This paper investigates the relationship between land and household welfare in the former homelands of South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the current location as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy relies on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands since the introduction of the Native Land Act in 1913 to the end of apartheid. Because of increasing population pressure in the homelands, later arrivals were less likely to have access to land and to larger plots of land. Results show that access to land positively affects the welfare of rural households in the former homelands. This finding is confirmed by several specifications proposed to deal with the presence of potential confounding effects. Because the homelands are relatively more disadvantaged and less fertile areas, these results are likely to provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.