India e-Visa: which one to pick, what it costs, how to apply

Almost every visitor to India needs a visa, and for most of them the easiest one is the e-Visa: an online application that ends with an Electronic Travel Authorization, or ETA, sent by email. You print it or keep it on your phone, and the visa itself is placed in your passport at immigration on arrival.

The system has grown into nine categories, from tourism and business to film shoots and student dependents, and the fees change by nationality and even by season.

Nationals of more than 170 countries and territories can apply for an e-Visa. Pakistani passport holders must apply for a regular visa through an Indian mission. You apply online, pay online and wait for the ETA before you travel.

The official site is the Ministry of Home Affairs Indian e-Visa portal. Its own FAQ says it is the only official website for the e-Visa and warns about agents who claim to offer speedy or express grants for extra money. The Government of India says it does not charge any emergency or express fee.

Biometric details, meaning fingerprints and a photo, are taken at immigration when you arrive. The 30-day e-Tourist visa is non-extendable and cannot be converted into another type of visa once you are in India.

The official list has nine sub-categories: e-Tourist, e-Business, e-Medical, e-Student, e-Transit, e-Film, e-Miscellaneous, e-Entry and e-Production Investment. There are also attendant and conference versions of some of them. Tourists, people visiting friends and family, and people on short yoga, language or cooking courses use the e-Tourist visa.

The e-Tourist visa itself has three versions. The 30-day visa is valid for 30 days from your first arrival and allows multiple entries within that period, but it is non-extendable and your first arrival must fall between the grant and expiry dates of the ETA. The 1-year visa is valid for 365 days from the date the ETA is granted, and the 5-year visa for five years from the grant date, both with multiple entries.

For the 1-year and 5-year e-Tourist visas, the total time you spend in India during one calendar year must not exceed 180 days. For the e-Business visa, each continuous visit can last up to 180 days, and longer stays require registration with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office within two weeks. The e-Medical and e-Medical Attendant visas have their own rules, and only two attendant visas are granted per patient.

Apply on the official portal, fill in the form in one sitting, upload a passport-style photo and a scan of your passport photo page, and pay the fee online. The fee must be paid at least 4 days before the expected date of travel, or the application is not processed. You can check your status on the same site, and the ETA arrives by email.

Look-alike sites are a real problem for India. Many carry the words India, visa and online in their names and charge two or three times the government fee to submit the same form, sometimes with a delay. The only address to use is indianvisaonline.gov.in. If you already paid an agency, check the status of your application on the official site with your application ID before you travel.

Payment by card carries a bank charge of up to 3% on top of the fee, and PayPal 4%. If the payment status does not update, the portal asks you to wait up to 2 hours before you re-apply, and to use its Verify Payment page rather than paying twice.

Photos and passport scans

Most rejections and resubmission requests come from the photo: it must be a clear frontal image on a plain light background. Check the exact requirements on the portal before you upload. Enter the passport number and dates exactly as printed, and remember that if you renew your passport after the ETA is granted, the portal has a separate process for transferring an e-Visa to a new passport.

Fees are set per country or territory and the official table was last revised on 8 September 2026. For most nationalities, the 30-day e-Tourist visa costs US$10 if you arrive from April to June and US$25 from July to March. The 1-year e-Tourist visa costs US$40 for most nationalities. The 5-year e-Tourist visa varies more: it is US$200 for many countries, US$160 for US citizens and US$484 for UK citizens. Some countries pay nothing, and Japanese citizens pay US$25 for the 1-year and 5-year versions.

Find your country in the official e-Tourist visa fee table before you apply. Fees for the other e-Visa categories are in a separate table linked from the same portal page. The fee pays for processing and is not refunded if the application is refused, or if you cancel the trip.

Choose the version by your plans for the next few years, not just this trip. If you are likely to return within 12 months, the 1-year visa costs little more than the 30-day one outside the April to June window. Check the 180-day yearly cap if you plan long winters in Goa or Kerala.

You can arrive only at the designated airports and seaports listed on the portal: more than 30 airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi and Goa, and a set of seaports for cruise and ferry arrivals. You may leave through any authorized immigration checkpoint. You cannot use an e-Visa to enter by land from Nepal, Bangladesh or Bhutan.

Before you land, India now asks foreigners and OCI card holders to fill in an online e-Arrival card within 72 hours before arrival, on the Bureau of Immigration site, the e-Visa portal or the official Indian Visa Su-Swagatam app. It collects your arrival details and is not a visa. At immigration, show your passport and ETA, give fingerprints and a photo, and the officer places the visa in your passport.

Travelers arriving within 6 days of leaving a yellow fever endemic country must carry an original yellow fever vaccination certificate, or they can be quarantined for up to 6 days. For the rest of your planning, start at our India guide, and see our travel insurance guides for medical cover.

Carry a printed copy of the ETA email as well as the version on your phone. Airline staff check it at check-in, and the immigration officer checks it against your passport on arrival. Make sure the passport you travel with is the one you applied with and that it is valid for at least six months from arrival.

Keep your return or onward ticket and your first hotel booking to hand. The e-Visa rules say travelers should have a return or onward ticket and enough money for the stay, and officers may ask to see them. If you are flying in on one airline and out on another, have both bookings ready.

If your plans include Nepal, Bhutan or Sri Lanka and a return to India, choose an e-Tourist version with multiple entries that still covers your return dates. The 30-day version allows multiple entries, but its 30 days run from your first arrival and do not stop while you are away. For a trip with a long break in the middle, the 1-year version is usually the better value.

The official portal now lists multiple entries for the 30-day e-Tourist visa, and India has added the online e-Arrival card for foreign arrivals. The fee table was revised in September 2026. The number of designated airports and seaports has grown over the years, so check the current list on the portal if you are landing somewhere less common.

No further change with a confirmed date had been announced when we checked on 1 October 2026. If you are combining India with Sri Lanka, note that Sri Lanka runs a separate online system; see our Sri Lanka ETA guide.