Indian Tourist e-Visa from the UK in 2026: The 30-Day, 1-Year and 5-Year Variants Explained

You have the flights, the wedding invitation or the long-promised trip to Rajasthan, and a free evening to "just sort the visa." Three hours later you are still wrestling a passport scan that refuses to drop under 300KB, your photo keeps getting flagged for the wrong dimensions, and an Indian government portal wants your UK debit card to pay in US dollars. The Indian tourist e-Visa is genuinely useful — but it is also one of those systems that looks simple on the surface and quietly trips up thousands of perfectly ordinary travellers.

This is a plain-English guide to what the Indian tourist e-Visa actually is in 2026, the three variants you can choose from, what each one costs from the UK, and the small print that decides whether your application sails through or bounces back.

What the Indian tourist e-Visa actually is#

The e-Tourist Visa (often written e-TV or eTV) is an electronic travel authorisation linked to your passport. There is no sticker and no trip to a consulate — once granted, it arrives by email as an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), and immigration at the Indian airport verifies it against your passport on arrival. It is the standard route for UK passport holders travelling to India for tourism, visiting family and friends, short yoga or wellness stays, or casual business meetings that don't amount to actual employment.

Crucially, it is not for the diaspora travelling on an OCI card, who already have lifelong entry rights, and it is not the right product if you are going to work, study, conduct paid business, or seek medical treatment — those need their own visa categories entirely.

The three variants: 30-day, 1-year and 5-year#

India offers the tourist e-Visa in three flavours. They differ not just in price but in how long the authorisation lives and how many times you can come and go.

A few things worth understanding behind those numbers:

• The 30-day visa is the workhorse for a single holiday. It is valid for 30 days from your date of first arrival and allows two entries — handy if you're hopping to Nepal or Sri Lanka mid-trip and coming back.
• The 1-year and 5-year visas are multiple-entry, but each individual stay is capped at 180 days per visit for UK nationals, counted from the date you land. The clock is per-trip, not annual — so you can return repeatedly, but you can't simply live there.
• All three are non-extendable and non-convertible. You cannot stretch a tourist e-Visa into a work or student visa once you're in the country; you'd have to leave and apply afresh.

The fees — and the 2026 surprise for British passports#

Here is where 2026 throws UK travellers a curveball. For most of the world, the tourist e-Visa fees are modest and tiered: roughly US$25 for the 30-day, US$40 for the 1-year, and historically US$80 for the 5-year.

But India now prices several categories on a reciprocal basis — your fee mirrors what your country charges Indian citizens. Following a revision that took effect in late 2025, the 5-year tourist e-Visa for British nationals jumped from US$80 to around US$484 (roughly £420 at current rates). Citizens of the Crown Dependencies — Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man — fall under the same higher band. The 30-day and 1-year variants remain at the lower, near-universal rates.

On top of the visa fee itself, the payment gateway adds a bank/transaction surcharge of around 2.5–3%. And the whole thing is charged in US dollars — which is exactly where many UK applicants come unstuck.

Why it feels so fiddly — the bits that get applications rejected#

On paper the e-Visa is "apply online, get an email." In practice, the portal is unforgiving about details that have nothing to do with whether you're a genuine tourist. These are the snags we see most often.

The photograph. It must be a square colour photo — 2in × 2in, JPEG format, under 1MB, with a plain light background, your full face visible, no shadows, no glare, no cropping the top of your head. A perfectly good passport photo from a UK booth is frequently the wrong shape and gets bounced.

The passport scan. You upload the bio-data page as a single PDF under 300KB. Scan it too well and it's too big; compress it too hard and the portal rejects it as illegible. Getting a clean, readable page under that tiny limit is a genuine faff.

Passport validity. Your passport needs at least six months' validity beyond arrival and two blank pages. Renew your UK passport too close to the trip and you'll have entered the wrong document number; renew it after the e-Visa is granted and the visa no longer matches your passport — both mean starting again.

The USD card payment. UK debit and credit cards are routinely declined by the Indian payment gateway, flagged for "suspected fraud" because of the unusual merchant and the dollar amount. A failed payment can leave the application in limbo while your travel date creeps closer.

The timing. You must apply at least four days before arrival, and the fee must clear at least four days before you travel, or the application won't be processed. That is the floor, not a comfortable margin — one rejected photo can eat those four days entirely.

Which variant suits you?#

• One holiday, one trip, in and out within a month? The 30-day double-entry visa is all you need.
• Visiting family a couple of times this year, or an open-ended itinerary? The 1-year multiple-entry visa, with up to 180 days per visit, is the sensible middle ground — and at around $40, still excellent value.
• A frequent visitor — business meetings, property, ageing parents, multiple trips every year for the foreseeable future? The 5-year may still pay for itself despite the new ~£420 fee, because you apply once and forget it for half a decade.

If you're genuinely unsure, the honest answer is that the 1-year visa is right for most UK travellers in 2026.

Where we come in#

None of this is conceptually hard. It is fiddly — and fiddly is precisely where evenings disappear and trips get jeopardised by a photo that's three millimetres too tall or a card that won't talk to the gateway. We complete the application exactly as the portal expects, format your photo and passport scan to the precise specification, advise on the right variant so you don't overpay for the wrong tier, and handle the USD card payment so it actually goes through the first time.

If your trip is for work rather than tourism, the category and the documents change — and a business meeting on a tourist visa can mean problems at immigration. That's a different product, and we handle it too.

Frequently asked questions#

Can UK citizens get an Indian tourist e-Visa in 2026?#

Yes. India offers the e-Tourist Visa to British passport holders again, in 30-day, 1-year and 5-year variants. The 5-year version, however, now carries a much higher reciprocal fee for UK nationals.

How much does the Indian tourist e-Visa cost for UK travellers?#

The 30-day visa is around US$25, the 1-year around US$40, and the 5-year is now reciprocally priced for UK nationals at roughly US$484 (about £420). A bank surcharge of around 2.5–3% is added to the card payment on top.

How many entries does each Indian tourist e-Visa allow?#

The 30-day visa allows double entry. The 1-year and 5-year visas are multiple-entry, each capped at a maximum stay of 180 days per visit from the date of arrival.

How early should I apply for an Indian e-Visa before travelling?#

You must apply at least 4 days before your date of arrival, and the fee must clear at least 4 days before travel. In practice, leave a comfortable buffer — a rejected photo or passport scan can reset the clock entirely.

Why do Indian e-Visa applications get rejected?#

The most common causes are photo and passport-scan errors: a photo that isn't 2in×2in JPEG under 1MB, a passport bio-page PDF over 300KB, glare or cropping, or a passport with under six months' validity or fewer than two blank pages. Payment failures on UK cards in USD are another frequent snag.