India has performed its six-month transition far from the a protracted time-veteran paper disembarkation create. From 00:01 IST on 1 April 2026 every foreign national—collectively with Out of the country Citizen of India (OCI) card-holders—have to lodge an electronic “e-Arrival Card” within 72 hours of touchdown. The swap-off used to be confirmed in a 2 April dispatch from JETRO’s Novel Delhi put of enterprise. Presented on 1 October 2025 as part of the Ministry of Dwelling Affairs’ Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT) 2.0 programme, the digital card mirrors the knowledge previously nonetheless on the blue paper create: non-public knowledge, fresh tear historical previous, local contact vital aspects and address in India. Travellers upload the knowledge by means of the devoted portal or the Su-Swagatam mobile app and get a PDF/QR code that have to be shown—both on a plot or as a print-out—at some stage in significant inspection.
Might per chance aloof travellers or corporate mobility groups need help navigating these glossy digital necessities, VisaHQ’s India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) affords step-by-step steering, computerized reminders and doc-study products and services for the e-Arrival Card besides all classes of Indian visas, streamlining compliance in a single put.
Unlike the paper create, the e-Arrival Card is timestamped in opposition to the traveller’s visa list, giving immigration officers trusty-time visibility of overstays and old compliance issues. Enterprise stakeholders inform this can shorten queues and decrease manual knowledge entry, but warn that assignees arriving on quick check up on have to to find the 72-hour filing window into ticketing workflows. Employers are being educated to add the e-Arrival Card hyperlink to welcome packs and protect screenshots with offer letters in case of plot outages. The alternate dovetails with wider border-technology upgrades presented within the FY 2026 Funds, collectively with biometric e-gates at Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru and an Utility Programming Interface (API) feed from airways that pre-validates passport and visa knowledge earlier than departure. Walk managers would possibly well additionally merely aloof overview corporate tear insurance policies to guarantee compliance and steer lope of INR 5,000 on-arrival fines for non-submission. With India pushing to treble inbound vacationer numbers to 30 million by 2030, the entirely digital arrival card is viewed as a milestone in organising a “paper-much less, contact-much less” entry trip that aligns India with Singapore’s SG Arrival Card and Australia’s incoming Digital Passenger Declaration.
Indian Visas & Immigration Team @ VisaHQ
VisaHQ’s educated visas and immigration team helps folk and companies navigate world tear, work, and residency necessities. We take care of doc preparation, application filings, authorities companies coordination, every ingredient vital to guarantee mercurial, compliant, and stress-free approvals.
