Indian e-Visa Maximum Stay & Multiple-Entry Rules: How Long You Can Actually Stay

You booked the flight, the e-Visa approval email landed, and you assumed the rest was simple: stay as long as the visa is valid. It is not that simple. The validity printed on your Indian e-Visa and the number of days you are actually permitted to remain in the country are two completely different things — and confusing them is one of the most common, and most expensive, mistakes British and Indian-origin travellers make at Indian immigration.

For most UK passport holders heading to India, the question "how long can I stay?" has at least three answers stacked on top of each other: how long per visit, how many days in a single calendar year, and how long the visa stays valid for re-entry. Get one wrong and you are looking at FRRO offices, exit permits, and fines that climb into tens of thousands of rupees. Here is what the rules really say in 2026, and where they quietly trip people up.

Validity is not the same as permitted stay#

The single biggest misunderstanding is this: a five-year e-Tourist visa does not let you live in India for five years. The "5 years" is the window during which the visa is valid for entry. The amount of time you may physically remain on each trip — and across each year — is governed by separate caps.

India issues e-Tourist visas in three flavours, and the stay rules differ for each:

Feature	30-day e-Tourist	1-year e-Tourist	5-year e-Tourist
Validity window	30 days from arrival	365 days from ETA grant	5 years from ETA grant
Entries allowed	Double entry	Multiple entry	Multiple entry
Fee for UK nationals (approx)	US$25	US$40	US$80
Per-visit stay (UK nationals)	Within the 30 days	Up to 180 days	Up to 180 days
Extendable / convertible	No	No	No

Those US-dollar fees attract an additional bank charge of around 2.5%, and the fee must be paid at least four days before your expected arrival or the application will not be processed. The 30-day visa is the odd one out — it is double-entry and the clock simply runs against the 30-day window. The one-year and five-year visas are where the per-visit and per-year caps come into play.

The 180-day caveat: a privilege, not the default#

Here is a quirk most travellers never hear about. The standard rule for nationals of most countries on a long-validity e-Tourist visa is a 90-day maximum continuous stay per visit. But citizens of just four countries — the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Japan — get an enhanced 180-day continuous stay per visit.

If you hold a British passport, this is good news: you may stay up to 180 days at a stretch where a German or Australian traveller would be capped at 90. But it creates a trap of its own, because the generous per-visit allowance collides with a stricter annual ceiling.

This matters most for "snowbirds" and people splitting their year between the UK and India. Picture someone who arrives in early February for 150 days, leaves, and tries to return in October for another long stretch. The October trip is allowed only up to the 30 days remaining in that year's 180-day budget. The visa is still valid; the year's allowance is not.

There is one genuinely useful subtlety: because the cap resets on 1 January, a trip that straddles the new year is counted across two budgets. Days in December draw on the old year's allowance; days from 1 January draw on the fresh one. That is the one legitimate way to chain together a longer continuous presence — but it requires planning the entry and exit dates around the calendar with real precision, and immigration officers count every day.

Business and medical e-Visas play by their own rules#

If your trip is not pure tourism, the maths changes again — and people routinely apply for the wrong category, only to be turned back or forced into a costly re-application.

• e-Business visa — valid 365 days from the date the ETA is granted, multiple entry, with each continuous stay capped at 180 days. Crucially, if any single stay exceeds 180 days you must register with the local Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) within two weeks of crossing that mark.
• e-Medical visa — valid 60 days from arrival, triple entry only, designed for a course of treatment. Attendants travel on a linked e-Medical Attendant visa.

Type	Validity	Entries	Per-visit cap
e-Tourist (1/5 yr)	1 or 5 years	Multiple	180 days (UK)
90 days (most others)
e-Business	365 days	Multiple	180 days per visit
e-Medical	60 days	Triple	Within the 60 days

All three e-Visa categories share one unforgiving feature: they are non-extendable and non-convertible. You cannot stretch a tourist e-Visa into a longer stay, and you cannot switch it to a business or employment visa from inside India. If your plans change, you leave and re-apply for the correct category — there is no in-country fix.

Entry and exit: the ports nobody mentions#

An e-Visa is not valid at every border. Entry is permitted only through designated immigration check posts — currently 33 airports (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Goa, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and others), a list of designated seaports, and a small number of land borders such as Raxaul and Rupaidiha. India has been steadily expanding the network, including additional seaports designated as immigration check posts from March 2026, but you cannot assume your point of entry qualifies. Exit, by contrast, is allowed from any authorised immigration check post.

If you fly into an airport not on the e-Visa list, you can be denied boarding or refused entry on arrival — a brutal way to lose a holiday. This is exactly the kind of detail that looks trivial until it ruins a trip.

What overstaying actually costs#

The reason all of this is worth getting right is that India treats overstay as a legal violation, not an administrative slip. Under the Foreigners Act, the financial penalties alone escalate sharply with the length of the overstay:

• 1–15 days: around ₹5,000
• 16–30 days: around ₹10,000
• 31–90 days: around ₹20,000
• More than 90 days: ₹50,000 and upward

And the fine is the gentle part. If you have overstayed, you cannot simply turn up at the airport and fly out. You must obtain an Exit Permit from the FRRO through the e-FRRO portal — a process that can take anywhere from roughly a week to three weeks of working days, meaning a fresh round of accommodation and rebooked flights while you wait. Serious or repeated overstays can trigger detention, deportation, and entry bans, and even a brief overstay is recorded against you. That record follows you into every future Indian visa or OCI application, where it can mean refusal, reduced validity, or extra scrutiny.

Why this gets handled, not gambled#

On paper, an e-Visa is a form and a photo upload. In practice, the decisions that determine whether your trip goes smoothly are the ones made before you apply: which visa category genuinely fits your purpose, whether your travel dates fit inside both the per-visit and the calendar-year caps, whether your chosen airport is a valid e-Visa port, and whether the visa is tied to the passport you will actually be carrying. Get any of those wrong and the cost is not a small fee — it is a refused boarding, a refused entry, or an FRRO exit permit that strands you for days.

This is where it pays to have someone who does this every week look at the whole picture before a rupee is spent. NriDirect reviews your travel pattern, flags the calendar-year arithmetic that trips up frequent visitors, matches you to the correct e-Visa category, and gets the application right the first time — so the only thing you are counting on arrival is the days you planned to stay.

If your trip is for work meetings or conferences, the business route has its own stay clock and FRRO registration trigger — worth getting matched correctly from the outset.

Frequently asked questions#

How long can a UK citizen stay in India on an e-Tourist visa?#

On a 1-year or 5-year e-Tourist visa, a UK national may stay up to 180 days in a single continuous visit — a privilege shared only with US, Canadian and Japanese nationals. However, total stay across the whole calendar year (1 January to 31 December) is also capped at 180 days, so you cannot make two full-length 180-day visits in the same year.

Does a 5-year e-Visa mean I can live in India for 5 years?#

No. The five years is only the window during which the visa is valid for re-entry. Each visit and each calendar year are separately capped (180 days for UK nationals). The visa is also non-extendable and non-convertible, so it cannot be used to settle in India.

What happens if I overstay my Indian e-Visa?#

You face escalating fines — from roughly ₹5,000 for up to 15 days to ₹50,000 or more beyond 90 days — and you must obtain an FRRO Exit Permit before you can leave, which can take one to three weeks. Overstays are recorded and can lead to deportation, entry bans, and trouble with future Indian visa or OCI applications.

Can I enter India through any airport with an e-Visa?#

No. e-Visas are valid only at designated immigration check posts — currently around 33 airports plus listed seaports and a few land borders. Arriving at a non-designated port can mean denied boarding or refused entry. You can, however, exit from any authorised check post.

Can I extend or convert my e-Visa once I'm in India?#

No. All e-Visa categories — tourist, business and medical — are explicitly non-extendable and non-convertible. If your plans change or you need a different category, you must leave India and apply afresh from outside the country.