Appeal a negative visa decision from South Africa

With effect from Monday 31 March 2025 residents of South Africa must submit visa appeals at a Visa Application Centre (VAC), please follow the instructions below.

If you are aged 18 or over, you can appeal your own visa decision.

If you are aged under 18, the appeal must be made by your parent or legal guardian.

Follow these steps to appeal your visa decision.

(1) Letter of Appeal

Type or write a letter of appeal that states that you wish to appeal a visa decision. The letter must include your:

• Full name;
• Postal address;
• Personal email address;
• Visa Application Transaction Number.

In the letter explain in detail why you believe the decision should be changed. When doing so you should refer to the reasons the application was refused (as stated in the letter of refusal). Add any new information you believe is important. Sign and date the letter and include it with your appeal documentation.

(2) Other necessary documents

Include any other documents you believe are important for your appeal.

It is not necessary to resubmit any documents already provided with your original application.  However, should you choose to do so, these documents should be clearly separated from any documents submitted in support of the appeal.

Any documents you submit must follow the rules for visa appeal documents (see below), otherwise they cannot be considered.

(3) Passport

Please present your passport at the Visa Application Centre (VAC) for scanning.

Prepare your appeal documents carefully before you submit them. Original documents must be provided and follow the rules below:

Official letters

Letters from companies, universities, schools, colleges, etc. must be on official headed paper and show the organisations:

• Full name;
• Full postal address;
• Telephone number;
• Website address;
• Email address (Yahoo and Hotmail email addresses are not accepted);
• A contact person’s name and title/position.

Documents/letters must be translated and certified

You must provide a full and certified translation into the English or Irish language of any documents/letters not in English or Irish. Original documents/letters and the certified translations are required.

Read a longer description about  how to make a certified translation of a document.

“Any State issued official documents, such as Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, Death Certificates, Divorce Certificates that were issued by a State outside of the EEA or Switzerland, must be attested/apostilled as genuine by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the State that issued the document, in order that it can be accepted as evidence for Irish visa purposes. Such documents are required to be translated into English or Irish, if necessary. Translations done outside the EEA or Switzerland must also be attested/apostilled as genuine, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the country in which the translation occurs. Submit both the original documents and the certified translations. Translations done in the EEA or Switzerland do not need to be attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Any State issued official documents, such as Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificates, Death Certificates, Divorce Certificates that were issued by a State within the EEA or Switzerland do not require to be attested as genuine from Member States. A translation of these documents is not required where a multilingual standard form (MSF) is also provided. Such MSF forms are available from Member States on request. If an MSF is not provided by you then those documents are required to be translated into English or Irish, if necessary in order that it can be accepted as evidence for Irish visa purposes. Translations done outside the EEA or Switzerland must be attested/apostilled as genuine, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the country in which the translation occurs. Translations done in the EEA or Switzerland do not need to be attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We will also accept the Extract of a European marriage certificate, issued in accordance with the “Convention on the issue of multilingual extracts from civil status records”, as proof of a marriage within the EEA or Switzerland. Submit both the original documents and the certified translations.

When you are satisfied you have prepared the appeal, please present at the relevant Visa Application Centre (VAC) with your documents between 3pm and 4pm, Monday to Friday, no appointment is required.

We process visa appeals in the order we receive them. We make every effort to process appeals as soon as possible and we advise the applicant of the outcome when the decision is made. Processing times can differ between offices and may also vary during the year, for example at holiday periods.

We may take more time processing the appeal if we need to do a detailed assessment of family rights under the Constitution of Ireland or the European Convention on Human Rights.

Please refer to the South Africa Visa Desk webpage for decisions.

An appeals officer will consider all the documentation submitted in your appeal, as well as the documentation from your original visa application.