EXPLAINER: Worldwide migrants, jobs and crime in South Africa: What do the numbers present?
Amid rising hostility in the direction of worldwide migrants, anti-migrant protests have unfold throughout South Africa in 2026. Some have concerned intimidation, the denial of entry to public providers and deadly violence.
False info has flourished on this local weather, and Africa Test has been monitoring it reside.
After greater than a decade of fact-checking claims about migration, we have seen the identical broad narratives return in numerous types. They form public debate, deepen social divisions and cut back South Africa’s complicated issues to easy explanations.
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South Africa does face actual migration challenges, together with weak border administration, asylum backlogs and poor enforcement of labour and enterprise legal guidelines.
However they don’t show the narratives examined on this explainer: that migrants are current in vastly better numbers than official estimates present, dominate the financial system or are mainly liable for crime and failing public providers.
| Narrative: Tens of tens of millions of migrants reside in South Africa however aren’t counted in official statistics as a result of they’re undocumented.What the proof reveals: This narrative depends on unsure or false info that inflates the variety of migrants in South Africa, legally or in any other case. The figures might differ, however by worldwide requirements migrants don’t make up an unusually giant share of South Africa’s inhabitants. This doesn’t rule out increased migrant focus in cities comparable to Johannesburg. |
The 2022 census is the newest performed by Statistics South Africa. It estimated that 2.4 million migrants lived within the nation. That was about 3.9% of a inhabitants of 62 million, near the international common of three.7% estimated by the United Nations for 2024.
But a lot increased figures proceed to flow into.
In 2020, then Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba falsely claimed that South Africa had 15 million “undocumented foreigners”. He withdrew the determine days later, however it continued to unfold underneath the hashtag “#15MillionIllegalMigrants“.
In July 2026, Mashaba stated there have been “3.1 million undocumented unlawful international immigrants” within the nation and attributed the determine to Stats SA. However the quantity he cited refers to individuals with out “proof of authorized id”, a class that features many South African residents.
Africa Test has additionally debunked the declare that South Africa has 26 million migrants, which might imply that 43%, or greater than two in each 5 individuals within the nation, have been migrants.
Undocumented migrants will not be routinely excluded
In its surveys, StatsSA solely asks whether or not an individual has moved, not whether or not they complied with immigration legal guidelines in doing so. This implies undocumented migrants will not be excluded from the census by definition.
Census staff go to each residence in a set space and likewise depend the homeless and cellular populations. This helps to make sure that people who find themselves not in a house on the evening of the census will not be excluded. A “post-enumeration survey” is then used to regulate for individuals or households which will have been missed.
“As a result of we don’t gather info on migratory standing, we can’t say what quantity of those are irregular migrants, however we are able to say that they’re a subset of those whole migrant inventory numbers which have been referenced,” Diego Itarrulde, Stats SA’s chief director for demography and inhabitants statistics, informed Africa Test.
The 2022 census had limitations, partly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted information assortment. However, Itarrulde stated, migrants weren’t undercounted “to the extent of tens of tens of millions”.
Different official information factors in the identical course. Stats SA’s 2022/23 revenue and expenditure survey estimated a migrant inhabitants of three.1 million, or 5.1% of the nation’s inhabitants.
All inhabitants estimates carry some uncertainty. However no credible proof reveals that a number of unbiased estimates have missed tens of tens of millions of migrants.
Figures of 15 million or extra additionally don’t reconcile with continental information. The United Nations estimated that 29 million worldwide migrants lived in the entire of Africa in 2024. As Itarrulde put it, “to recommend that there are a further half or extra of this quantity in South Africa”, along with the migrants recorded by official statistics, “shouldn’t be a reputable declare”.
| Narrative: Migrants dominate elements of the financial system and drive unemployment amongst South African residents by “taking” jobs.What the proof reveals: Nationwide information doesn’t assist broad claims that migrants dominate the financial system. Some claims might come up from seen concentrations of migrant staff or enterprise homeowners particularly locations and trades, however these patterns can’t be utilized to the financial system as a complete. And quite than hurting employment, proof suggests migrants can enhance prospects for native staff. |
Typically this narrative includes claims that migrants make up the bulk of staff in a specific sector. In 2020, then finance minister Tito Mboweni claimed that “virtually 100%” of restaurant staff have been “non-South African”. Official information put the determine beneath 10%.
The next 12 months, member of parliament Vuyolwethu Zungula stated that 70% of the casual financial system was “within the palms of non-citizens”. The determine seems to have taken proof a few slim a part of casual retail and utilized it to your complete financial system.
Related incorrect claims have been made about the general public sector. Extra broadly, migrants are sometimes blamed for taking jobs that will in any other case have gone to locals and rising South Africa’s excessive unemployment charge, which stood at virtually 33% within the first quarter of 2026.
Utilizing tax information, Dr Justin Visagie of Wits College’s Southern Centre for Inequality Research, estimated that in 2024 migrants held about 415,000 of South Africa’s 11 million formal jobs, or 3.7%.
Within the June 2026 transient, Visagie admitted the casual financial system was ” a lot more durable” to measure as it’s, by “its nature, much less seen”. Utilizing 2022 Stats SA information, he estimated that foreign-born staff made up about 18.3% of casual employment, or roughly 700,000 staff on the higher finish.
He stated that whereas some policymakers may even see this as excessive sufficient to create competitors with locals, many casual jobs present little greater than “working poverty” and are “hardly a game-changer for unemployment and poverty.”
Migration shouldn’t be a predominant driver of unemployment
The obtainable analysis doesn’t assist migration as a serious reason behind South Africa’s unemployment. Its results might differ throughout sectors and communities, however a number of research discover that migration can create jobs and enhance financial exercise.
A 2020 assessment of 29 research on migrant entrepreneurs in Africa, 21 of them performed in South Africa, discovered that they contributed to employment, financial exercise and poverty discount. The authors described broad complaints about “job-taking by foreigners” in South Africa as “baseless”, partly as a result of migrant-owned companies additionally typically employed South Africans.
A 2018 World Financial institution report reached the same conclusion. Utilizing information from 1996 to 2011, it estimated that every migrant employee was related, on common, with about two extra jobs for South Africans.
The report gave two causes for this. Migrants typically carry totally different abilities and usually tend to begin their very own companies, so they might not compete instantly with locals for a similar jobs. Their employment and companies also can have wider “multiplier results”, rising productiveness, wages and financial exercise.
Nevertheless, the report used information collected between 1996 and 2011, and Africa Test couldn’t discover a newer research of comparable scope.
Unemployment has broader financial causes
Migrants’ comparatively small nationwide inhabitants share made it unlikely that migration might clarify broad social failures by itself, in line with unbiased economist and monetary journalist Duma Gqubule.
He informed Africa Test that employment is extra carefully linked to broader financial circumstances, comparable to GDP development, than to migration. For instance, a rustic can have a excessive migrant workforce and nonetheless have a low unemployment charge.
Gqubule pointed to Malaysia, the place, as of 2024, common migrants with non permanent work permits made up 7% of its whole inhabitants and 14% of its workforce. By some estimates, if all migrants, no matter immigration standing, are counted, they might make up over 38% of the workforce. Regardless of this, Malaysia’s unemployment charge was simply 3% in late 2025.
Migration might have an effect on some occupations and communities greater than others. However South Africa’s unemployment disaster has a lot broader financial causes, Gqubule stated. “We should blame the federal government for mismanaging the financial system.”
| Narrative: Migrants drive crime and place an unfair burden on public providers.What the proof reveals: The obtainable proof doesn’t present that migrants commit crime at disproportionately increased charges. Nor does it assist claims that they’re a predominant reason behind strain on public assets. |
Africa Test has debunked a number of claims blaming migrants for crimes starting from the theft of site visitors lights to the widely-reported deaths of youngsters in a South African tavern.
Different claims painting migrants extra broadly as harmful or aggressive. In a single instance, Gayton McKenzie, chief of the Patriotic Alliance political get together, shared a picture of a closely armed man in a battle zone in Somalia and falsely claimed he was an immigrant threatening South Africans in Soweto.
Dependable crime information is restricted, as we discovered once we examined the declare that “unlawful foreigners” contribute “massively” to crime statistics. We cited the Pretoria-based Institute for Safety Research, which stated that though South African police report nationality when making arrests, this information has by no means been made publicly obtainable.
Conviction information affords some perception. From 2017 to November 2021, undocumented immigrants accounted for simply over 2% of all individuals convicted of crimes in South Africa.
Extra current jail information offered to parliament by the minister of correctional providers in February 2025 confirmed that worldwide migrants made up 12.4% of sentenced inmates. That’s 12,676 out of 102,444 individuals. Greater than 65% of them had been sentenced just for immigration offences.
The info is incomplete, however it doesn’t assist the narrative that migrants commit crime at disproportionately increased charges.
What the figures present about public providers
Claims that migrants place an extreme burden on public providers are additionally frequent. In 2025, varied public figures, together with representatives of the Highway Accident Fund (RAF), considerably overstated how a lot the fund had paid to migrants, claiming it was “being bled dry”.
In our investigation, we quoted Songezo Zibi, chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, who stated simply over 1% of RAF claims paid in 2024/5 went to non-citizens. Talking about unprocessed claims, he stated: “It will probably’t be foreigners, as a result of the amount is simply too small. There are different issues within the RAF.”
An identical declare has been made about faculties. In January 2026, the fundamental schooling division stated non-citizens accounted for simply 1.8% of pupils in public faculties, difficult claims that migrants have been taking locations meant for South Africans.
Healthcare has grow to be one other flashpoint.
Anti-migrant teams in South Africa have tried to dam migrants from utilizing public clinics and different healthcare providers, claiming they overwhelm the well being system. In late 2025, Zandile Dabula, the previous chief of anti-migrant group Operation Dudula, informed the BBC: “We can’t cater for the entire globe. We do not have sufficient.”
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Worldwide support organisation Medical doctors With out Borders known as these actions “extremely distressing and unacceptable”, warning that they put individuals’s well being and lives in danger.
The proof doesn’t present that migrants use healthcare at disproportionate charges. In lots of circumstances they have to pay for remedy, even at public amenities.
Migrants can also be much less prone to search care. Analysis suggests that individuals who migrate are sometimes more healthy than those that don’t. This is as a result of shifting, and benefiting economically from it, could be more durable for individuals sick. This is called the “wholesome immigrant impact“. The sample additionally seems in South Africa, the place migrants are extra seemingly to report being in good well being.
Migrant welfare organisation the Scalabrini Centre stated in 2019 that migrant and refugee use of South Africa’s well being system was most likely broadly consistent with their share of the final inhabitants, which it gave as 3%.
Nationwide averages can conceal strain particularly municipalities or amenities. However poor planning, staffing shortages and unequal useful resource allocation additionally form demand. The obtainable proof doesn’t assist blaming migrants for the broader failure of public providers.
False claims and collective blame can result in hurt
False claims about migration are sometimes amplified by public figures, deepening hostility and rising the danger of hurt to migrants.
Forward of South Africa’s 2024 election, Human Rights Watch warned that politicians have been utilizing migrants as “pawns” to “rating votes” and that scapegoating might “all too simply spark violence”.
Sasha Stevenson, govt director of the South African human rights organisation Part 27, informed Africa Test: “Blaming migrants for the issues in South Africa’s service supply offers a straightforward scapegoat that hides the truth: the systematic disinvestment in social providers together with well being and schooling, and widespread corruption and theft.”
She added that false claims not solely put individuals in danger but additionally shift blame away from these liable for fixing these failures.
With native authorities elections due in November 2026, everybody ought to confirm claims earlier than sharing them. Public figures and others with giant audiences carry a fair better accountability.
Observe: For a fuller rationalization of the phrases used right here, see Africa Test’s factsheet on the right way to speak about migration. However listed here are some essential phrases, briefly:
A migrant is somebody who has moved away from the place they often reside. This explainer focuses on worldwide migrants, who transfer from one nation to a different.
Irregular migration refers to motion that doesn’t adjust to a rustic’s migration legal guidelines or rules. Individuals who migrate on this method are thought-about “irregular” or “undocumented” migrants. Phrases like “unlawful” immigrant are discouraged as a result of they’re inaccurate and could be dangerous.
