The proposed Vaal Aerotropolis, an international airport and freight hub planned on 13 farm portions near Vanderbijlpark in Gauteng, is at the scoping stage of its environmental approval, not close to being cleared. Developer Vaal Aerozone (Pty) Ltd published its background information document and a scoping report for public comment on 30 September 2026, and comments are due by 2 December 2026, according to the project page of its environmental consultant, Prism EMS Africa. The headline cost depends on whose number is used: media reports quote R22.6 billion for the whole development, while the scoping report puts the capital cost of the first phase alone at R32.7 billion.
What is actually being applied for
The application is for environmental authorisation under the National Environmental Management Act and a water use licence under the National Water Act, and it covers Phase 1 only. The competent authorities are the Gauteng Department of Environment, which carries the reference GAUT 002/25-26/E0240, and the Department of Water and Sanitation, reference WU40964. Prism’s page describes the process as a combined scoping and environmental impact assessment, with the scoping report open for review from 30 September to 2 December 2026. Prism EMS Africa is the independent environmental assessment practitioner. Some press reports call it “EMS Africa”, but the developer’s own documents name Prism EMS Africa.
The site is described in the developer’s background information document as a total of 13 farm portions in the Emfuleni Local Municipality, about 9 km west of the N1 and Vanderbijlpark, in the Sedibeng District. The full aerotropolis is planned in three phases over 60 years. The scoping report says Phase 2 is expected to start in 2048, when passenger demand reaches about 25 million a year, and Phase 3 in 2068, with capacity for 45 million passengers and 872,000 tonnes of cargo a year and a second runway.
What Phase 1 would include
Phase 1 covers roughly 3,545 hectares, divided into 29 erven, within a total development boundary of about 11,400 hectares across all three phases. The scoping report lists a 4.2 km runway designed for ICAO Code F aircraft, two rapid-exit taxiways, a passenger terminal with capacity for 7.2 million passengers a year and a cargo terminal able to handle 150,000 tonnes of freight a year. The airport city would have a 90-room hotel, premium office space and medical consulting rooms. An agri-zone would have climate-controlled greenhouses, a hydroponic farm, a live-animal holding platform for air transport, a tissue culture facility and export packhouses. A trade zone would house manufacturing, warehousing and offices alongside an airside freight area of about 26 hectares.
Supporting infrastructure includes a maintenance hangar, parking, boreholes and a water treatment works, a wastewater treatment works, stormwater systems, electricity supply and a fuel farm with three 2,000 cubic metre tanks, 6,000 cubic metres in total. Two items are explicitly outside this application: the solar PV facility that is planned as part of Phase 1, and external road construction and upgrades such as a possible second N1 interchange.
Two sets of cost and jobs figures
BusinessTech reported on 27 October that, according to the Sedibeng District Municipality, the aerotropolis is expected to cost R22.6 billion, with R12.2 billion for the airport itself, and to create 12,000 jobs during construction and 6,000 permanent jobs. The scoping report, published by the developer’s consultant, gives different numbers for Phase 1: estimated construction capital expenditure of R32.7 billion, operating expenditure of R7.7 billion, about 118,498 formal and informal jobs during construction and 19,838 once operating. It also projects R82.2 billion in business sales and R36.1 billion in GDP during construction.
We cannot reconcile the two sets. They may use different scopes, dates or definitions, and the scoping report does not contain the R22.6 billion or R12.2 billion figures. Both are projections from parties with an interest in the project, and neither is an approved budget. BusinessTech also reports that Citibank South Africa pledged R1.38 billion in financing for the first phase in 2023, which is far short of either cost estimate.
Timeline: approvals come before any construction date
BusinessTech reports construction of the first phase is planned for 2029 to 2031, with operations from 2032, depending on approvals. We did not find those dates in the scoping report or background document, so they rest on the media reports. The scoping report sets out the statutory steps still ahead. After the 60-day comment period, comments are recorded in a comments and responses report and included in the final scoping report submitted to the department. The department then has 43 days to accept or refuse it. If accepted, an environmental impact assessment report is prepared, circulated for a 30-day comment period and submitted, after which the department has 107 days to grant or refuse authorisation. Nothing has been granted.
Environmental issues the report flags
The scoping report says parts of the site fall within a Critical Biodiversity Area and an Ecological Support Area under the Gauteng Conservation Plan and within the historical extent of the Soweto Highveld Grassland, a threatened ecosystem. It says the national screening tool rates aquatic biodiversity, meaning rivers and wetlands, as very high sensitivity, and that wetland and aquatic assessments will be done for the next stage. Graves and buildings older than 60 years were found on site, so a heritage impact assessment is required.
On farmland, the report says most of the 11,400 hectares is productive or potentially productive agricultural land and that converting it is “a permanent and, for practical purposes, irreversible change” in land use. It argues the agri-zone is a mitigation. These are the developer’s own findings at the scoping stage, before the specialist studies are finished.
Why it matters to business
The report argues that OR Tambo and Rand airports face growth constraints and that the Vaal site could take cargo aircraft that OR Tambo and Lanseria find hard to accommodate. Whether airlines or freight forwarders would use it is not known, and no airline or operator has been named. Freight and logistics firms, construction and engineering suppliers and Vaal-area landowners are the groups with the most to watch. For wider context see our reports on Airports Company South Africa’s results, on the Civil Aviation Amendment Act and on infrastructure investment in Johannesburg, and our Energy & Infrastructure section. Details of the process, including how to register as an interested and affected party, are on the Prism EMS Africa project page, read on 29 October 2026.
