German passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the consulate in Frankfurt, Munich or Hamburg, 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
Germany is India's largest European trading partner and one of its biggest European source markets for tourism, which means German travellers show up in both columns: business visitors heading to Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai, and holidaymakers heading for Kerala, Rajasthan and Goa. Germany also has the deepest European market for Ayurveda and yoga tourism, which is almost entirely a Kerala story.
Every German 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 and linked to your passport number, with no stamp, no appointment and no visit to a consulate.
German passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa, and the five-year multiple-entry version is available. Frankfurt is Europe's best-connected airport for India, with nonstop service to five Indian cities, so Germans have more routing flexibility than almost any other European nationality.
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. German citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and Lufthansa will verify it at the gate in Frankfurt or Munich — airlines are penalised for carrying improperly documented passengers.
Select the category by purpose. Tourism, sightseeing, visiting friends, and yoga or Ayurveda retreats fall under the tourist eVisa. Business meetings, trade fairs, supplier audits and technical discussions require the business eVisa — the relevant category for the large volume of German industrial and automotive travel to India. Hospital treatment requires the medical eVisa. Employment, journalism, academic research and degree study sit outside the eVisa scheme and need a regular visa from an Indian mission in Germany.
One note on Ayurveda travel: a stay at a wellness resort is tourism, and the tourist eVisa is correct. The medical eVisa is for treatment at a recognised hospital and requires a letter from that hospital — it is not the route for a spa or retreat booking.
Stay & validity
German 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 validity starts on the date the Indian government grants the application, not the date you land.
That distinction matters for the German booking habit of arranging travel many months ahead. Applying in June for a January trip spends seven months of a one-year eVisa before departure. If you are buying a one-year visa, apply two to three weeks before you fly.
Ninety days comfortably covers a typical German itinerary, including the three- to four-week Ayurveda programmes that Kerala clinics build their season around. The eVisa cannot be extended from inside India, so anything longer than 90 days needs a regular visa instead.
The business eVisa allows up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window — double the tourist allowance, which makes it the right instrument for German engineers and managers on extended project visits. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for German passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Germany
Requirements
Everything German 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 India's public holidays — numerous and often state-specific — will stretch them. Diwali and Holi are the two reliable annual slowdowns.
Apply at least a week before departure, and ideally two. The margin is not about processing speed but about having room to replace a rejected photograph without paying for express handling a second time. Applications open 120 days ahead of travel, though on one-year and five-year visas applying that early 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
Frankfurt is the strongest European gateway to India, with Lufthansa serving five Indian cities nonstop and Air India operating in the other direction. Munich adds two more. All of these arrival airports are designated eVisa ports, so nonstop travel on an eVisa is straightforward.
Best time to go
October to March is India's dry season and lines up with the German winter, which is exactly why Kerala's Ayurveda clinics and Goa's resorts fill with German guests from November onwards. The Christmas and New Year weeks are the price peak; January and February offer the same weather with more availability.
The German school summer holidays fall inside the monsoon. That rules out Rajasthan and the Golden Triangle, but makes July and August the ideal months for Ladakh, the Spiti Valley and Sikkim — genuinely the best time of year for high-altitude trekking. Kerala's monsoon is also the traditional Ayurveda season, when clinics argue the humidity aids treatment.
Avoid North India in May and June, when temperatures routinely exceed 45°C. India is 3.5 to 4.5 hours ahead of German time depending on the season — a mild shift, and with a 9-hour nonstop from Frankfurt most German travellers arrive in reasonable shape.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Germany — we check for every one of them before submitting.
This is the defining German-specific problem. Your passport's machine-readable zone renders Müller as MUELLER, Schröder as SCHROEDER and Weiß as WEISS. The printed name line shows the umlaut form. Enter your name to match the printed line, and make sure your airline booking uses the same version — a visa reading MULLER against a ticket reading MUELLER against a passport reading MÜLLER is three variants of one name, and that is what triggers questions at check-in.
German citizens receive 90 days per visit, not the 180 days granted to American, British, Canadian and Japanese nationals. A good deal of English-language guidance is written for those audiences. Because the eVisa cannot be extended, an itinerary built on 180 days is a genuine problem.
A wellness or Ayurveda retreat is tourism, and the tourist eVisa is the correct category. The medical eVisa requires a letter from a hospital on India's recognised list, which a resort or spa cannot provide. Applying in the wrong category means starting again.
German engineers and project managers sometimes apply for a tourist eVisa because it is cheaper and needs no invitation letter. Commercial activity on a tourist visa is a misuse of the category, and the business eVisa is more generous anyway — 180 days per visit against 90.
The government fee is charged in US dollars. A domestic-only Girocard will not process it. You need a Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card enabled for international 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
None of these are involved in an eVisa application — the process is entirely online, so there is no appointment to book and no travel to Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich or Hamburg. They handle what the eVisa cannot cover: employment, journalism, research and long-term student visas, OCI cards, and consular services for Indian nationals in Germany.
FAQs
The questions German 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.
Match the printed name line on your passport data page. Your passport's machine-readable zone will show the transliterated form — MUELLER for Müller, WEISS for Weiß — and either version is generally accepted, but consistency across your visa, your passport and your airline ticket is what matters. Pick the printed form and use it everywhere.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for German 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.
The tourist eVisa. Wellness retreats, yoga courses and Ayurveda stays at resorts are tourism under Indian rules, and 90 days comfortably covers even the longer three- and four-week programmes. The medical eVisa is a different thing entirely — it is for treatment at a hospital on India's recognised list and requires a letter from that hospital.
Frankfurt serves Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad nonstop, and Munich serves Delhi and Mumbai. From Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf or Stuttgart you will connect via Frankfurt, Munich or a Gulf hub. For Kerala, a Gulf routing to Kochi or Thiruvananthapuram is usually faster than connecting domestically within India.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. German citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and Lufthansa or your carrier will check it at the departure gate.
The business eVisa, provided you are attending meetings, trade fairs, technical discussions or supplier visits rather than taking up employment in India. You will need an invitation letter from the Indian entity on its letterhead. If you are actually being employed in India — on an Indian payroll, in an Indian role — that is an employment visa and must be obtained from an Indian mission in Germany.
No. The eVisa cannot be extended or converted from inside India. If your plans need more than 90 days per visit, either build the itinerary around two visits on a multiple-entry visa or apply for a regular visa through an Indian mission in Germany before you travel.
Your nationality is already set to Germany. 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.
