Website Legit Checker

Paste any web address, WhatsApp forward or Facebook link and see whether it looks like an official South African government site (SASSA, NSFAS, gov.za) or a scam pattern.

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent to grantZA or any third party. It cannot guarantee a site is safe, but it can flag the patterns that account for almost every SRD, NSFAS and NYDA scam we see in South Africa.

Check a URL

Official South African grant sites (safe to type into a browser)

Every legitimate government portal ends in .gov.za. NSFAS is the one common exception, ending in .org.za. These are the addresses to memorise:

SASSA SRD portalsrd.sassa.gov.za

SASSA main sitewww.sassa.gov.za

NSFASwww.nsfas.org.za

NYDAwww.nyda.gov.za

Home Affairswww.dha.gov.za

SARSwww.sars.gov.za

Dept of Social Developmentwww.dsd.gov.za

SA Government Serviceswww.gov.za

Scam patterns this tool flags

Wrong ending. If a "SASSA" or "SRD" URL does not end in .gov.za, it is not SASSA. Full stop.
URL shorteners. Links starting with bit.ly, t.ly, tinyurl.com, ow.ly and similar hide the real destination. SASSA never uses them.
Suspicious TLDs. Endings like .link, .click, .xyz, .top, .online, .site, .tk and .gq are common in phishing.
Look-alike domains. sassa-srd.co.za, srd-status.online, sassa370.link, srd-r370.com all mimic SASSA but are not SASSA.
Raw IP addresses. A link like http://196.24.10.11/apply instead of a domain name.
Punycode homographs. Foreign characters that look like Latin letters (e.g. xn--sass-c4a.gov.za).
HTTP instead of HTTPS. Real government portals encrypt traffic. If the padlock is missing, do not type your ID.

If a link fails this check, do this

Do not type your ID, cellphone number or bank PIN. Close the tab.
Type the real address into your browser yourself. Never trust a forwarded link, even from friends.
Report the scam link to SASSA at [email protected] or the toll-free line 0800 60 10 11.
If you have already entered details, change your online-banking password from a different device and call your bank's fraud line immediately.
For a live SRD status check, go to grantza.org.za/sassa-status or type srd.sassa.gov.za into your browser.