The US is set to implement a “visa integrity fee” within the next few months. Critics have denounced it as a “tourist tariff” that will be detrimental to the industry and overall economy, yet in spirit it is closer to a visa bail bond — a zero-interest deposit that secures compliance, not entry.
Much like a defendant who pays bail to guarantee a return to court, US visa applicants will pay $250 and undertake to comply with the conditions and validity of the visa that is granted. Comply and you reclaim what was yours; breach the terms, and the state pockets your pledge. The logic is transactional, as risk is shifted from the government to the individual.
Whether in the US or other jurisdictions, applying this mechanism demands a careful assessment of whether the balance between deterrence and fairness truly serves the public interest or merely erects another barrier dressed as policy innovation.
This risk-based, compliance-driven and self-funding logic is not new to SA. Until May 2014 the SA immigration system applied a repatriation deposit model. This was a refundable financial deposit required from certain classes of visa applicants that functioned to guarantee that sufficient funds for repatriation to their home countries, should it become necessary, were secured in advance.
In theory, the arrangement was designed to be financially conservative and to enforce proper conduct. In practice, it collapsed under the weight of bureaucratic ineptitude and opacity.
Past failure
Poor record keeping, obscure refund processes and lengthy time frames were the clear manifestation of the failure of the model due to its maladministration. Applicants faced Kafkaesque processes to recoup fees when they were eligible to do so. Litigation under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act was rampant, underscoring the department of home affairs’ breach of its duty to provide lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair administration.
By 2014, under then-minister Malusi Gigaba, the department conceded that the policy was untenable. Repatriation deposits were repealed and bans were introduced in the place of fines for overstays. Home affairs also entered into a service agreement with VFS Global, in effect juxtaposing a “middle man” to interact with the public on all immigration-related affairs from application to payment intake.
However, the threat of future exclusion (declaration of undesirability) is often ineffective against those who have no intention of returning legally. The reality is that the shift did not contribute to revenue generation, nor did it offset the escalating cost of removals, and nor did it provide an effective deterrent for those who generally have no intention to comply with legislative provisions and boundaries in the first place.
Future opportunity
Yet, that failure should not completely blind us to the concept’s potential merit. As SA’s immigration system remains under pressure to manage enforcement within the structural resource constraints home affairs has been grappling with, could it be worthwhile to reconsider a more holistic approach to funding enforcement? More importantly, does SA now have the digital tools and administrative capacity to do so lawfully, efficiently and equitably?
Fast forward to 2025. Under new minister Leon Schreiber home affairs is undergoing its most ambitious modernisation yet: biometric exit controls, e-visa platforms and digitised payment systems. For the first time SA is on the verge of a modernisation that could create the infrastructure to implement a compliance deposit with transparency, efficiency and auditability.
A system where deposits are lodged electronically via secure payment gateways and held in a ring-fenced escrow account, tracked against a traveller’s unique biometric profile. On verified exit, the refund is triggered automatically — no manual intervention, no missing files.
The process could mirror the SA Revenue Service’s automated refund architecture. The technological barriers that doomed the 2014 model would no longer subsist.
Visa compliance bonds
The US’s visa integrity fee is a broad instrument: it is set to apply across most nonimmigrant visa categories, including tourist (B-1/B-2), work, student (F) and exchange visas (J). However, it will not apply to travellers from visa waiver programme countries such as the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia — or to holders of A and G diplomatic visas. Most Canadians and Bermudans are also exempt.
In practice, the $250 surcharge falls on applicants from Mexico, India, Brazil, China and, notably, Southern African Development Community (Sadc) member states, with other nonvisa waiver programme nations. These are the same regions that are already bearing the brunt of compliance hurdles and financial exclusion.
The asymmetry is striking. According to recent reports, African applicants alone may have spent about $67.5m in 2024 on Schengen visa applications that were ultimately refused, a staggering cost for paperwork that yielded nothing. This highlights the financial inequities embedded in global mobility systems, in which those least able to absorb the cost shoulder the greatest burden.
SA’s context is distinct but carries its own vulnerabilities. Higher risks on visa and entry compliance often emanate from neighbouring Sadc countries, where leaking borders and systemic corruption have historically undermined enforcement efforts whether through illegal entry, overstays, noncompliance or fraudulent documents.
In this landscape, the idea of a visa compliance bond mechanism presents itself not as a policy prescription but as a point of reflection. International practice suggests that calibrated mechanisms, especially when tiered to risk indicators such as overstay patterns or compliance history, may balance deterrence with fairness.
Food for thought
As such tools resurface globally their relevance to SA’s fiscal and enforcement challenges is hard to ignore. SA spends millions annually on deportations while grappling with porous borders and limited enforcement capacity. Budgets remain under strain, and current deterrents such as overstay bans are largely symbolic for those with no intention of returning legally.
SA abandoned the repatriation deposit not because it was conceptually flawed but because it was operationally unworkable in an analogue era. The conditions that forced the repeal no longer exist under Schreiber’s digital reforms.
The US visa integrity fee may be divisive, but it underscores an unavoidable truth: in a world of constrained resources and growing mobility, immigration control cannot be funded on goodwill alone.
• Pizzocri is CEO at Eisenberg & Associates.
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