Malaysian passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, 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
Kuala Lumpur is one of the busiest gateways to India in South-East Asia, with AirAsia and Batik Air operating a dense low-cost network into more than a dozen Indian cities at three to five hours. Malaysia's large Indian-origin community, particularly with roots in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, drives a heavy family-visit and pilgrimage market alongside business travel and leisure.
Every Malaysian 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 visit to the High Commission.
Malaysian passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa, and the five-year multiple-entry version is available. Given how short and cheap the flight is, many Malaysians travel to India more than once a year — which makes the multi-year visa the sensible default rather than the upgrade.
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. Malaysian citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and AirAsia, Batik Air, Malaysia Airlines or IndiGo will verify it at the gate at KLIA.
Choose the category by purpose. Holidays, sightseeing, visiting friends and relatives, temple pilgrimage and wellness travel all fall under the tourist eVisa — pilgrimage is tourism for these purposes, which covers the large Tamil Nadu and Kerala temple circuits Malaysian travellers visit. Business meetings, trade fairs and supplier visits require the business eVisa. Hospital treatment requires the medical eVisa. Employment, journalism, research and long-term study are outside the eVisa scheme and need a regular visa from the High Commission.
Malaysian PR holders who are not citizens apply on the nationality of their passport, with that country's fees and entitlements.
Stay & validity
Malaysian 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 — usually the right product for a one- or two-week trip.
The one-year and five-year versions are multiple-entry, with validity beginning on the date the Indian government grants the application. Because the KL–India corridor is cheap and frequent, a great many Malaysian travellers go more than once a year, and for them the five-year multiple-entry visa is comfortably better value than repeat applications.
The eVisa is bound to a single passport number, so a Malaysian passport renewal during a multi-year visa's term invalidates it. There is no transfer process — coordinate the two.
The business eVisa allows up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window — double the tourist allowance. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Malaysian passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Malaysia
Requirements
Everything Malaysian 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. Note that Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the destinations for much Malaysian travel, have their own regional holidays on top of the national ones.
Apply at least five days before departure, and preferably a week. Malaysian trips to India are often booked on short-notice low-cost fares, which is exactly when the margin matters: a rejected photograph costs a day, and express processing on top of a same-week booking leaves no slack. For recurring travel, a five-year multiple-entry visa removes the pressure entirely.
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
Kuala Lumpur has one of the densest low-cost networks to India anywhere, reaching more than a dozen cities at three to five hours. All are designated eVisa ports. Penang and Johor Bahru add further direct options into South India.
Best time to go
October to March is India's dry season and the best window for general travel. For South India specifically — the destination for most Malaysian trips — the picture differs from the north: Tamil Nadu and Kerala get the north-east monsoon from October to December, so January to March is the driest and most comfortable window there.
Malaysian school holidays in late November and December fall at the wet end of the South Indian season, so expect rain in Chennai and Kerala then. The Thaipusam and Deepavali periods drive heavy pilgrimage traffic on this corridor — book flights and temple accommodation well ahead if you are travelling around those dates, and expect Indian regional holidays to affect opening hours.
Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C. India is 2.5 hours behind Malaysian time, so there is essentially no jet lag on this route — one of the reasons short trips are so practical.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Malaysia — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The defining Malaysian-specific problem. Malay names carry bin or binti as part of the full name, and some Malaysian passports show a single continuous name with no separate surname field. Enter the name exactly as printed on the data page. Where there is no distinct surname, put the full name in the surname field and follow the form's guidance rather than inventing a split — an arbitrary split is exactly the mismatch Indian immigration queries.
Malaysian Chinese passports may show the family name first, and Malaysian Indian names may follow a patronymic pattern with a/l or a/p. In every case the answer is the same: reproduce the printed name line exactly, in the printed order, and make sure the airline booking matches.
Cheap short-notice fares on the KL–India corridor tempt very late applications. Even express processing needs 24 to 48 hours, and a rejected photograph adds a day. If you travel this route regularly, a five-year multiple-entry visa is the real solution.
It does not. Temple visits and pilgrimage are tourism under the eVisa scheme, and a tourist eVisa is correct. What does require attention is any Protected or Restricted Area on your route — those need a separate permit regardless of visa type.
Eligibility follows citizenship, not residence. A PR living in Kuala Lumpur on an Indonesian, Bangladeshi or Indian passport applies as a national of that country, with that country's fees and stay limits.
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, which is handled entirely online. They cover what the eVisa cannot: employment, journalism, research and long-term student visas, OCI cards and Surrender Certificates, and consular services for Indian nationals in Malaysia.
FAQs
The questions Malaysian 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, which suits most Malaysian trips. The business eVisa permits up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window, and the medical eVisa 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Exactly as printed on your passport data page. Bin and binti are part of the full name and belong in it. If your passport shows a single continuous name with no separate surname field, enter the full name in the surname field and follow the form's guidance for the given-name field — do not split the name arbitrarily to fit the boxes, because the eVisa must correspond to the passport as printed.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for Malaysian 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.
No. Pilgrimage and temple visits count as tourism under the eVisa scheme, so a tourist eVisa covers it. Fly into Chennai or Tiruchirappalli, both designated eVisa airports and both served nonstop from Kuala Lumpur. The only thing to check separately is whether any part of your route enters a Protected or Restricted Area, which needs its own permit.
Kuala Lumpur serves Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Amritsar, with AirAsia, Batik Air, Malaysia Airlines and IndiGo. Penang adds Chennai and Tiruchirappalli. Flight times are three and a half to five and a half hours, and every one of these airports is a designated eVisa port.
January to March. South India differs from the north: Tamil Nadu and Kerala receive the north-east monsoon from October to December, so the driest and most comfortable months are January through March. That is worth knowing, because Malaysian school holidays in late November and December fall at the wet end of the South Indian season.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Malaysian citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and your airline will verify it at KLIA or Penang.
For most regular travellers, yes. The KL–India corridor is short and cheap enough that many Malaysians go more than once a year, and the five-year multiple-entry tourist eVisa costs far less than repeat applications while allowing unlimited entries at up to 90 days each. The one caveat is that renewing your passport during the five years invalidates the visa.
Your nationality is already set to Malaysia. 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.
