Belgian passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the Embassy of India in Brussels, no courier, no passport handed over. Approval typically 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
Belgium's relationship with India runs through one unusually specific channel: Antwerp and the diamond trade. The city handles a very large share of the world's rough and polished diamonds, and the trade is deeply intertwined with Surat and Mumbai, with a substantial Indian-origin business community in Antwerp itself. That makes Belgium's Indian business travel far more concentrated and repetitive than the country's size would suggest.
Alongside that sits ordinary leisure travel — Rajasthan, Kerala, Goa — and a European-institutions layer in Brussels that generates its own visits. Every Belgian 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 entirely online: an electronic authorisation issued by the Government of India, linked to your passport number, with no stamp and no consular appointment. Belgian passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa, and the five-year multiple-entry version is available — which for Antwerp's regular Surat and Mumbai travellers is clearly the better economics.
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. Belgian citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and your carrier will verify it at the gate in Brussels.
Choose the category by purpose. Tourism, sightseeing, visiting friends and wellness travel fall under the tourist eVisa. Meetings, trade fairs, supplier visits, diamond-trade business and contract negotiation require the business eVisa. Hospital treatment requires the medical eVisa. Employment, journalism, academic research and long-term study are outside the eVisa scheme and need a regular visa from the embassy in Brussels.
Belgian residents who are not Belgian citizens apply on the nationality of their passport, with that country's fees, entitlements and stay limits — a point that matters in Antwerp and Brussels, where a large share of the India-facing business community holds Indian or other passports.
Stay & validity
Belgian 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 starts on the date the Indian government grants the application rather than the date you land.
For Antwerp's diamond trade the business eVisa is usually the right instrument, and the multi-year multiple-entry version removes the application from your calendar. It permits up to 180 days per visit within a one-year window — double the tourist allowance — which suits repeated short trips to Surat and Mumbai across a trading year.
The eVisa is bound to a single passport number, so a Belgian passport renewal during a five-year visa's term invalidates it, with no transfer process. If you rely on the same visa for regular business travel, plan the renewal deliberately.
The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Belgian passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Belgium
Requirements
Everything Belgian 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. For the diamond trade, note that Gujarat's regional holidays around Diwali effectively close Surat for a stretch each year.
Apply at least a week before departure, ideally two, so a rejected photograph can be replaced without paying twice for express handling. For recurring business travel, a five-year multiple-entry business eVisa removes this pressure permanently.
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
Brussels has no consistent nonstop service to India, so most routings connect through a Gulf hub or a neighbouring European airport. Total journey times run 11 to 16 hours. Your eVisa is checked at your Indian arrival airport rather than in transit.
Best time to go
October to March is India's dry season and the best window for leisure travel. The Christmas and New Year weeks are the fare peak on Gulf routings out of Brussels; February and March offer the same conditions with better value.
For the diamond trade the seasonality is different and driven by the Indian calendar rather than the weather. Diwali closes Surat and much of Gujarat's trade for several days, and the run-up is the busiest shipping period of the year — worth planning meetings around rather than into. Holi has a similar if shorter effect.
The Belgian summer holidays fall in the monsoon, which is poor for Rajasthan but excellent for Ladakh and the Spiti Valley. Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C. India is 3.5 to 4.5 hours ahead of Belgian time depending on the season.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Belgium — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Specific to this market and genuinely risky. Visiting Surat or Mumbai to inspect goods, negotiate, or attend trade events is commercial activity and needs the business eVisa. Applicants sometimes use the tourist category because it requires no invitation letter — but the business eVisa is more generous anyway, at 180 days per visit against 90, and misusing the tourist category is a real problem if questioned at immigration.
Belgian passports carry particles such as van, van der, van den and de as part of the surname. Enter the surname exactly as printed on the data page, particle included, and check the airline booking matches. Applicants who move 'van der' into the given-name field create a mismatch that Indian immigration will pick up.
Eligibility follows citizenship, not residence. This matters more in Belgium than most places, because a large share of Antwerp's India-facing business community holds Indian passports. Apply on the nationality of your passport, with that country's fees and entitlements.
Belgian citizens receive 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa, not the 180 days granted to American, British, Canadian and Japanese nationals. The business eVisa does give 180 days per visit, which is often the answer for longer commercial stays.
The government fee is charged in US dollars. A domestic Bancontact card will not process it. Use a Visa or Mastercard credit card, or a debit card explicitly enabled for foreign-currency transactions.
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
The embassy in Brussels is not involved in eVisa applications, which are handled entirely online. It covers what the eVisa cannot: employment, journalism, research and long-term student visas, OCI cards and Surrender Certificates, and consular services for Indian nationals in Belgium — including Antwerp's substantial diamond-trade community.
FAQs
The questions Belgian passport holders ask most often about applying for an Indian eVisa.
Up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa. The 30-day version allows 30 days with double entry; the one-year and five-year versions are multiple-entry with a 90-day cap per visit. 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.
The business eVisa. Inspecting goods, negotiating, attending trade events and meeting suppliers are all commercial activities that the tourist eVisa does not cover. You will need an invitation letter from the Indian company on its letterhead. The business eVisa also permits 180 days per visit against the tourist visa's 90, and a five-year multiple-entry version suits the repeated short trips typical of the trade.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for Belgian passport holders across all available options. You can compare 30-day, one-year and five-year prices side by side, and the amount shown is the full cost including our service fee.
Exactly as it appears on the printed name line of your passport data page, particle included. If the passport shows VAN DEN BERGHE as the surname, that whole string belongs in the surname field — do not drop the particle or move it into the given-name field. Then check your airline booking uses the same form.
No consistent nonstop service. Most routings connect via Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or via Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris or Istanbul, with total journey times of 11 to 16 hours. If you are near Antwerp, Amsterdam Schiphol is close by road and has nonstop KLM service to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Around Diwali, when Surat and much of Gujarat's trade closes for several days. The run-up is the busiest shipping period of the year, so meetings scheduled into that window tend to be unproductive. Holi has a shorter but similar effect. Check the Indian regional calendar for the specific state you are visiting before booking.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Belgian citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and your airline will verify it at the gate.
No. The eVisa cannot be extended or converted from inside India. If you need longer than 90 days per visit, either split the trip across two entries on a multiple-entry visa or apply for a regular visa through the embassy in Brussels before you travel.
Your nationality is already set to Belgium. 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.
