.
• R713 per letter on the 2026/27 tariff, and a minimum of 25 working days. Request it before the police clearance.
• DIRCO apostilles the original letter, never the degree certificate or a certified copy, and charges no fee.
• Trade certificates go to the QCTO, SETA certificates to the SETA, and N4 to N6 and N Diploma certificates to the Department of Higher Education and Training.

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