India e-Visa for US, UK and Australian Citizens: 30-Day, 1-Year and 5-Year Options for Wedding and Diwali Season

India's e-Visa is one of the more straightforward online visas an American, British or Australian traveller will meet, but the fees have been a source of confusion this year, with different figures circulating for the five-year option and reports of increases that some sites have and some have not picked up. This guide uses the fee table published on the government portal on 9 July 2026, which is the only schedule that matters at checkout.

It also covers the newer requirement that catches out even experienced India visitors: the e-Arrival Card, which everyone with a foreign passport must file in the 72 hours before landing.

Who Is Eligible

Nationals of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia are all on the e-Visa eligibility list of 174 countries and territories, as are Canadians and most EU nationals. The conditions the portal sets out:

• Your purpose is recreation, sightseeing, a casual visit to friends or relatives, a short yoga programme, a short course of up to six months that does not lead to a qualification, or short voluntary work.
• Your passport has at least six months' validity when you apply and two blank pages for stamping.
• You hold a return or onward ticket and sufficient funds for the stay.
• You are travelling on an ordinary passport, not a diplomatic or official one.
• Each traveller, including children, has their own passport and applies separately.

People of Pakistani origin or holding a Pakistani passport are not eligible for the e-Visa regardless of current nationality and must apply for a regular visa. The e-Visa cannot be used for employment, journalism or NGO work.

Use our visa checker to confirm your position if you hold dual nationality.

The Three e-Tourist Validities

The portal lists three e-Tourist visas. All are issued as an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) by email and stamped into your passport on arrival, and none can be extended or converted in India.

Two points deserve emphasis. The one-year and five-year clocks start on the date of grant, not your arrival, so applying 120 days early costs you four months of a one-year visa. And the stay limit is expressed by the portal as a calendar-year cap of 180 days rather than a per-visit cap; the ETA you receive states the conditions that apply to you, and it is the ETA, not this table, that immigration will enforce. Older guidance described the 30-day option as double entry; the portal currently says multiple. Check your ETA.

Fees by Passport

The official e-Tourist fee table, dated 9 July 2026, sets fees in US dollars by nationality. The rows for the three passports this guide covers:

A bank charge of 3% is added to every fee at payment. The fee is for processing and is non-refundable whether the ETA is granted or refused. The Embassy of India in Washington's fee release describes the same 30-day and one-year figures for US nationals; note that its five-year figure predates the current table.

Three things follow from the table:

• The 30-day and one-year fees are identical across the three passports and modest. For a single Diwali or wedding trip, US$25 covers it; for two or three trips in a year, US$40 is the obvious choice.
• The five-year visa is where passports diverge. At US$484, a British traveller needs to expect four or more separate years of travel before the five-year visa beats buying a one-year visa each time; for Americans at US$160 and Australians at US$200 the break-even is closer to three years.
• The April-June discount is a low-season incentive and applies to arrivals in those months, which are the hottest of the year. It is not relevant to a November or December trip.

If you are travelling for business rather than a wedding or holiday, the e-Business fee table dated 15 April 2026 lists a one-year e-Business visa at US$140 for US passports, US$242 for UK passports and US$215 for Australian passports.

Whatever this page says, the fee displayed on indianvisaonline.gov.in at payment is the one that applies. The portal updates its tables without announcement, and the figures above are as of the verification date.

Timing and Processing

You may apply from 120 days before your arrival date and no later than four days before. The portal gives the example that an application on 1 September may select an arrival date from 5 September to 2 January.

The portal does not publish a processing standard. In practice most ETAs arrive within a few days, but applications can be held for a re-upload of a rejected photo or passport scan, and the portal asks you to check that your status shows GRANTED before you travel. Build in a week.

Diwali and wedding season

Diwali falls on Sunday 8 November 2026, and India's main wedding season runs from November through February, peaking in December and around auspicious dates in late January and February. For either:

• Apply in mid-October for Diwali travel, and around six weeks before a wedding. That leaves time for a re-upload without approaching the four-day cut-off.
• If you are attending several events across the winter, a one-year e-Tourist visa granted in October covers the whole season and a return the following autumn.
• Flights into Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru around Diwali fill early and fares rise sharply in the fortnight before; the visa is rarely the bottleneck, the ticket is.

Our trip planner helps sequence a multi-city wedding itinerary, and the travel itinerary guide explains what to have on hand if immigration asks about your plans.

Documents and Photo Requirements

You upload two things for an e-Tourist application:

A digital photograph, in JPEG, between 10 KB and 1 MB, with equal height and width, showing the full face, front view, eyes open, without spectacles, head centred with the full head from hair to chin visible, on a plain light or white background with no shadows and no border. The most common cause of delay is a rectangular or shadowed upload.

The passport bio page, scanned as a PDF between 10 KB and 300 KB, showing the photograph and personal details clearly.

The form itself asks for your passport details, addresses, employment, the places you will visit, your reference in India (a hotel or the family hosting you is fine) and a reference in your home country. Answer everything; where a field does not apply, the portal says to write "NA" rather than leave it blank. You are responsible for the accuracy of what you submit, and a mismatch between the ETA and your passport - name, number, date of birth - can mean refusal at the airport. Check the ETA when it arrives and contact the e-Visa support centre at least 24 hours before travel if anything is wrong.

Applicants arriving from a yellow-fever country need a vaccination certificate; this does not apply to direct travel from the US, UK or Australia.

The e-Arrival Card: Free, Mandatory, Within 72 Hours

Separately from the visa, every foreigner - and every OCI card holder - must complete an e-Arrival Card online within 72 hours before arrival in India. The portal is explicit that this "is for arrival information, not a visa". It replaces the paper disembarkation card, and you file it at indianvisaonline.gov.in/earrival, at boi.gov.in or through the official Indian Visa Su-Swagatam app. There is no charge.

Two practical notes. The 72-hour window means you cannot file it when you apply for the visa; set a reminder for the day before departure. And because it sits on the same domain as the e-Visa, copycat sites now offer to "process" e-Arrival Cards for a fee. If a site asks you to pay for one, you are on the wrong site.

Where You Can Enter

The e-Visa is valid for arrival at the designated immigration checkposts only. The portal's FAQ lists 33 airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi, Goa (both airports), Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Amritsar, and its checkpost list includes newer additions such as Navi Mumbai; it also lists 38 seaports for cruise arrivals and a small number of land checkposts. You may leave from any authorised immigration checkpost. If your wedding is in a smaller city, fly into one of the designated airports and connect domestically; do not assume a regional international airport accepts e-Visas without checking the list.

Print the ETA and carry it with your passport. Immigration stamps the e-Visa into the passport on arrival, and only then does it become a visa.

The OCI Alternative

If you were born in India, were an Indian citizen, or are the child or grandchild of one, the Overseas Citizen of India card may be a better long-term answer than any e-Visa. It provides lifelong multiple-entry travel to India with no stay limit for most purposes, and OCI holders do not need a visa at all - though they still file the e-Arrival Card. Applications are made through ociservices.gov.in and the relevant embassy or consulate; the fee and processing time vary by mission and processing can take months, so it is not an option for this Diwali if you have not started. Spouses of Indian citizens and of OCI holders can also apply after two years of marriage.

For everyone else - which is most American, British and Australian wedding guests - the e-Tourist visa is the right tool.

Apply Only on the Official Site

The portal answers its own FAQ on this directly: "https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/ is only the official website to apply for the e-Visa Services", and it adds that the service is "completely online and no facilitation is required by any intermediary / travel agents". The government also states that it makes no provision for any emergency or express e-Visa fee. Third-party sites typically charge several times the official fee to key your answers into the same form.

If you have already paid a third-party site, your ETA - if one was actually obtained - is still valid; check its status on the official portal using the application ID.

Checklist

1. 1Confirm you are eligible and your passport has six months' validity and two blank pages.
2. 2Choose the validity: 30-day for one trip, one-year for a season of events, five-year only if the break-even makes sense for your passport.
3. 3Prepare a square JPEG photo and a PDF passport scan within the size limits.
4. 4Apply on indianvisaonline.gov.in between 120 and four days before arrival - mid-October for Diwali.
5. 5Check the ETA for errors and confirm the status shows GRANTED.
6. 6File the e-Arrival Card within 72 hours of departure.
7. 7Print the ETA, fly into a designated airport, and get the visa stamped on arrival.

Fees and rules verified on the Government of India e-Visa portal and its fee tables dated 9 July 2026 and 15 April 2026, on 4 September 2026. Fees are set by the Government of India and can change without notice; the amount shown at payment on the official portal is the one that applies.