Spanish passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the Embassy of India in Madrid or the consulate in Barcelona. 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
Spanish travel to India has grown steadily, and it skews towards longer, more ambitious itineraries than the European average — Rajasthan and Kerala combined in a single trip, or North India paired with Nepal. Business travel runs alongside it, driven by Spanish infrastructure, renewable energy and automotive component firms with Indian operations.
Every Spanish 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.
Spanish passport holders receive up to 90 days per visit on the tourist eVisa, and the five-year multiple-entry version is available. Ninety days comfortably accommodates the extended itineraries Spanish travellers favour, and the multi-year option suits anyone likely to return.
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. Spanish citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding, and Air India or your carrier will verify it at the gate in Madrid — airlines are penalised for carrying improperly documented passengers.
Choose the category by purpose. Tourism, sightseeing, visiting friends, and yoga or wellness retreats fall under the tourist eVisa. Business meetings, trade fairs, supplier visits and technical discussions require the business eVisa. Hospital treatment requires the medical eVisa. Employment, journalism, academic research and long-term study sit outside the eVisa scheme and need a regular visa from an Indian mission in Spain.
Residents of Spain who are not Spanish citizens — including NIE and TIE holders — apply on the nationality of their passport, with that country's fees, entitlements and stay limits.
Stay & validity
Spanish 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 rather than the grant date. The one-year and five-year versions are multiple-entry, and their validity begins on the date the Indian government approves the application.
That grant-date rule is worth planning around. Applying in February for a November trip spends nine months of a one-year eVisa before you leave Spain. For a one-year visa, apply two to three weeks before departure rather than as soon as flights are booked.
Ninety days is generous for even the long combined itineraries Spanish travellers plan. The eVisa cannot be extended or converted from inside India, so anything longer per visit 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, and the correct instrument for Spanish project staff on extended assignments. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Spanish passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Spain
Requirements
Everything Spanish 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. Diwali and Holi are the two dependable annual slowdowns.
Apply at least a week before you fly, ideally two, so there is room to replace a rejected photograph without paying for express handling twice. Applications open 120 days ahead of travel, but on one-year and five-year visas applying that early simply 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
Madrid has nonstop service to Delhi with Air India, and Barcelona has seasonal and connecting options. Both Indian arrival points are designated eVisa ports. From elsewhere in Spain you will connect via Madrid, Barcelona, a European hub or the Gulf, none of which affects your eVisa.
Best time to go
October to March is India's dry season and the best window for the classic circuits. Semana Santa in March or April falls at the tail end of it and is one of the strongest Spanish travel periods — warm and dry in Rajasthan, though already heating up. The Christmas and New Year weeks are the fare peak out of Madrid.
The Spanish August holiday is the real scheduling problem. August sits squarely in the Indian monsoon: heavy rain across most of the country, unreliable regional flights and trains, and poor conditions for Rajasthan and the Golden Triangle. It is not a write-off — Ladakh and the Spiti Valley are at their best in August, and Kerala's monsoon is the traditional Ayurveda season — but the itinerary has to change to suit the month.
Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C. India is 3.5 to 4.5 hours ahead of Spanish peninsular time depending on the season, so jet lag on a 9-hour nonstop from Madrid is mild.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Spain — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The defining Spanish-specific problem. Spanish passports carry a paternal and a maternal surname, and the eVisa must show both, in the printed order, in the surname field. Applicants who use only the primer apellido — as they would in everyday life — create a mismatch between visa and passport that can be raised at check-in or on arrival in India.
Your passport's machine-readable zone strips diacritics: Muñoz becomes MUNOZ, García becomes GARCIA. Match the printed name line on the data page and keep your airline booking consistent with it. One document out of step is usually tolerated; three different spellings across visa, ticket and passport is what causes questions.
Spanish citizens receive 90 days per visit, not the 180 days granted to American, British, Canadian and Japanese nationals. A great deal of English-language guidance is written for those markets, and the eVisa cannot be extended from inside India.
The Spanish holiday month is the worst month for the Golden Triangle. If August is fixed, redirect to Ladakh, Spiti, Sikkim or Kerala rather than pushing ahead with Rajasthan in the monsoon.
Eligibility follows citizenship, not residence. An NIE or TIE holder living in Madrid on a Colombian, Moroccan or Indian passport applies as a national of that country, with that country's fees and entitlements.
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
Neither mission is 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 Spain.
FAQs
The questions Spanish 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.
Both of them, exactly as printed on your passport's name line and in the printed order, in the surname field. If your passport shows GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, that whole string is your surname as far as Indian immigration is concerned. Do not shorten it to the primer apellido, do not hyphenate, and do not swap the order — this is the single most common cause of trouble for Spanish applicants.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for Spanish 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. The eVisa is applied for and issued entirely online, your passport stays with you and there is no appointment to book. The embassy in Madrid and consulate in Barcelona are only relevant for categories the eVisa does not cover, such as employment, journalism, research and long-term study.
Madrid has nonstop service to Delhi with Air India. From Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao, Málaga or the Canaries you will connect — most commonly via Madrid, or via Doha, Dubai, Istanbul or a European hub. For Kerala, a Gulf routing into Kochi or Thiruvananthapuram is usually faster than connecting inside India.
Not for a standard first itinerary. August falls in the monsoon, with heavy rain across most of the country and unreliable regional transport, which makes Rajasthan and the Golden Triangle a poor choice. If the Spanish August holiday is your only window, go to Ladakh or the Spiti Valley — genuinely at their best then — or to Kerala for the traditional monsoon Ayurveda season.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Spanish citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and your airline will verify it at the departure gate.
No. The eVisa cannot be extended or converted from inside India. If your itinerary needs longer than 90 days per visit, either split it across two entries on a multiple-entry visa or apply for a regular visa through an Indian mission in Spain before you travel.
Your nationality is already set to Spain. 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.
