Hello India Travelers! All travelers to India require a visa and the country has recently implemented an e-Tourist visa for those who are traveling there wholly for recreation or sightseeing. This is your easiest option for getting a visa.
Your application is made online and the aid of an intermediary agent is no longer required. While nationals of every country aren’t necessarily covered by the e-visa, the list is extensive, covering 150 countries. Check here to see if you are eligible to apply for an e-visa.
Here are a few things you need to know before you begin the application process:
- Your passport should have at least six months validity from the date of arrival in India. You must have at least two blank pages in your passport for the Immigration Officer’s stamp.
- You must have a return or onward ticket and sufficient money to support yourself while there.
- Important! You must apply for your visa online between 4 and 120 days of your arrival date. In other words, if you are applying on the first of September you can select an arrival date between September 5th and January 2nd.
- You will need to have a photo of yourself (in jpg format) with a white background and the photo page of your passport (in PDF format) to send with your online application. Your application may be rejected if these are not clear and legible.
- The fee for your visa is country-specific and must be paid at least four days before the expected date of travel. For a list of fees, click here. Bank transaction fees of 2.5% will also apply.
- The fee is non-refundable and payment of the fee doesn’t guarantee issuance of the visa.
- You must carry a copy of the visa with you along with your passport.
- The visa is valid for 60 days from the date of entry into India and, at the time of this writing, allows for double entry for a Tourist Visa.
Other items worth noting:
- If you don’t already have the info, please contact the WanderTours Client Liaison for the in-country tour operator in India as your contact in-country.
- The online process is quite lengthy and despite instructions that you can save the info and come back to it later, people have reported this doesn’t work. Plan to apply for your visa in one sitting.
- The passport picture must be in .jpg format, at least 350 pixels x 350 pixels and needs to be of you standing in front of a white background. It’s easy enough to take a photo of yourself against a white wall for this purpose.
- The passport picture page needs to be a PDF less than 300 kb. If the file size is too large, search online for ways to reduce (optimize) the file size. It will differ depending on whether you’re on a Mac or PC.
- One person reported that when she went to pay, the sbi e-pay option crashed on her computer but the Axis bank option worked fine.
- Cost for US citizens is $75 but a small surcharge is applied.
- It usually takes about 24 hours to process the visa.