E -Visa for India: A Comprehensive Guide

India is a country of beautiful cultures, ancient monuments, and diversified landscape. In fact, people often dream to visit India. Recently, it has been easier to travel to India because of the new e-Visa system. The following step-by-step guide will walk you through everything you need to know about an e-Visa for India – the different kinds, benefits, the entire application process, costs, and a few tips.

1. Overview of Types of e-Visa

India offers a number of various types of e-Visas, and one must select the most suitable one for the intended destination. Each type has different conditions and validity periods, and knowing about such categories may aid you in making the right selection.

e-Tourist Visa: This is one of the most used visas, for those visiting India to entertain themselves, on pleasure, or to meet their family and friends. This visa enables a visitor to stay here for up to 60 days per visit. According to the period you desire to spend here, this visa can be earned for one month, one year, or five years.

e-Business Visa: Suitable for those intending to visit India to attend a conference, make contacts, or explore business opportunities. This visa allows multiple entries up to 180 days, so it is more attractive to business travellers.

E-Medical Visa: The e-Medical Visa is for the purpose of travel to India for medical treatment. It is a three-entry visa with a validity up to 60 days, which would come in handy in case the patient needed to return home and then enter India once more to continue treatment.

e-Medical Attendant Visa: Do you plan to travel to India for receiving medical treatment of your close relative or friend? With an e-Medical Attendant Visa, close relatives of holders of e-Medical visas are permitted to accompany their family or friends within India to attend to them during treatment.

e-Conference Visa: You have received an invitation to attend a conference sanctioned by the Indian Government. The e-Conference Visa shall best serve the purpose if it is sanctioned by the Indian Government. The visa is issued for 30 days and is a single entry visa and quite suitable for short term conferences or seminars.

You must know that each type of e-Visa is for different types of travellers, and because of this, proper application for the correct visa should be done according to the purpose of travel.

2. Ease of an e-Visa

Electronic visa has made visiting India a lot easier and quicker. Here are the key benefits of opting for an e-Visa to visit India.

Convenience: The entire process of an e-Visa is online without any hustle. Apply for an e-visa from anywhere.

Rapid processing: you’ll be thrilled to know that once you apply for an e-visa, it gets processed within 3-5 working days. Suitable for impromptu plans.

Multiple Options: There’s an e-Visa type for almost every purpose of visit: tourism, business visitation, medical travel.

Multiple Entries: Most of the types of e-Visas are multiple entry types, like the e-Tourist Visa (except for the one month type), and e-Business Visa. It covers the citizens from more than 160 countries, so it will benefit a maximum number of travellers using this convenient option.

These benefits make the e-Visa system a time-saving and easy option to make travel plans to India.

3. Procedure to Obtain

Indian e-Visa is easy to apply for, but in order to do so you have to observe the right procedure without any risks of delay or rejection. Here are the steps for you for easy application.

Step 1: Visiting the Official e-Visa Portal

Open the official Indian e-Visa website. From there you can seek the option that says “Apply e-Visa” and you can select the type of visa based on your travel purpose.

Step 2: Filling the Application Form

Fill in the online application form using one’s personal details, such as name, passport number, nationality, and date of birth. Be very careful because wrong information may not allow processing or may deny one an e-Visa.

Step 3: Attach Required Documents

Upload a scanned version of the first page of your passport and recent white background passport size photo. The website has indicated appropriate file size and format requirements, so make sure your uploads meet the requirements. Other visa types which are known to be business and medical visas also require extra documents. In many cases, a letter of invitation is required.

Step 4: Pay

Next, you would be taken to the page for making payments after filling the form and uploading all the necessary documents. The fees for e-Visa vary as per nationality and type of visa. Usually, credit and debit cards are acceptable payment modes, so make sure to keep a copy of your payment for reference in the future.

Step 5: Wait for Approval

After submission, the processing time takes approximately 3-5 business days. You can track your status by using your application ID. Once approved, an e-Visa will be mailed to you.

Step 6: Print and Bring Your e-Visa

Once you get your e-Visa, print it and make a copy to carry with you into India. You will be required to provide that when arriving in India, and you would have to present your passport as well. It might be worth making electronic copies as well in case you need to one for whatever reason.

4. Processing Time and Costs

Processing Time: Generally speaking, e-Visas can be processed within 3-5 business days. Provided one gets an application in at least a week before embarking on his / her journey, he / she is unlikely to experience any adverse effects of unforeseen delays.

Cost of e-Visas: The cost for an Indian e-Visa differs according to applicant nationality and type of visa. For US citizens, it is around $80 for the tourist visa. If one chooses the payment method, the service charges will be applicable.

An e-Visa for a few countries is available free to the Indian government for limited durations like up to 30 days for a tourist visa. For up-to-date fee charges, please refer to the website for the official Indian e-Visa department, which changes every so often.

5. Easy e-Visa Application Guidelines

e-Visa application can be very smooth, but the following are guidelines that will easily help you avoid most common pitfalls encountered while applying for an Indian e-Visa:

Verify Eligibility: Confirm your country eligibility for Indian e-Visa as well as ensure you apply for the right visa depending on the purpose of traveling.

Ensure Passport Validity: The passport must have at least six months’ validity from the proposed date of arrival in India. This is applied to all forms of e-Visa.

Check Information Twice: Mistakes in the entry of Passport details and incorrect spellings of names in the application can delay delivery of or deny the issuance of an e-Visa completely. Information must be cross-checked during the submission time.

Make an Application at Least a Week in Advance: One week before is the usual and advisable date for submitting an application for an e-Visa. Last minute applications may not have sufficient time to be processed.

Following submission of your application you may track your application status through an application ID. Most applications process without a hitch, but monitoring the status keeps you in the know about any possible issues.

Print e-Visa: Although you will receive an electronic visa, get a hardcopy and make sure to bring that along with your passport. Just in case some digital problem arises during travel.

Make you Visa application process easy, reach us out at Indian Visa Centre.