Russian passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the Embassy of India in Moscow, 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
Russia is one of the largest source markets for Goa, and has been for two decades. The pattern is well established: long winter stays of six to ten weeks, heavily concentrated in Goa and increasingly in Kerala, with charter and Gulf-connected traffic filling the season from November to April. Alongside that, Russia–India trade in energy, pharmaceuticals and machinery generates steady business travel.
Every Russian 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 visit to the embassy in Moscow.
Russian passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa, and the five-year multiple-entry version is available. For the long-winter-in-Goa pattern the 90-day cap is the number that matters most, and it is worth planning the itinerary around it before booking a longer stay.
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. Russian citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and your airline will verify it at the departure gate.
Choose the category by purpose. Tourism, sightseeing, visiting friends, and yoga or Ayurveda retreats fall under the tourist eVisa — this covers the great majority of Russian travel to Goa and Kerala. Business meetings, trade fairs, supplier visits 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 an Indian mission in Russia.
A note relevant to the Goa market specifically: running a business, working remotely for an Indian client, or providing services in India — including tour guiding, yoga instruction for payment, or property management — is not covered by a tourist eVisa, whatever the informal norms in some coastal areas may suggest.
Stay & validity
Russian 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 arrive.
The 90-day per-visit cap is the single most important number for Russian travellers, because the classic Goa winter — arriving in November and leaving in March — exceeds it. On a multiple-entry visa the workable approach is to leave India before day 90, commonly on a short trip to Sri Lanka, Thailand or the UAE, and re-enter on a fresh 90-day allowance. Overstaying carries fines and can lead to an entry ban.
For anyone who repeats the winter trip, the five-year multiple-entry tourist eVisa is much better value than annual applications. The constraint is the passport link: the eVisa is bound to a single passport number, and renewing your Russian passport during the five-year term invalidates it.
The business eVisa allows up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Russian passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Russia
Requirements
Everything Russian 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 ten days before departure. Russian routings to India involve a connection in most cases, and payment can take an extra attempt to complete, so a wider margin is genuinely useful here. Applications open 120 days ahead, but on one-year and five-year visas validity runs from the grant date, so two to three weeks before travel is the right balance.
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
Moscow has nonstop service to Delhi, and seasonal charter traffic connects Russian cities directly to Goa during the winter season. Gulf-connected routings cover everything else. All Indian arrival airports on these routes are designated eVisa ports.
Best time to go
November to April is the Russian season for India, and it aligns with the country's best weather. Goa's charter season is built around exactly this window, and Kerala has grown steadily as a second destination. Late December and early January are the price peak; February and March offer the same conditions with better value.
Note the 90-day constraint against the length of a typical Russian winter stay. A November arrival and a March departure is roughly 120 days, which exceeds the per-visit allowance. Plan a short exit and re-entry around day 85 on a multiple-entry visa, or shorten the trip — do not simply overstay.
The Russian summer holidays fall in the monsoon, which is poor for Goa but excellent for Ladakh and the Spiti Valley. Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C. India is 2.5 hours ahead of Moscow time, so jet lag is minimal — one of the easiest long-haul adjustments anywhere.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Russia — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The defining Russian-specific problem. Cyrillic names have multiple valid Latin transliterations — Aleksandr or Alexander, Yuriy or Yuri or Yury, Dmitrii or Dmitry, Ekaterina or Yekaterina. Your passport uses one specific form, and the eVisa must match it exactly, as must your airline ticket. Applicants who enter the spelling they use on social media or an old document, rather than the one printed on the current passport, create a mismatch that gets raised at check-in.
The most consequential error in the Russian market. A November-to-March winter in Goa exceeds the 90-day per-visit cap. The eVisa cannot be extended from inside India. On a multiple-entry visa, leave before day 90 and re-enter; otherwise shorten the trip. Overstaying carries fines and can result in a ban on future entry.
A very common practical obstacle. The government fee is charged in US dollars and requires a card able to process international transactions. Many Russian-issued cards cannot. Resolve this before you begin the application rather than after — it is the step most likely to stall a Russian application.
Informal norms in parts of Goa do not change the rules. Providing paid services in India — guiding, instructing, property management, running a café — is not permitted on a tourist eVisa, and enforcement has tightened. If you have commercial activity in India, get advice on the correct visa category before you travel.
A five-year eVisa outlives part of a passport cycle. Renewing your international passport invalidates the eVisa attached to the old number, with no transfer process. Coordinate the two if you plan to rely on the same visa across several winters.
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 Russia.
FAQs
The questions Russian passport holders ask most often about applying for an Indian eVisa.
Up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa. This is the number that matters most for the long Goa winter, because a November-to-March stay exceeds it. 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.
Not on a single continuous stay. The cap is 90 days per visit and the eVisa cannot be extended from inside India. On a one-year or five-year multiple-entry visa, the workable approach is to leave India before day 90 — a short trip to Sri Lanka, Thailand or the UAE is the usual choice — and re-enter on a fresh 90-day allowance. Overstaying carries fines and risks a future entry ban, so plan the exit into your itinerary from the start.
Exactly as it is transliterated on your current international passport, character for character. Cyrillic names have several valid Latin forms — Aleksandr and Alexander, Yuri and Yuriy — and only the one printed on your passport is correct for the visa. Make sure your airline ticket uses the same spelling too, because Indian immigration compares the eVisa against the passport.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for Russian 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 government fee is charged in US dollars and needs a card that can process international transactions, which is a known obstacle for Russian applicants. Options include a card issued outside Russia, or having a family member or colleague abroad complete the payment on your behalf — the payment card does not have to belong to the traveller. Sort this out before you begin rather than mid-application.
Moscow has nonstop service to Delhi at around six to seven hours, and seasonal charters connect Russian cities directly to Goa between November and April. From St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk or Kazan you will connect via Moscow or a Gulf hub. Gulf routings also open up Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram for Kerala.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Russian citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and your airline will verify it at the gate.
A tourist eVisa does not permit you to work in India or provide services to Indian clients. Remote work for an employer outside India occupies a grey area that India has not formally legislated for, and the safe position is that the tourist eVisa is for tourism. Running a business in India, or providing paid services locally, is clearly outside it — get proper advice on the right category before relying on a tourist visa for anything commercial.
Your nationality is already set to Russia. 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.
