India Business e-Visa: fees by nationality, rules, and what gets applications refused

If you are flying to India for work, the visa you need is almost certainly the e-Business Visa, and the government fee is US$120 for most nationalities. That figure is worth pinning down early, because it varies more by passport than people expect. Emiratis pay $415. Japanese nationals pay $25. Forty-nine nationalities pay nothing at all.

The rest of this guide covers what the visa allows, what it does not, and the handful of things that actually get applications refused. Fees quoted here come from the Government of India country-wise fee schedule effective 15 April 2026, and a 3% bank charge is added to whatever you pay.

Business visa or tourist visa?

This is the question people get wrong most often, and it is worth being blunt about. If any part of your trip is commercial, you need the business category. One meeting counts. The tourist e-Visa explicitly excludes business activity, so using it for a work trip is a misdeclaration.

What makes this expensive is when the problem appears. It rarely surfaces during the application. It surfaces at immigration, where an officer asks why you are visiting. If the answer does not match the visa, you have a problem, and you already have a boarding pass and a hotel booking. The tourist visa is cheaper. That saving is not worth it.

What it costs, by nationality

Most guides quote one number. The real schedule ranges from zero to $415, so here is the actual breakdown.

US$120 is the standard rate, paid by 104 nationalities including Germany, Canada, Singapore, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and most of the EU.

Twenty-one nationalities pay something different:

Forty-nine nationalities are charged no government fee at all, among them Argentina, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Mongolia, Seychelles and Uruguay. These are full e-Visas. The fee is simply nil.

One practical note for dual nationals: check both passports before you apply. A UK and Irish dual national saves $42 applying as Irish. The visa you receive is identical. You can look up any nationality in our fee calculator or the full table by nationality.

Validity, entries and the 180-day rule

The visa runs for one year from the date it is granted, with multiple entries. Each individual stay can be up to 180 continuous days. Stay longer than that in one visit and you have to register with the local FRRO, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office.

Two details catch people out. Validity starts from the grant date, not your first entry, so applying three months early burns a quarter of the visa before you land. And your permitted stay counts from the day you arrive, not the day it was issued.

What you can and cannot do

Allowed: meetings and conferences, negotiating or signing contracts, trade fairs and exhibitions, technical or expert consultation, recruitment, and assessing suppliers or opportunities.

Not allowed: employment with an Indian company, taking a salary from an Indian source, journalism or filming assignments, NGO or missionary work, or any paid work for an Indian entity. Employment needs a separate Employment Visa, and the business e-Visa is not a workaround for one.

The invitation letter

This is where most business applications come unstuck, because a vague letter is worse than a careful one. A letter that holds up is on the Indian company's letterhead with their registered address, recently dated, and signed by a named person with a title and contact details.

Be specific about why you are coming. "Technical consultation on the Chennai plant upgrade, 12 to 19 March" reads very differently from "business discussions". The dates should match your application. Letters that get flagged are the undated ones, the unsigned ones, and the ones that quietly contradict something else you have submitted.

The occupation field

Small field, disproportionate weight. Whatever you enter has to square with your uploaded documents and the purpose of your trip.

• Self-employed? Say so rather than inventing a corporate title.
• Director or partner? Enter that.
• Retired? Enter Retired and include financial evidence.

Some occupations attract extra review by default. Journalist is the obvious one. Declaring it when your actual purpose is ordinary commercial work creates a problem you did not need to have.

Documents

• Passport valid at least six months from arrival, with two blank pages
• Clear colour scan of the bio page
• Photograph: square, white background, JPEG, between 10 KB and 1 MB
• Business card or other proof of your role
• Invitation letter from the Indian company
• A working email address

The photo specification causes more rejections than it has any right to. Too dark, too bright, slightly blurred, or a background that is not properly white will all fail. Our free photo tool crops to the exact specification if you want to check yours.

Who cannot apply online

Four passports are absent from the government's e-Visa schedule and cannot use the online system: China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Pakistan. Holders apply for a regular sticker visa through an Indian mission instead.

Worth stating plainly, because it comes up constantly: eligibility follows your passport, not where you live. Holding permanent residence in an eligible country does not make an ineligible passport eligible.

Arrival

The business e-Visa works at designated airports and seaports only. You cannot enter on it at a land border. Bring a printed copy alongside your passport, because officers routinely ask for it even though the authorisation is electronic. Your biometrics are taken on arrival and a physical stamp goes into the passport.

Why applications get refused

Roughly in order of how often each one bites:

1. Name not matching the passport exactly. "John Doe" against "JOHN DOE" is enough, as is dropping a middle name.
2. Photo failing the specification.
3. Passport under six months validity from arrival.
4. An invitation letter that is vague, undated or inconsistent.
5. Occupation conflicting with the stated purpose or the supporting documents.
6. Wrong category entirely, usually tourist when the trip is commercial.

The government fee is not refundable once you submit, whatever the outcome. A refusal means paying again, which is the main argument for getting the details right the first time.

Fees are taken from the Government of India country-wise e-Visa fee schedule effective 15 April 2026 and can change. Confirm the current figure when you apply. Rules on validity and permitted activity are set by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs. Apply eVisa India is an independent visa assistance service. We are not affiliated with the Government of India, and the official portal is indianvisaonline.gov.in.