This article explores the policy implications of internationalisation of higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. It uses several of the country's policy documents and analyses what they infer about the process of internationalisation and its role in the transformation of South African higher education and society. The particular policy documents used as points of analysis have been chosen because they are crucial policy documents in South Africa that continue to guide higher education in that country and have particular relevance for the process of internationalisation. Two key interrelated arguments are made in this article. One argument is that internationalisation, as it is defined herein, is a policy issue that has failed to gain significant recognition in higher education policy circles in South Africa; the second is that its policy importance is evidenced implicitly in at least three of the country's transformational policy priorities.