Information about the India visa

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. Children need their own visas. You will no longer need to make an appointment at the consulate or embassy for a visa application. You can do the application entirely online. The visa India will be sent by email once it has been granted. You only need to print it 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 should apply for the "e-Tourist" visa, while business travellers should apply for the “e-Business” visa. You can apply for both electronic visas with the same online application form. You can submit an Indian visa application here.

If you wish to stay in India longer than the validity period of the e-visa, or if do you not meet the requirements, you will have to apply for a physical visa, which will be inserted into your passport by a consular employee. This application procedure comes with a higher cost. It will also take longer until you receive your visa.

Validity period of the India visa
You can choose from several options when applying for the Indian e-visa. You can apply for a tourist visa that allows a maximum stay of 30 days ( £59.95), or one that allows you to stay 90 days ( £84.95). You can also apply for an Indian visa that allows a maximum period of stay of 180 days ( £139.95). The visa types that allow you to stay in India for 90 or 180 consecutive days allow you to enter the country an unlimited number of times within a year of the visa being granted. See this page to find a more detailed explanation of the validity period of your visa.

Requirements for the Indian visa

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

• Your passport must be valid for at least six more months upon arrival in India, and contain two empty pages
• You must follow the coronavirus rules in India, check them again before leaving for India
• 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
• If you visited a country with yellow fever risk in the six days before your arrival, you must be vaccinated against this disease.
• 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-east of India, to the north and east of Bangladesh. These are Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim. If you wish to travel to these regions, you will need a special permit.
• You cannot conduct journalistic activities or work for an NGO.

Online Indian visa application

You can easily submit an Indian visa application 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 £59.95 per person. You can pay for the fee securely and reliably through Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Trustly or PayPal. Finally, you must provide a photograph and a passport scan for all travellers in the Indian visa application. Business travellers are also required to provide their business card and an invitation letter. You can upload these documents 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. They also check whether the documents you provided meet the requirements, and match the details filled in on the application form. We will contact you right away if we find an error, so that you can edit the application to make sure it is processed in time. Once everything is corrected, your visa application is sent to the Indian immigration service for processing.

Your Indian visa is granted witin 7 days on average, urgent application usually within 24 hours. These delivery times are calculated from the moment you provide all documents in good order. If you are in urgent need of an Indian visa, you can select 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 the workload of the immigration service. Urgent applications are approved within 24 hours on average.

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 present it to the authorities during your trip. You can view an example e-visa here. If you have anymore questions, please check the frequently asked questions about the Indian e-visa.