India 30-Day e-Tourist Visa from the UK: Fee and Rules 2026

TL;DR

The 30-day e-Tourist visa is India's cheapest visa for a short trip from the UK: USD 10 if you arrive in April to June, USD 25 in July to March, paid on indianvisaonline.gov.in. It runs 30 days from your first arrival, allows multiple entries in that window, and cannot be extended. Apply yourself for the official fee alone, or have our desk prepare and submit it for £35 per applicant.

What the 30-day e-Tourist visa is

The portal lists it as the one-month e-Tourist visa, duration 30 days, entries multiple, non-extendable and non-convertible. Its FAQ adds the detail that matters for planning: the 30 days run from the date of your first arrival in India, and that first arrival must fall between the issue and expiry dates of your ETA. So the visa does not start ticking when it is granted; it starts when you land.

Multiple entries within those 30 days means you can, for example, fly into Delhi, cross into Nepal for a week and come back, so long as you are out of India by day 30. You cannot stretch it, convert it to another category, or use it for anything the e-Tourist visa does not cover.

Only one portal issues it: indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa. The portal's FAQ says it is the only official website for e-Visa services and warns against sites that claim express grants for money.

The seasonal fee: USD 10 or USD 25

The portal's e-Tourist fee table is by nationality, and the 30-day column is split by season of arrival. For United Kingdom passports:

Three things to know. The season is decided by your arrival date, not the date you apply. A bank charge of 3 percent is added on card payments (4 percent through PayPal) and shown on the payment page. And the fee is a processing fee: it is not refunded if the application is rejected, if you cancel the trip or if you change your mind. The portal also says the fee must be paid at least 4 days before your travel date or the application will not be processed.

Nothing else is payable. The Government of India says it makes no provision for emergency or express fees, and that nothing is paid at the airport for an e-Visa.

When the 30-day visa suits you, and when it does not

It suits a single trip of up to 30 days with fixed dates: a holiday, a wedding, a family visit, a short yoga course. At USD 10 or USD 25 it is hard to beat.

It does not suit three kinds of traveller. If you might stay longer than 30 days, there is no way to extend, so take the 1-year visa at USD 40 instead, which allows 180 days in a calendar year. If you expect to go to India more than once in the next year, the 1-year visa is only USD 15 to USD 30 more than a second 30-day visa would cost. And if your plans are not fixed, remember the first arrival must fall inside the ETA's validity window, so a trip that slips could mean a new application and a new fee. Our guide to the 1-year and 5-year visas sets out that choice.

What the 30-day visa covers

The e-Tourist category covers recreation and sightseeing, casual visits to meet friends and relatives, attending a short-term yoga programme, short courses in local languages, music, dance, arts and crafts, cooking or medicine that are not formal courses, and voluntary work of up to one month that involves no payment or other consideration. A visit to relatives counts as tourism for this purpose.

It does not cover employment, journalism, NGO activities, formal study or anything that needs a regular visa. Medical treatment has its own e-Medical category and business has the e-Business visa.

When to apply

Apply between 4 and 120 days before your arrival date. The portal publishes no processing time. What it does say is that if your photo or passport scan fails its checks, you will be emailed to re-upload, normally within 24 hours, and that the result, granted or rejected, comes by email. Apply as soon as your dates are set, check the status on the portal, and do not fly until it reads GRANTED.

Documents and the photo

Two uploads: a recent front-facing photo as a square JPEG between 10 KB and 1 MB, full face, eyes open, without spectacles, on a plain light or white background with no shadows and no borders; and the bio page of your passport as a PDF between 10 KB and 300 KB. The portal says the application is liable to be rejected if either is not clear or not to specification. Our photo and passport scan guide walks through both, and the compressor brings a scan under 300 KB.

Your passport needs six months' validity when you apply and two blank pages. Keep a return or onward ticket, since the portal expects one. Every traveller, including each child, has their own passport and their own application.

Entry and exit

Arrive at one of the 37 designated airports, which include Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Cochin, both Goa airports, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Kannur and Calicut, or one of the 38 seaports if you arrive by cruise ship. Leave from any immigration checkpost. Carry the printed ETA; your fingerprints and photo are taken at immigration and the visa is stamped in your passport. Travel on the passport you applied with.

Apply yourself, or £35 prepared and submitted

You can apply yourself on indianvisaonline.gov.in for the official fee alone, and for a simple 30-day trip many people do. If you would rather have someone else do the form, our desk prepares the application in your own portal account, checks the photo and passport scan against the specification, sends you the completed form to check and submits it: £35 per applicant, each additional applicant £35, up to five on one order. You pay the official USD fee on the portal yourself, by your own card; we never take or enter card details. Submitted on the official portal within 24 hours of your complete details and documents, or your service fee back. Full refund if you cancel before work starts. The Government of India decides, and we cannot speed that up. WayaNerd Ltd, company 16269713. Start at the plan step.