Indian visa explanation

Do I need a visa for my trip to India? All tourists and business travellers with British or Irish nationality must apply for an Indian visa before departure. The same applies to travellers with the nationality of another European country, such as France or Switzerland. Children need their own visas as well. For some years now, going to the consulate or embassy is no longer required for a visa application. The application can be made entirely online, and will be sent by e-mail after granting. You only need to print it out and take it with you on your trip.

Which visa type do I need? If you are travelling to India for a holiday or business trip, you can make use of the electronic visa. This so-called “e-visa India” has the lowest cost and fastest processing time. Tourists can use the "e-Tourist" variant, while business travellers can use the “e-Business” variant. Both electronic visas can be applied for with the same online application form. You can submit an Indian visa application here.

Do you want to stay in India longer than the validity period of the e-visa? Or do you not meet the requirements? Then you need to apply for a physical visa, which will be inserted into your passport by a consular employee. This comes with higher costs and longer delivery times.

Validity of the India visa
With the online application form on this website you have the choice of two e-visas for India. You can use the visa with a validity of 30 for a stay in India of up to 30 consecutive days. The other visa is valid for one year. In that case, you pay € 74,95 and you can stay in India up to 90 days per trip.

Your visa is valid from the moment your application is approved. Are you applying for the visa with a validity of 30 days? In that case, you must arrive in India within 30 days after your application has been approved. In any case, you can apply for your visa as far in advance as you like. If you submit your application earlier than three weeks before departure, it will be put on hold and processed exactly 21 days before your expected arrival date in India. This is to ensure that the validity of your visa does not yet expire when you arrive in India.

After you have received your visa, you can therefore still decide to arrive in India up to three weeks earlier or up to one week later than the date you entered in the application form. Regardless of the effective arrival date in India, you are always allowed to stay in the country for 30 days. This visa may be used twice, proviced the last departure is within 30 days of the first arrival date.

Are you applying for the visa with a validity of one year? In that case, your application will be processed 120 days before your expected arrival date in India. Are you travelling to India within the next 120 days? Then your application will be processed immediately. The validity of this visa starts as soon as your application has been approved. You may then travel to India as many times as you like for a period of one year, but each stay cannot exceed 90 consecutive days and must fall entirely within the one year validity period

Requirements for the Indian visa

Are you travelling to India for a holiday or business trip? Then you must abide by the rules and requirements imposed by the immigration authorities on the use of a tourist or business visa. For most travellers, this will not be a problem. However, it is important to check whether you also meet the following requirements:

• Your passport must be valid for at least six more months on arrival in India, and contain two empty pages
• You must follow the coronavirus rules in India, check them again before travelling
• You must have already booked a return or transit ticket before the trip to India
• You must prove that you have sufficient financial means to pay for the entire trip
• Were you in a country with yellow fever in the six days before your arrival? Then you must be vaccinated against that.
• Arriving by plane is only allowed at the airports of: Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Calicut, Chennai, Chandigarh, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi, Gaya, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Port Blair, Pune, Tiruchirapalli, Trivandrum, Varanasi and Vishakhapatnam.
• Arriving by boat or cruise ship is only allowed at the ports of: Cochin, Goa, Mangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai
• You may also leave India at other locations, for a full list see the visa requirements page
• You cannot visit certain protected regions in the north-eastern point of India, to the north and east of Bangladesh. These are Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim. Do you want to travel to these areas? Then you need a special permit.

Online Indian visa application

Submitting an Indian visa application is easily done with the online application form. Filling in the online form usually takes no more than fifteen minutes. After filling it in, you pay the visa fee of € 49,95 per person. This can be paid for safely and reliably through Visa, MasterCard, American Express or PayPal. Finally, you must provide a photograph and a passport scan for all travellers in the Indian visa application. These documents can be easily uploaded online, almost all file formats are accepted.

Your visa application is manually checked for errors. First, a visa specialist will check the filled in form for commonly made mistakes. Next, it is checked whether the documents you provided meet the requirements, and match the details filled in on the application form. If we find an error, then you are contacted right away so that the application can be corrected and processed in time. Once everything is corrected, then your visa application is sent to the Indian immigration service for processing.

Your Indian visa is on average granted in 1 week, urgent cases usually within 3 working days. This is counted from the moment you submit all documents in good order. Are you in urgent need of an Indian visa? Then you can check the option "urgent delivery" in the application form. Urgent applications are checked faster for errors, even outside office hours. A surcharge of € 17,50 per visa applies. Urgent applications are also dependent on how busy it is at the immigration service. On average, urgent applications are approved in 3 working days.

Receive the e-visa by e-mail, print it and take it with you on your trip. Keep it in your hand luggage, so that you can show it during your trip. You can view an example e-visa here. Do you still have questions? Please check the frequently asked questions about the Indian e-visa.