India issues two types of visas; electronic and physical. Electronic Indian visas can be applied for online and are sent by e-mail. Physical visas are stamped in the passport in the form of a sticker by a consular employee. On this page you can read which variant you need and how to apply for it.
Step-by-step plan to apply for the right visa
1. Choose between a physical or an electronic visa
Because the electronic Indian visa can be applied for faster, cheaper, and easier, it is advised to make use of it if possible. Only in the cases below does an electronic variant not suffice, and a physical Indian visa needs to be filed for, which is applied to the passport.
Travellers that want to stay in India longer than is allowed with e-visas:
- Business travellers that want to stay in India for longer than 180 days in one year
- Tourists with a USA, UK, Canada or Japan passport that want to stay in India for longer than 180 consecutive days. For other nationalities: 90 consecutive days
- Medical travellers whose treatment cannot be completed within 60 days
Travellers with a different travel purpose than is allowed with an electronic travel permit:
- Persons who want to enter into paid employment with a local employer
- Persons that want to perform volunteer work in India (paid or unpaid)
- Persons that want to study in India
Travellers that arrive in India at a location that doesn’t accept e-visa
Only at the locations below are travellers with an e-visa allowed:
| Locations where you can arrive with an e-visa | |
|---|---|
| Ahmedabad (Airport Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) | Amritsar (Airport Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee) |
| Siliguri (Airport Bagdogra) | Bhubaneswar (Airport Biju Patnaik) |
| Bengaluru / Bangalore (Airport Kempegowda) | Calicut (Airport Kozhikode) |
| Chennai (Airport Madras) | Chandigarh (Airport Chandigarh) |
| Kochi (Airport Cochin) | Airport Coimbatore |
| Delhi (Airport Indira Gandhi) | Gaya (Airport Bodhgaya) |
| Dabolim (Airport Goa) | Guwahati (Airport Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi) |
| Hyderabad / Haiderabad (Airport Rajiv Gandhi) | Airport Jaipur |
| Kolkata / Calcutta (Airport Netaji Subhash) | Lucknow (Airport Chaudhary Charan Singh) |
| Airport Madurai | Mangaluru (Airport Mangalore) |
| Mumbai / Bombay (Airport Chhatrapati Shivaji) | Nagpur (Airport Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar) |
| Port Blair (Airport Veer Savarkar) | Pune (Airport Poona) |
| Tiruchirapalli (Airport Tiruchirappalli) | Thiruvananthapuram (Airport Trivandrum) |
| Varanasi (Benares) (Airport Lal Bahadur) | Airport Visakhapatnam |
| The seaport of Chennai (Madras) | The seaport of Kochi (Cochin) |
| The seaport of Mormugao (Goa) | The seaport of New Mangalore |
| The seaport of Mumbai (Bombay) | |
Based on the above listed requirements, you can conclude whether you can make use of the electronic variant of the India visa.
If an e-visa suffices, apply right away
2. Different types of physical visas for India
Did you conclude that you do not meet the requirements for the electronic visas? Then you can choose one of the available physical visa types for India. There are specific visas for the following target audiences
| Visas for a specific target audience: | |
|---|---|
| Business trips | Conferences |
| Diplomats | Employment relations |
| State citizens of India | Journalists |
| Medical travellers | Missionaries |
| Researchers | Students |
| Tourists | Changing flights |
| Internships | Film producers |
3. Applying for a physical visa
There are two ways to have the visa applied to the passport. You can make two round-trips to the visa locket, or have everything be done by post or courier. Because the processing time always takes a few days, it is not possible to hand over the passport and have it stamped with a visa for you to take back the same day. If you want to take the passport yourself, you will need to hit the road twice.
Sending the documents by post or courier and having them returned to you
It is also possible to have the passport sent by courier or registered mail. If so desired, it is then sent back by registered mail or (urgent) courier once the Indian visa has been stamped. Aside from the passport, the following documents need to be provided:
- Two square passport photos
- A signed statement which indicates what you will be doing in India
- For minors: an extract from the municipality registry of persons
- For entrepreneurs: an extract from the Chamber of Commerce
What happens next?
Physical visas are always customised. The costs as well as the required information and documents to process the application depend on the type, the required validity term, the desired delivery speed, and the method of delivery and return-shipping of the documents.
e-Visa.co.uk is a commercial and professional visa agency, and supports travellers in obtaining, among others, the India visa. e-Visa.co.uk acts as an intermediary and is in no way part of any government. You can also apply for a visa directly with the immigration service (25.63 USD per visa, via indianvisaonline.gov.in). However, not with our level of support. If you submit your application via e-Visa.co.uk, our support centre is available to you 24/7. In addition, we manually check your application and all the documents you provide before submitting it to the immigration authorities on your behalf. If we suspect any errors or omissions while doing so, we will personally contact you to ensure that your application can still be processed quickly and correctly. To use our services, you pay us 25.63 USD in consular fees, which we pay to the immigration service on your behalf, as well as £39.69 in service fees as compensation for our services, including VAT. Our services have saved many travellers from major problems during their trip. Should an application be rejected despite our support and verification, we will refund the full purchase price (unless an application for a previous India visa was rejected for the same traveller). Read more about our services here.