Australian passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no consulate appointment in Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne, no courier, no passport handed over. Approval usually arrives by email in 24 to 72 hours.
90 days
Maximum stay per visit
24–72 hrs
Typical processing time
Up to 5 years
Longest validity offered
Not eligible
Visa on Arrival
100% online
No embassy visit
Overview
India is now one of Australia's largest sources of migration, and the travel that flows from that dominates the corridor: family visits to Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh sit alongside a growing holiday market for Rajasthan, Goa and the Himalaya. Business travel has grown steadily too, particularly in education, mining services and technology.
Every Australian citizen needs a visa granted before departure. There is no visa-free entry and no visa on arrival. For tourism, business and medical travel the eVisa handles it online: an electronic authorisation issued by the Government of India, linked to your passport number, with no stamp and no consular appointment.
One point worth being clear about up front, because it is the most common Australian misconception: Australia is not in India's extended-stay tier. The 180-day per-visit allowance applies to American, British, Canadian and Japanese nationals only. Australian passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit. The five-year multiple-entry tourist eVisa is available, which for anyone visiting family regularly is comfortably the best value.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. India extends visa-free entry only to Nepal and Bhutan, and Visa on Arrival only to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Australian citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and Qantas or Air India will verify it at the gate in Sydney or Melbourne — carriers are fined for boarding improperly documented passengers.
Choose the category by purpose. Holidays, sightseeing, weddings, visiting friends and relatives, and yoga or wellness retreats all fall under the tourist eVisa — and visiting family is explicitly tourism, which reassures a lot of first-time applicants. Business meetings, trade fairs and supplier visits require the business eVisa. Hospital treatment requires the medical eVisa. Employment, journalism, academic research, long-term study and missionary work sit outside the eVisa scheme and need a regular visa from an Indian mission in Australia.
Australian permanent residents who are not citizens apply on the nationality of their passport, with that country's fees, entitlements and stay limits — not Australia's.
Stay & validity
Australian citizens are permitted up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa. The 30-day version allows double entry, with its 30 days counted from your arrival date. The one-year and five-year versions are multiple-entry, and their validity begins on the date the Indian government grants the application rather than the date you land.
The grant-date rule matters for Australians because trips to India are typically booked months out. Applying in July for a Christmas trip spends five months of a one-year eVisa before you leave. For a one-year visa, apply two to three weeks before departure.
Because the eVisa is bound to a single passport number, an Australian passport renewal between grant and travel invalidates it. With a five-year eVisa spanning half a passport cycle, this catches people out — there is no transfer process, so you apply again on the new document.
The business eVisa allows up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window — double the tourist allowance for Australians, which makes using the correct category genuinely worthwhile for extended work travel. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Australian passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Australia
Requirements
Everything Australian passport holders need before starting an application. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality or visa type.
Passport bio-data page — a clear colour scan or photo showing your photograph, full name, date of birth, passport number and expiry date
Recent passport-style photograph — square format, plain white background, full face visible, no shadows and no headwear other than for religious reasons
A valid credit or debit card to pay the government fee and service charge
Your return or onward ticket details, or at minimum your intended departure date
The address where you will be staying for your first night in India
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with our team checking every field before anything reaches the Indian authorities.
Enter your passport details exactly as printed, choose your visa type and duration, and upload your photo and passport data page.
Our team checks your photo dimensions, passport scan clarity, name spelling and date formats before anything is submitted.
Your application goes to the Government of India on your behalf, and we keep you posted at every status change.
Print it or keep it on your phone, and we explain exactly how to present it at your port of entry in India.
Standard processing takes 48 to 72 hours and express handling 24 to 48 hours. Both are business-day estimates, and Indian public holidays — numerous and often state-specific — extend them. Diwali and Holi are the two dependable annual slowdowns.
Apply at least a week before departure, ideally two. The margin exists so a rejected photograph can be replaced without paying for express handling twice. Applications open 120 days ahead of travel, though on one-year and five-year visas applying that early simply wastes validity you have paid for.
Separate from your eVisa, every foreign national entering India must complete the digital e-Arrival Card before boarding. It replaces the old paper disembarkation form and is required on every single visit, whatever visa you hold.
Getting there
Sydney and Melbourne have nonstop service to Delhi and Bengaluru, and both Indian arrival points are designated eVisa ports. From Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide you will connect — via an east-coast city or a South-East Asian or Gulf hub, none of which affects your eVisa.
Best time to go
October to March is India's dry season, and for Australians it lines up unusually well: the December–January summer holidays fall right in the middle of India's best weather. That is the peak period on Sydney–Delhi and Melbourne–Delhi, so book several months ahead. February and March offer the same conditions with better fares.
Punjab and Gujarat, the destinations for much of Australia's family travel, are worth timing carefully. November brings crop-burning haze and heavy air pollution across the northern plains, and December and January bring fog that regularly delays flights into Delhi and Amritsar. February and March are the better window.
Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C — which unfortunately overlaps with the Australian winter school holidays. If June or July is your only option, aim for Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand or Sikkim, all at their best then. India is 4.5 to 5.5 hours behind Australian eastern time depending on daylight saving, so you effectively gain most of a day flying out and lose it coming back.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Australia — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The most common Australian error. The extended 180-day per-visit stay applies to US, UK, Canadian and Japanese nationals — not Australians, who receive 90 days. Because so much English-language guidance is written for British and American audiences, Australians frequently plan longer trips than their visa permits. The eVisa cannot be extended from inside India.
India does not recognise dual citizenship, and with India now a leading source of Australian migration this affects a large share of applicants. If you were born in India or ever held an Indian passport, you must declare it and will generally need a Surrender Certificate. If you visit family regularly, an OCI card gives lifelong multiple-entry rights and is usually the better long-term answer than repeat eVisas.
Eligibility follows citizenship, not residence. Someone living in Melbourne on an Indian, Nepali or Filipino passport applies as a national of that country, with that country's fees and entitlements. Selecting Australia because you live here produces an application that does not match your travel document.
A five-year eVisa outlives much of a passport cycle. Renewing your Australian passport invalidates the eVisa attached to the old number, with no transfer process. Plan renewals and visa applications together, particularly if you rely on the same visa across several annual family trips.
The eVisa is valid only at India's designated airports and authorised seaports. Australians combining India with a Himalayan trek routinely assume they can return by land. Any crossing from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh or Pakistan needs a regular visa arranged before you leave Australia.
Photo rejected on technical grounds
By far the most common cause of delay. The photograph must be square, on a plain white background, with your full face visible and no shadow behind your head. Cropped selfies and phone photos taken against a cream wall are routinely bounced back.
Passport scan unreadable
Glare across the machine-readable zone, a cut-off corner, or a scan where the passport number is blurred will stall the application. Photograph the page flat, in daylight, with no flash.
Applying too close to departure
The eVisa must be granted before you fly, and airlines check it at the gate. Applications submitted the night before a flight leave no room for a document re-upload.
Conditions
These conditions are set by the Government of India and do not vary by nationality. They are worth reading before you book, because two of them — the port-of-entry rule and the restricted-areas rule — catch out a lot of otherwise well-planned trips.
Validity is measured from your date of arrival in India, not from the date you apply. You also need at least two blank pages for immigration stamps.
The India eVisa is accepted at India's designated eVisa airports and authorised seaports. It cannot be used to cross a land border, so overland arrivals from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh or Pakistan need a different visa.
Every person travelling needs their own eVisa and their own passport, including infants and children. Children cannot be added to a parent's application.
An eVisa does not grant access to Protected Areas, Restricted Areas or Cantonment Areas. Parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, Ladakh, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep require a Protected Area Permit or Restricted Area Permit in addition to your visa.
You cannot extend an eVisa from inside India or convert it into another visa category. If your plans change, you must leave and apply again.
Diplomatic, official and service passports are not eligible for the eVisa route, and neither are international travel documents or refugee travel documents.
Consular services
None of these are involved in an eVisa application — the process is entirely online, so there is no appointment to book. They handle what the eVisa cannot: OCI cards, Surrender Certificates, employment and student visas, and consular services for Indian nationals in Australia. If you are of Indian origin and travel frequently, the OCI route is worth investigating properly.
FAQs
The questions Australian passport holders ask most often about applying for an Indian eVisa.
Up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa. Australia is not in the extended-stay tier — the 180-day allowance applies only to US, UK, Canadian and Japanese nationals, which is the single most common Australian misconception. The 30-day version allows 30 days with double entry. The business eVisa permits up to 180 days per visit within a one-year window, and the medical eVisa 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Government fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures specifically for Australian passport holders. You can compare 30-day, one-year and five-year options side by side, and the amount shown is the complete cost including our service fee — nothing further is charged on arrival.
Apply as a citizen of the country that issued your passport. Australian permanent residence has no bearing on Indian visa eligibility and does not give you the entitlements Australian citizens receive. Select your passport nationality and the correct fees and stay limits will apply automatically.
Usually yes, but you must declare your former Indian nationality and will generally need a Surrender Certificate or proof of renunciation, because India does not permit dual citizenship. If you visit family in India regularly, look seriously at an OCI card — it gives lifelong multiple-entry rights and removes the need to apply each trip.
Sydney serves Delhi and Bengaluru nonstop, and Melbourne serves Delhi, at around 12 to 14 hours. From Perth, Brisbane or Adelaide you will connect — via an east-coast city, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or a Gulf hub. Perth is geographically the closest Australian capital to India and often has competitive fares via Singapore.
Yes. Visiting friends and relatives is an accepted tourist purpose, and you may give a relative's home address as your address in India. No invitation letter is needed — that requirement applies to the business eVisa only.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Australian citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and your airline will verify it at the gate before you fly.
Yes. Every traveller needs an individual eVisa on their own passport, including infants. Children cannot be added to a parent's application, and each needs its own photograph and passport scan. For a family of four that is four separate applications — worth factoring into both the cost and the time you set aside.
Your nationality is already set to Australia. Complete the form in under ten minutes, and our team will check every detail before it reaches the Indian authorities.
Other nationalities
Stay limits, fees and requirements differ by passport. Here are the guides for other nationalities.
