Kenyan passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the High Commission in Nairobi, 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
Important for Kenyan citizens
India requires a valid yellow-fever vaccination certificate from travellers arriving from Kenya. Without one you can be quarantined on arrival for up to six days, whatever visa you hold. The certificate is only valid from ten days after vaccination, so it cannot be arranged at the airport and no visa substitutes for it.
Overview
Kenya and India are connected by more than a century of movement across the Indian Ocean. Kenya's Indian-origin community — largely Gujarati and Punjabi in origin, built up through the colonial period and long since Kenyan — remains a substantial presence in business and the professions, and family travel between the two countries is constant.
The larger stream today, though, is medical. India's private hospitals treat very large numbers of Kenyan patients, particularly for cardiac surgery, oncology, orthopaedics and transplants, and for many conditions India offers specialist care that is either unavailable or far more expensive in East Africa. Nairobi has nonstop service to Mumbai and Delhi, which makes the journey manageable even for patients travelling unwell.
Every Kenyan 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, and Kenyan passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa.
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. Kenyan citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and Kenya Airways or your carrier will verify it at the gate in Nairobi.
Choose the category by purpose. Treatment at an Indian hospital requires the medical eVisa — the correct category for the largest stream of Kenyan travel to India, and it allows accompanying family to travel as medical attendants. Tourism, sightseeing, visiting relatives and shopping trips fall under the tourist eVisa. Business meetings, trade fairs and supplier visits require the business eVisa. Employment, journalism, academic research and long-term study — including degree courses at Indian universities, a well-established route from Kenya — are outside the eVisa scheme and need a regular visa from the High Commission in Nairobi.
If you were born in India or previously held an Indian passport, you must declare it. India does not permit dual citizenship, and you will generally need a Surrender Certificate or renunciation documentation. For Kenyans of Indian origin who travel regularly, an OCI card is often the better long-term instrument than repeat eVisas.
Stay & validity
Kenyan 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.
For medical travel the medical eVisa is the better instrument: 60 days from first entry with triple entry, structured around treatment plus follow-up consultations. Accompanying family can apply for medical attendant visas linked to the patient's application — important on this route, where patients frequently travel with a relative handling logistics.
Sixty days covers most treatment episodes, but complex or multi-stage care can run longer and the eVisa cannot be extended from inside India. Establish the expected duration with the hospital before choosing a visa; for genuinely extended treatment a regular medical visa from the High Commission may be more appropriate.
The business eVisa allows up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window — double the tourist allowance.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Kenyan passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Kenya
Requirements
Everything Kenyan 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.
Apply at least a week before departure, and considerably earlier for medical travel. The hospital letter is the usual bottleneck rather than the visa: request it the moment your appointment is confirmed and run both processes in parallel. If your case involves a Surrender Certificate, start that far earlier still — it is issued by an Indian mission and takes much longer than a visa.
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
Nairobi has nonstop service to Mumbai and Delhi, both designated eVisa ports and both major medical hubs. Gulf connections reach a wider set of Indian cities and are often better value from elsewhere in Kenya.
Best time to go
October to March is India's dry season and the most comfortable window for both leisure travel and medical treatment. Recovery in 45°C heat is genuinely harder on a patient, so if treatment dates are flexible the cooler months are worth choosing.
For medical travel the Indian hospital calendar matters more than the weather. Diwali and Holi affect staffing and elective scheduling at private hospitals, and regional festivals close offices in specific states. Confirm appointment dates directly with the hospital's international patient office.
For Gujarat and Maharashtra, the ancestral regions for much of Kenya's Indian-origin community, November to February is ideal. Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C — considerably hotter than anything in Kenya. India is 2.5 hours ahead of Kenyan time, so there is effectively no jet lag.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Kenya — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The most consequential error on this route, given how much of the traffic is medical. The medical eVisa allows triple entry for follow-up consultations and lets accompanying family apply as medical attendants — structure a tourist eVisa does not provide. Indian hospitals increasingly ask which visa you hold, and a mismatch can complicate admission and insurance.
Relevant to a substantial share of Kenyan applicants given the size of the Indian-origin community. India does not recognise dual citizenship. 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 travel regularly, an OCI card gives lifelong multiple-entry rights and is usually the better long-term answer.
The medical eVisa requires a letter from a hospital on India's recognised list, and obtaining it takes longer than the visa. Request it as soon as your appointment is confirmed and run both processes in parallel — this is the single most useful thing you can do to compress the timeline for urgent treatment.
Study at an Indian university requires a student visa arranged through the High Commission in Nairobi before you travel, and an eVisa cannot be converted into one once you are in India. This is a well-worn route from Kenya, so it is worth being clear: arriving on a tourist eVisa intending to change it locally does not work.
The government fee is charged in US dollars and needs a card enabled for international transactions, which is not automatic on all Kenyan cards. Note the payment card does not have to belong to the traveller, so a family member abroad can complete it. Resolve this before you begin.
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 High Commission in Nairobi is not involved in eVisa applications, which are handled entirely online. It covers what the eVisa cannot: student visas for study at Indian universities, employment, journalism and research visas, regular medical visas for extended treatment, OCI cards and Surrender Certificates, and a substantial consular workload for Kenya's Indian-origin community.
FAQs
The questions Kenyan passport holders ask most often about applying for an Indian eVisa.
The medical eVisa. It allows 60 days from first entry with triple entry — designed around treatment plus follow-up consultations — and accompanying family members can apply for medical attendant visas linked to your application. You will need a letter from the treating hospital, which must be on India's recognised list. Request it as soon as your appointment is confirmed, because it is usually the bottleneck rather than the visa.
The eVisa cannot be extended or converted from inside India, so establish the expected duration with the hospital before choosing a visa. Sixty days covers most treatment episodes, but for complex or multi-stage care a regular medical visa from the High Commission in Nairobi may be more appropriate. Far better to sort this out before travelling than to discover the limit mid-treatment.
It depends on the generation. If you were born in India or previously held an Indian passport, you must declare it and will generally need a Surrender Certificate, because India does not permit dual citizenship. If your family has been in Kenya for generations and you have never held Indian nationality, a standard eVisa is all you need. Either way, if you visit India regularly, an OCI card is worth investigating.
Up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa. The 30-day version allows 30 days with double entry. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry, and the business eVisa up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window.
No. Study at an Indian university or college requires a student visa arranged through the High Commission in Nairobi before you travel, and an eVisa cannot be converted into one once you are in India. Arriving on a tourist eVisa expecting to change it locally does not work.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for Kenyan 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.
Yes — Kenya Airways flies nonstop from Nairobi to Mumbai and Delhi, with Mumbai at around six and a half hours. Both are designated eVisa airports and major medical hubs. For Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad or Kochi, connections via Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi or Addis Ababa are often better value.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Kenyan citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and Kenya Airways or your carrier will verify it at the gate.
Your nationality is already set to Kenya. 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.
