Indian Visa

All foreigners visiting India need a valid passport and Indian visa. Only categories exempted under bilateral arrangements may not need a visa. For persons of Indian origin (all categories), the OCI card is mandatory.

Visa applications can be done via two modes, e-Visa and regular visa. e-Visa will be easier to apply for and faster (3-4 working days).

Citizens of 166 countries are eligible for e-Visa, the complete list of can be found on the e-Visa portal. Those who are ineligible for e-Visa should apply for regular visa with the local Indian Mission/Embassy in their country.

India provides a “Visa on Arrival” only to the nationals of Japan, South Korea and UAE (only for such UAE nationals who had earlier obtained a visa for India) and are available at selected Airports (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad) only. For more info, please visit here.

Those travelling to India are also advised to go through instructions available on the official website of Bureau of Immigration.

If you are organizing an international conference in India, you may find [notes from debconf23 visa team](https://debian.org.in/post/learnings-from-debconf23/) useful.

Applying for e-visa:

PLEASE NOTE: Ensure that you read all the instructions and FAQs in the official website properly before applying.

Official website:

Notes

Applying for Regular/Paper visa through Indian Mission/Post

PLEASE NOTE: Ensure that you read all the instructions and FAQs in the official website properly before applying.

Official website:

Notes

Conference visa

We suggest you apply for the e-Conference visa instead of the tourist visa for your visit to India for DebConf23. Those applying for an e-Conference visa can also do some tourism before and after the event.

The e-Conference visa is only valid for 30 days. If you plan on staying for more than 30 days in India for tourism, you will have to apply for regular conference visa which can combine tourism for up to 6 months along with attending the conference.

To apply for either e-Conference visa or regular conference visa, you will require invitation from the organizer and Political clearance from Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India. Please contact visa@debconf.org (PGP: 7E78 2DB5 3C92 93F9 B5FE 9DD9 A193 CADE 502F B448) for both these documents.

We can provide you a visa invitation letter once your registration is confirmed. We will have to mention who will pay for your expenses in the invitation letter, so if you are applying for a bursary we will have to wait for bursary approval before we can send you the visa invitation. If your expenses are covered by someone else, like your employer, then mention that in your email, so we can include that information in your invite letter.

For us to send visa invitation letters, please email us your:

  1. Full name, as it appears on your passport
  2. Passport number
  3. Date of birth
  4. Place (country) of birth
  5. Nationality
  6. Home Address
  7. Photos of page(s) of your passport with personal information, personal photograph and passport number.

The invitation letter will be provided by Infopark Kochi. The information above, including the passport scans, will be shared with them.

The visa invitation letter process will take us at least three weeks, please remember to request as early as possible. We have to submit the list of participants who need visa to Ministry of External Affairs and get Political clearance from Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India (this can take up to two weeks). Getting signature from Infopark in the invitation letter also takes time (this is processed in multiple batches).

Note: We will be able to provide you invitation letter only if you send passport details by 1st August.

Completing the eConference visa form

The form is quite long, expect to spend at least half an hour on it.

Some tips to help you navigate the visa form:

Conference Details:

Reference:

The visa team will provide the contact address of a local team member to be used as a reference along with invitation letter and political clearance from MEA.

Documents: