All foreign visitors have to get a visa for India, except citizens of the neighboring countries like Bhutan and Nepal. The Indian government has already introduced the 60 days double entry electronic visas or the e-Visas for the citizens of almost 161 countries. In case you are eyeing for a longer visa or you are not from any one of the 161 countries, then the Indian visa needs to be procured before arriving in this country. There are some points for you to address before you prepare yourself for the visa application to enter the land of culture.
Types of visa required to enter India:
Visitors, who are staying in India for less than the minimum 72 hours can easily obtain transit visa, which is a Confirmed Airline booking for onward journey which must be shown while applying. Other than that, an Indian tourist visa is quite mandatory during this regard.
- Primarily, tourist visas are mainly issued for six long months, which solely depends on nationality that you are actually from. Some countries might issue visas for a shorter duration period like three months. Then you have others looking for a longer duration like a year. Most of the visas are multiple entry visas which you can try out, depending on your requirements.
- You can procure around 10 year visas from the USA. Along with that, you need to have five year visas for people from 18 countries. Those countries are Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Belgium, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and even Vietnam.
- Some of the other countries, apart from the ones which are not mentioned in the list, will have biometric enrollment facilities, which have already started issuing 5 years tourist visas for you to enjoy as well. It is mandatory for you to get the facts right before you address Indian visa now.
Duration and more:
No matter whatever the duration of this tourist visa might be, you are actually not allowed to remain in India for over 6 months or 180 days at a time. On the other hand, the already mentioned 5 years tourist visa is only allowed when you play to stay for around 3 months or 90 days at a stretch. If that wasn’t enough, it is mandatory for you to note that even though a two months gap was applied previously between the visits to India on the tourist visas, it is now removed.
Some of the other types of visas which are available for the Indian visitors are Employment visas, business visas, research visas, intern visas, journalist visas, student visas and even the film visas.
When the 2 months gap was in operation:
It is always mandatory to note that this 2 month gap rule on the Indian tourist visa was abolished in late November 2012. But, when it was in operation, there were some rules included in the list. For preventing people from going on visa runs and just staying in India continuously on Tourist visa, the Indian government introduced this mandatory 2 month gap between visits to India. It does not have to spell disaster for vacation though. If you had genuine reasons to be back in India within a period of 2 months on tourist visa, then there were a couple of other options to it.
Apply for the re-entry permit from the government:
If there was an urgent need to return to India within a span of 2 months, then the foreigners were asked to apply for the re-entry permit or stamp in passport. This can easily be done at any possible Indian visa processing center or can be procured straight from the Indian Consulate, if allowed. Now, points that can be actually classified as urgent need to return can be purely subjective. All the applications are mostly assessed on different cases and also depend a lot on provided documents. There have been many instances before when people were granted the re-entry permit even in some non-emergency situations.
Tourism to some of the neighboring countries:
If you ever take side trip to neighboring country like Thailand, Nepal or Sri Lanka, you can easily support it with detailed printed itinerary and some return flight home right from India. It will help them to re-enter India within a span of 2 months. Immigration officers will have the discretion to allow the tourists around 3 entries maximum, depending on need and without any re-entry permits for such traveling kind. If you ever end up submitting itinerary while applying for visa, you might get stamp on it waiving the rule. It solely depends on apply though and widely common in UK.
Anyone, who actually want to re-enter Indian within a span of 2 months on Tourist visa nowadays, have to register at Foreigner’s regional registration office within a period of 14 days.
Costing of Indian Visa:
The cost of this tourist visa varies between countries, as per the arrangements between governments. Rates have already been revised on April 1st, 2017. The current fee for the US citizens will be around $100 for around 10 years. Now the processing is rather additional. It is often termed to be an excellent value, which will consider a 60 days e-visa to be costing around $75.
Some of the other countries like Mongolia or Japan will have special agreements with India. It will allow the citizens to pay less for a visa. On the other hand, you have citizens of Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Argentina, Jamaica, and Maldives, Democratic people of Korea, Mauritius, South Africa, Seychelles and Uruguay, who don’t even have to pay any visa fee to enter India. In terms of Seychelles, this non-payment for the Indian visa will last for a period of 3 months. After that, if they are planning to stay for some more, then they will be charged for the Visa application. Just be sure to learn more about the visa before you finally apply for the same.
