The number of people from overseas visiting South Africa in the first quarter of the year grew by 6%, compared to the same period last year.

This is according to latest data from Statistics South Africa.

In the first quarter the number of people who visited South Africa from overseas (any non-African country) was 681 677, an increase of 6.3% compared to the 641 085 who visited South Africa in the first quarter of last year.

The single biggest source of overseas visitors to South Africa in the first quarter of 2026 was the United Kingdom, with 141 019 people from Britain visiting. This was an increase of 7.7% on the number of British people who came to South Africa in the first quarter of last year.

The only other overseas country that provided more than 100 000 visitors was Germany. Between January and March 2026, the number of Germans who visited South Africa was 118 085, an increase of 22.5% compared to the same period in 2025.

The third-biggest source country for overseas visitors was the United States (US). In the first quarter of 2026 78 146 Americans visited South Africa. This was a decline of 8.5% compared to the 85 396 who came between January and March 2025.

Even though there was a slight decline in the number of American visitors to South Africa, the total number of visitors from the US was still more than the number of visitors who came from South Africa’s partners in BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The total number of visitors from these countries in the first quarter of 2026 was 53 072.

The number of overseas visitors to South Africa in the first quarter (681 677) was the highest number for the first three months of the year since 2019. Numbers declined sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number of visitors in 2021 and 2022 being 41 980 and 267 587, respectively. While visitor numbers in subsequent years have recovered to above 600 000, they are still below the figures recorded in 2018 and 2019.

In those two years the numbers of overseas visitors in the first quarter of the year were 764 294 and 715 913, respectively.

Tourism is an important economic sector for South Africa, accounting for about 5% of GDP, and for a slightly higher proportion of employed people.

It is also an important economic multiplier – for every R1 spent directly on travel and tourism, another R1.60 is added to the economy through related spending.