Why Indian e-Visas Get Rejected in 2026 — And How to Reapply Cleanly

The message we get most often about visas does not start with a question — it starts with a screenshot. A traveller forwards us the email that says their Indian e-Visa application has been "rejected" or "returned," usually three days before a flight they have already paid for, usually with no explanation beyond a reference number. The panic is real, because the fee is gone and the clock is running.

Here is the reassuring part: the overwhelming majority of Indian e-Visa rejections in 2026 come from a short, predictable list of fixable mistakes. Once you know what the portal actually checks, you can reapply cleanly — or, better, get it right the first time. This guide walks through every common reason a UK applicant's Indian e-Visa fails, with a concrete fix for each, plus the harder cases where the e-Visa route genuinely is not available and you need a paper visa instead.

If you are a British citizen, two background pieces will save you confusion before you read on: the post-December-2025 fee shake-up in Indian e-Visa for British citizens 2026, and which airports and seaports you can actually land at in India e-Visa entry gateways 2026.

The photo: the single biggest cause of rejection#

If we had to bet on why any given application failed, we would bet on the photo. It is the most common reason, and it is entirely avoidable.

The Indian e-Visa wants a recent, square (1:1 ratio) colour photo on a plain white or light background, full face to camera, eyes open, neutral expression, both ears and the full head visible, no shadows, and no other person — or anyone's hands — in the frame. No glasses. No hats or head coverings except where worn for religious reasons, and even then the full face must be clear.

Two things changed the photo game by 2026:

• The "taken within the last six months" rule is now enforced more strictly. An old photo where you simply look different gets flagged.
• The Bureau of Immigration actively screens for AI-generated, AI-enhanced, and beauty-filtered images — including the portrait modes and skin-smoothing that modern phones apply automatically. A "prettified" selfie can be rejected as non-genuine.

On top of the content rules, there are hard technical limits: the file must be the right dimensions and under the portal's maximum size, and it must be a clean JPEG. A photo that is fine to the human eye still fails if it is the wrong shape or a few kilobytes too large.

Passport problems: validity and blank pages#

The second great cause of rejection is the passport itself — and these are the easiest of all to check in advance.

Your passport must have at least six months' validity from your date of entry into India, and it must have at least two completely blank pages for the immigration officer to stamp on arrival. Both are checked, and both catch people out:

• A passport that "still has a year on it" can still fail if it expires within six months of your travel date rather than your application date — always count from arrival.
• Frequent travellers run out of blank pages without noticing. Visa stamps and other countries' entry stamps fill a passport faster than you think.

If either is borderline, renew or replace the passport before applying. The e-Visa is keyed to your passport number, so a new passport means a fresh application anyway — there is no point applying on a document you are about to replace.

Data mismatches: the silent automated refusal#

This is the rejection people find hardest to accept, because they did nothing dishonest. The portal cross-references the details you type against the details it reads from your passport scan. Any discrepancy can trigger an automated refusal, including:

• Name — every part of it. If your passport shows a middle name and you skipped it, or your surname and given names are split differently, that is a mismatch. Enter the name exactly as printed in the passport's machine-readable zone.
• Date of birth — including format. A day/month swap is an instant fail.
• Passport number — a single transposed character will not verify against the scan.
• Place of birth — must match the passport.

The passport scan itself has to be readable. A blurred machine-readable zone, glare across the photo page, a cropped edge, or a partial upload all stop the system verifying you and bounce the application.

Blank or wrong form fields#

The e-Visa form has fields people leave empty because they seem optional or awkward — and empty or inconsistent answers get applications returned.

• Profession / occupation and employer — these are mandatory. Leaving "profession" blank, or entering something that contradicts your declared trip, causes problems. Retired and homemaker applicants should enter the correct status, not skip the field.
• Visa category vs stated activity — applying for a Tourist e-Visa while describing business meetings, paid work, journalism, or medical treatment is an instant refusal. The category must match the real purpose of travel. If you are travelling for trade or meetings, you need a business e-Visa, not a tourist one — see business e-Visa vs employment visa 2026 if you are unsure which you need.
• Reference details in India and a reference back home are required and must be complete and plausible.

Special-category checks: when it is not a fixable error#

Some rejections are not mistakes to correct — they are eligibility limits built into the e-Visa scheme. The most important for UK applicants:

The e-Visa is not available to applicants of Pakistani origin or those born in Pakistan, which is why the portal asks whether you, your parents, or your grandparents were born in or were nationals of Pakistan. A "yes" routes you out of the e-Visa system. This is not a glitch and there is no workaround on the online portal — the correct path is a regular (paper) visa applied for at the Indian mission, where these cases are assessed individually.

Similarly, a prior visa or immigration issue — an overstay, an exit without proper clearance, a prior refusal, or a blacklisting — sits in immigration databases and can cause a fresh e-Visa to be refused. These are not fixed by resubmitting; they need to be addressed through a regular visa application with the mission.

Payment and reciprocity-fee failures#

A surprising share of "it won't go through" cases are payment failures, and they got more sensitive after the 23 December 2025 fee revision for British citizens. India moved to reciprocity-based pricing, which pushed some UK fees up sharply — at the time of writing the five-year tourist e-Visa for Brits is reported at around US$484, with shorter durations far cheaper, plus an approximate 3% bank surcharge on the transaction.

The practical effect is twofold: the amount may be larger than you expected, and a higher international card transaction is more likely to be declined or flagged by your UK bank for fraud. A declined payment can leave an application in limbo. Use a card you have told your bank you are travelling with, and confirm the fee for your exact visa duration and season before you start, because the price now swings with category and time of year.

A few timing facts that prevent self-inflicted rejections#

Two 2026 changes are worth knowing because misunderstanding them causes avoidable failures and wasted trips:

• The 30-day e-Tourist arrival window is now 120 days. Since late 2025 you can apply and the visa allows entry within roughly four months ahead, rather than the old 30-day window. That removes the old trap of applying too early — but you must still enter within the validity, not after it lapses.
• Entry only at designated gateways. An e-Visa lets you land only at the designated airports and a handful of seaports — land borders are excluded. Arriving by an unapproved route effectively voids the e-Visa at the frontier. We cover the full list and the new arrival formalities in India e-Arrival Card 2026.

How to reapply cleanly after a rejection#

If you have already been rejected, do not just resubmit the same data — the same automated check will fail again. Work through this order:

When DIY is fine, and when an agent earns its fee#

For a straightforward holiday, a clean passport, and a compliant photo, the e-Visa is genuinely a do-it-yourself job — the portal is built for self-service and most people sail through. We will always say that honestly.

Where the agent route pays for itself is precisely where rejections happen and money is at stake: you have already been rejected once and cannot see why; your photo keeps failing the upload; your name or place of birth raises a mismatch flag; you have a past immigration record or a Pakistan-link question and need the regular-visa route instead; or the fee and surcharge are large enough that a second failed attempt genuinely hurts. Because every rejection costs the full non-refundable fee again, getting it right once is the cheapest outcome.

We prepare and submit UK applicants' Indian e-Visa applications end to end — validating the photo to the exact spec, checking every field against the passport, confirming validity and blank pages, choosing the correct category, and flagging in advance the cases that need a paper visa instead of a doomed e-Visa attempt.

If you are staring at a rejection email right now, send us the details before you reapply — a five-minute check of the photo, the fields, and the passport almost always reveals the cause, and stops you spending a second non-refundable fee on the same mistake.

This guide reflects Indian e-Visa requirements, common rejection causes, and the post-December-2025 reciprocity fees and arrival-window changes as observed by NriDirect for UK applicants in 2026. Fees, photo specifications, eligibility rules, and entry gateways change without notice — always verify current details on the official Indian visa portal↗ before applying. NriDirect is an independent agent and is not affiliated with VFS Global or the Indian High Commission.