India e-Visa Guide: Types, Fees & Stay Limits

Almost every international traveller visiting India for tourism needs to apply for an e-Visa before departure — there's no visa-on-arrival for the vast majority of nationalities, and the rules differ more by passport than most people expect going in. This guide covers the three e-Tourist visa options, how long you can actually stay on each one (which is a genuinely different question from how long the visa is valid for), the nationality-specific rules that catch people out, the application process itself, and the e-Arrival Card — a separate, newer requirement that has nothing to do with your visa but is just as mandatory.

The Three e-Tourist Visa Options

India's e-Tourist visa comes in three durations, and the right one depends on how often you expect to visit rather than just the length of a single trip.

• 30-day e-Tourist visa — double entry, valid 30 days from your date of arrival. The cheapest and simplest option for a single trip, typically priced lower in the April-to-June off-peak window and higher from July through March.
• 1-year e-Tourist visa — multiple entry, valid 365 days from the date it's issued. Worth considering if you might return to India more than once within the year.
• 5-year e-Tourist visa — multiple entry, valid 5 years from issue. The best value for frequent visitors, at a higher upfront fee than the shorter options.

All three carry an additional bank or gateway charge on top of the base fee (commonly cited around 2.5%), and exact pricing shifts periodically, so it's worth confirming current fees on the official portal at the time you apply rather than relying on a number quoted months earlier.

Visa Validity vs. How Long You Can Actually Stay

This is the detail that trips up more travellers than any other part of the process: visa validity and permitted stay length are two different things, and which one matters depends on which visa you hold. On the 30-day e-Visa, the validity period is your window to enter India — once you're in, you can stay the full 30 days even if that runs past the visa's expiry date. On the 1-year and 5-year e-Visas, it works the other way around: the expiry date is the latest date you must leave India, and your stay on any single visit is capped well below the full validity period. Confusing the two is a genuine, commonly-made mistake, so it's worth reading your visa's stated terms carefully rather than assuming either interpretation applies.

How Long Can You Stay? It Depends on Your Passport

On the 1-year and 5-year e-Tourist visas, most nationalities are limited to 90 days of continuous stay per visit. A small group of nationalities — citizens of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, along with Japan — get an extended allowance of up to 180 days per visit. This isn't a minor technicality if you're planning a longer stay: an American, British or Canadian traveller can realistically plan a 3-month trip on a single visa entry, while an Australian, German, or most other nationality's traveller planning the same length of stay would need to structure their trip around the 90-day limit, or plan a border exit and re-entry. Regardless of nationality, total time spent in India across the calendar year on tourist visas is generally capped at 180 days.

Travellers flying from the UAE specifically should note that your visa requirement is set by your own passport's nationality, not by UAE residency — living in Dubai or Abu Dhabi doesn't change these rules for you unless you actually hold an Emirati passport.

As a quick reference, here's how the stay limit breaks down for six commonly asked about nationalities on the 1-year and 5-year e-Tourist visas:

• United States — up to 180 days per visit
• United Kingdom — up to 180 days per visit
• Canada — up to 180 days per visit
• Australia — up to 90 days per visit
• Germany — up to 90 days per visit
• UAE (Emirati passport holders only) — separate Visa-on-Arrival option, up to 60 days, available only if you've previously held an Indian e-Visa or regular visa

This list isn't exhaustive — dozens of other nationalities are eligible for the e-Tourist visa on the standard 90-day allowance — but it covers the passports we're asked about most often. If yours isn't listed here, the official e-Visa portal will confirm your specific stay limit as part of the application itself.

Applying for Your e-Visa: What You'll Need

The entire application happens online, through India's official government e-Visa portal — never a third-party site claiming to offer a faster or guaranteed service. You'll need:

• A passport valid for at least 6 months beyond your planned arrival date, with at least 2 blank pages
• A digital, passport-style photograph (plain white background, no glasses or headwear except for religious reasons)
• A scanned copy of your passport's bio page
• A valid email address (your approved e-Visa is sent here)
• A debit or credit card to pay the applicable fee
• Your planned arrival date, port of entry, and accommodation address in India

Once approved, you'll receive your Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) by email — print it and carry it with your passport, since you'll present both at immigration on arrival. The most commonly cited rejection reasons are worth avoiding deliberately: photos that don't meet the specification (wrong background, face too small or large in frame), incomplete or mismatched personal details against the passport, and applying for a port of entry that doesn't actually accept e-Visa arrivals.

Which Airports and Seaports Accept e-Visa Entry

e-Visa entry is accepted at a defined list of international airports — including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Goa, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Jaipur and Varanasi, among others — plus a small number of seaports including Mumbai, Kochi and Goa. Land border crossings are not valid entry points for the e-Tourist visa. If your itinerary starts somewhere off this list, it's worth double-checking your entry point is covered before booking flights.

One genuinely common trip-planning question this raises: if your international flight lands in Delhi but your first stop is actually Jaipur or Agra, that's not a problem — your e-Visa entry point is simply the airport you first land at, and everything after that is domestic travel within India, already covered once you've cleared immigration.

Do OCI and PIO Cardholders Need an e-Visa?

No — Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders don't need a tourist visa at all for visits to India, since the OCI card itself functions as a lifelong, multiple-entry visa. If you or a family member holds OCI status, this entire e-Visa process doesn't apply to you, though the e-Arrival Card requirement covered below still does, since that's a separate immigration-tracking system rather than a visa. If you're travelling with a mixed group — some members holding OCI cards, others needing the standard e-Visa — it's worth planning each person's documentation separately rather than assuming one process covers everyone.

Tourist vs. Business e-Visa: Which Do You Actually Need?

The e-Tourist visa covers sightseeing, visiting friends or relatives, and short recreational activities like a yoga course — which is to say, almost everyone reading a guide like this. It does not cover paid work, journalism, or attending India-based employment of any kind. If your trip includes genuine business activity — attending meetings, exploring a venture, or trade-fair participation — the e-Business visa is the correct category instead, and it's worth choosing the right one from the start rather than risking an immigration question about your stated purpose on arrival. For anyone simply travelling to see the country, though, the Tourist e-Visa is the one to apply for.

Tracking Your Application

Most applications are approved within the stated 72-hour window, though the portal itself doesn't guarantee a fixed turnaround, and processing can extend to several business days during genuinely busy periods — the run-up to major Indian festivals or the October-to-March peak season, for instance. You can check your application's status directly on the official portal using the reference number generated when you submitted it, rather than needing to contact anyone by phone or email. If your approved e-Visa hasn't arrived by email within the expected window, check your spam folder before assuming something has gone wrong — it's a genuinely common false alarm.

Best Time to Apply, and Why Seasonal Fees Exist

The 30-day e-Visa's fee typically shifts between an off-peak rate (roughly April through June) and a higher rate for the rest of the year, reflecting India's own tourist season rather than anything about the application itself. This doesn't affect the 1-year or 5-year visas, which carry a flat fee regardless of when you apply or travel. Beyond cost, timing your application 2 to 4 weeks ahead of departure — rather than the bare minimum the portal suggests — gives you a real buffer if immigration authorities request a clearer photo or additional documentation, which happens often enough to plan around rather than treat as an edge case.

The e-Arrival Card: A Separate, Newer Requirement

Since 1 April 2026 (piloted from October 2025), every foreign national arriving in India — regardless of visa type, and including OCI cardholders — must also submit a free digital e-Arrival Card within 72 hours before landing. This is genuinely separate from your e-Visa; holding a valid visa does not exempt you from also filing this. The form replaces the paper disembarkation card once handed out on flights, takes a few minutes to complete through the Bureau of Immigration's portal or the Su-Swagatam mobile app, and covers your passport details, flight information, purpose of visit, and accommodation address. Once submitted, you'll receive a QR code to present at check-in and immigration. Families or groups of up to five people travelling together can file a single consolidated form rather than one each.

Common Mistakes Worth Avoiding

Beyond the visa-vs-stay-duration confusion above, a few other mistakes come up repeatedly. Applying too close to the travel date leaves no buffer for a follow-up request, which can genuinely derail a trip if it happens the week before departure. Assuming an e-Tourist visa can be extended or converted once you're in India is another — it can't, on either count, and the only real fix for wanting more time is leaving the country and applying fresh. Uploading a photo that doesn't meet the portal's specific formatting rules (plain background, correct face proportion, no head covering unless for religious reasons) is consistently cited as one of the most common rejection reasons, and it's entirely avoidable with a proper passport-style photo taken specifically for the application rather than a cropped holiday snapshot. And simply not realising the e-Arrival Card exists at all is increasingly common, since it's new enough that plenty of general travel advice circulating online hasn't caught up with it yet.

Bringing It All Together

The e-Visa process itself is genuinely straightforward once you know which of the three durations fits your trip and how long your specific nationality is permitted to stay — the confusion mostly comes from validity-vs-stay-duration and the newer e-Arrival Card requirement catching people off guard. We're not a visa agency and don't file applications on your behalf, but if you're planning a trip with us and have a question about how the visa rules apply to your specific itinerary, ask us directly — it's exactly the kind of practical detail we help international travellers work through before they book.