Written by Calvin Swemmer | Published on 6 Oct 2026 | Newcastillian News
Changes to South Africa’s Road Accident Fund legislation are being finalised, with government preparing amendments covering claims, rehabilitation, dispute resolution and the treatment of claims involving foreign nationals.
The Department of Transport confirmed the work during a briefing to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport on Tuesday, 6 October 2026.
According to Parliament’s official report on the briefing, Acting Transport Director-General Mokonyama Mathabatha told committee members that amendments were being considered in four areas: capped claims, rehabilitation, mediation and conciliation, and claims involving foreign nationals.
“All these issues are in the amendment Act that we are finalising. The Act in its current form makes the scheme not sustainable,” Mathabatha told the committee.
The announcement does not mean that RAF claim rules have already changed. The proposed amendments must still move through the legislative process, including being tabled before Parliament, before any changes can become law.
Government has also not yet provided the detailed wording of the proposed amendments, meaning it remains unclear exactly how claim caps may change, how rehabilitation would be dealt with or what mediation and conciliation procedures would ultimately look like.
The proposed changes are nevertheless significant because the Road Accident Fund provides compensation for qualifying loss or damage arising from bodily injury or death caused by the wrongful driving of motor vehicles in South Africa.
As set out in the current Road Accident Fund Act, the Fund operates under the Road Accident Fund Act 56 of 1996, which has itself been amended several times since coming into effect.
RAF documentation further explains that the existing system is fault-based, meaning compensation generally depends on injury or death arising from negligent or otherwise wrongful driving. Compensation can include matters such as medical expenses, loss of earnings, loss of support and certain general damages.
One of the more legally complicated elements now facing government involves claims submitted by foreign nationals.
The issue has been the subject of litigation after the RAF and Transport Minister introduced measures in 2022 requiring foreign claimants to provide documentary proof that they were legally present in South Africa at the time of an accident.
Those requirements included proof of identity together with documentation such as passport entry or exit stamps before certain claims would be accepted.
However, the courts subsequently found that the existing RAF Act did not contain such an immigration-status restriction.
In the Mudawo matter, the Gauteng High Court set aside provisions requiring foreign claimants to prove that they had been legally present in South Africa when an accident occurred. The court noted that the RAF Act refers to compensation for “any person” and that Parliament had not written an immigration-status limitation into the legislation.
That interpretation has continued to surface in subsequent RAF litigation.
In a June 2025 Western Cape High Court judgment involving the RAF, the court found that the existing legislative framework did not support excluding undocumented foreign nationals from RAF benefits purely on the basis of their immigration status.
A separate Gauteng High Court judgment in September 2025 also recorded that the earlier requirement compelling foreign claimants to prove lawful presence in South Africa had been reviewed and set aside.
Government’s decision to include foreign-national claims in the amendment process therefore comes against an established legal background rather than representing a change that has already been implemented.
During Tuesday’s committee meeting, questions were raised about whether people who are unlawfully present in South Africa should be able to receive RAF benefits.
However, Mathabatha’s response made clear that this issue forms only one component of a broader amendment package being developed by the Department.
The proposed legislation is also expected to deal with rehabilitation, the use of mediation and conciliation in resolving disputes, and the manner in which claims may be capped.
These areas could potentially have implications for South Africans submitting RAF claims, although the Department’s presentation did not provide enough detail to determine precisely how individual claimants would be affected.
For now, motorists and accident victims should therefore continue to work from the existing RAF legislation and claims framework rather than assuming that the rules announced for amendment are already in force.The next important step will be the publication and tabling of the proposed amendment legislation, which will provide the first detailed indication of exactly how government intends to change the RAF system and what those changes could mean for future claims.