No OCI card? What the India e-Visa asks of Australians

Two official pages put different prices on a five-year India e-Visa, and the gap is US$120. The e-Tourist fee table on the Government of India’s e-Visa portal, dated 8 September 2026, lists US$200 for Australians. The e-Visa page of India’s consulate in Sydney gives US$80. Fees vary by country, the portal says, and it is where applications are lodged and paid for. The portal adds a bank charge of 3 per cent; the consulate’s page says 2.5 per cent.

The figures matter to anyone heading to India on an Australian passport without an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card, whether a new citizen still waiting for the card or a partner or friend with no Indian background. Australia is on the portal’s list of eligible countries, and a visa on arrival is not an alternative. The portal’s FAQ reserves that for nationals of Japan and South Korea, and for UAE nationals who have held an Indian visa before.

Three tourist visas, two clocks

The fee table prices the e-Tourist visa in three lengths, and they keep time differently. The 30-day visa starts on the day of first arrival and allows more than one entry within those 30 days. Like every e-Visa, it is “non-extendable and non-convertible”, and it costs US$25 from July to March or US$10 from April to June. The portal and the consulate agree on those figures and on US$40 for the one-year visa.

The one-year and five-year visas start counting on the day the electronic travel authorisation, or ETA, is granted. A one-year visa granted in mid-January runs out the following January, whether its holder first flies in February or in November. Both allow multiple entries, and both carry the same ceiling: no more than 180 days in India in a calendar year. India’s Bureau of Immigration adds that a continuous-stay limit applies after arrival, without giving a number.

A fee that stays paid

Applications go in online at least four days before arrival and no more than 120 days ahead, and the fee must be paid at least four days before travel or the application is not processed. It is not refunded, whether the authorisation is granted or rejected, because it pays for processing. Nothing more is payable at the airport, the FAQ says.

The passport must have at least six months of validity on the day of applying and at least two blank pages for the immigration stamp. A new service on the portal moves an e-Visa from an old passport to a new one, and anyone entering on a new passport with an ETA issued on the old one must carry both. The portal also asks for a return or onward ticket and enough money for the stay, and each traveller, children included, needs a passport and an application of their own.

The ETA arrives by email. Travellers are asked to check that its status reads “GRANTED” before leaving and to carry a copy. At the immigration counter the visa is stamped into the passport and biometric details are recorded.

Who the India e-Visa leaves out

The visa covers more than sightseeing. Alongside visits to friends and relatives, the portal allows a short yoga course and short informal courses in local languages, music, dance, arts and crafts or cooking, provided they run no longer than six months and award no qualifying certificate. Unpaid voluntary work of up to a month is allowed too. The e-Visa does not cover employment, NGO work or journalism, and it is not valid in protected, restricted or cantonment areas without prior permission.

Some travellers cannot use it at all. A person with a defence, military, security or police background, serving or retired, is not eligible and is directed to a regular visa; the portal warns that hiding that background may lead to refusal of entry and deportation. The FAQ also excludes people of Pakistani origin and those whose parents or grandparents were born or permanently lived in Pakistan, and refers them to a regular visa from an Indian mission.

Separately, the portal lists documents for an e-Miscellaneous visa whose stated purpose is e-Entry, among them a copy of a parent’s or spouse’s Indian passport or OCI card, but it does not say who may apply.

One official address

Asked whether any other website can take an e-Visa application, the FAQ answers no: indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa “is only the official website to apply for the e-Visa Services”. The process is entirely online and needs no intermediary, it says, and the portal’s advisory adds that the government makes no provision for emergency or express fees. A press release from India’s consulate in Perth on fake e-Tourist visa websites describes how they imitate the real thing: “In order to mislead applicants, some of these websites have created images and home page templates like the Government of India websites.”

Stranded by the West Asia conflict

Some visitors this year could not leave. On 25 March 2026 India’s High Commission in Canberra posted a notice that visas and e-Visas of foreigners stuck in India because of the conflict in West Asia, if expiring or due to expire soon, would be extended for a month free of charge, case by case, by the regional registration offices for foreigners (FRROs). Overstay penalties after 28 February 2026, the date the notice gives for the start of the conflict, would be waived, exit permits would be free, and travellers whose flights were diverted to India would get free temporary landing permits. The notice calls the measures “a goodwill and humanitarian gesture for foreign nationals”. It gives no end date, and the High Commission’s alerts page lists no later notice on the subject.

At the airport, the e-Visa asks for little more than a copy of the ETA and the traveller’s biometric details. The decisions come earlier, on a form filled in at home, where a past police career or a grandparent’s birthplace can rule out the online route, and where the fee, once paid, stays paid.