Swedish passport holders can apply for the Indian eVisa entirely online — no appointment at the Embassy of India in Stockholm, 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
Swedish travel to India is heavily weighted towards the winter months, and for an obvious reason: Goa and Kerala in January are about as far from a Stockholm winter as you can get on one long-haul flight. Alongside that, Swedish engineering, telecom, automotive and industrial firms maintain large Indian operations, which generates a steady flow of business travel to Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai.
Every Swedish 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 covers 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 embassy.
Swedish 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 Swedish winter escape — six or eight weeks in Goa or Kerala is a common pattern — 90 days is comfortable, and the five-year visa is the sensible buy for anyone repeating it annually.
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. Swedish citizens must hold an approved visa before boarding. Because Swedish routings to India involve at least one connection, the check often happens at Arlanda before you have left Sweden.
Choose the category by purpose. Tourism, sightseeing, visiting friends, and yoga or wellness retreats fall under the tourist eVisa. Business meetings, trade fairs, supplier audits and technical discussions 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 the embassy in Stockholm.
Residents of Sweden who are not Swedish citizens apply on the nationality of their passport, with that country's fees, entitlements and stay limits — not Sweden's.
Stay & validity
Swedish 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, not the date you land.
The grant-date rule matters particularly for the Swedish winter-escape pattern. If you book in June for a January departure and apply straight away, you have spent seven months of a one-year eVisa before leaving. Apply two to three weeks before you fly.
For anyone who repeats the winter trip annually, the five-year multiple-entry tourist eVisa is clearly the better economics — unlimited entries at up to 90 days each across the full term. The one caveat is the passport link: the eVisa is bound to a single passport number, and a Swedish passport renewal during the five years invalidates it.
The business eVisa allows up to 180 days per visit within a one-year multiple-entry window — double the tourist allowance, which suits Swedish project engineers on extended assignments. The medical eVisa gives 60 days from first entry with triple entry.
Pricing
Live government fees and service charges for Swedish passport holders, shown all-in — nothing further is charged later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Sweden
Requirements
Everything Swedish 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. Because Swedish itineraries always involve a connection and are sometimes ticketed across separate carriers, a visa problem found late is more awkward to fix than for a nonstop traveller. Ten days leaves comfortable room for a photo re-upload. Applications open 120 days ahead, but on one-year and five-year visas two to three weeks out is the sensible 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
There are no year-round nonstop flights between Sweden and India, so every trip involves at least one connection. Total journey times run 11 to 17 hours. Your eVisa is checked at your Indian arrival airport, not in transit, so the routing is a matter of price and timing.
Best time to go
November to March is the core Swedish season for India, and it happens to coincide exactly with India's best weather. The Goa and Kerala charter season runs roughly November to April, built around Nordic, British and Russian winter travellers. Christmas and New Year are the fare peak; January and February offer the same conditions with better availability and lower prices.
The Swedish summer holiday in July falls in the monsoon, which rules out Rajasthan and the Golden Triangle. It is, however, the best month of the year for Ladakh, the Spiti Valley and Sikkim, and Kerala's monsoon is the traditional Ayurveda season. If July is fixed, change the destination.
Avoid the northern plains in May and June, when temperatures exceed 45°C. India is 3.5 to 4.5 hours ahead of Swedish time depending on the season, so the time shift is modest — the fatigue comes from the connection rather than the jet lag, and an overnight transit through the Gulf usually means an early-morning Indian arrival.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Sweden — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The defining Swedish-specific problem. Your passport's machine-readable zone renders Å and Ä as A and Ö as O, so Åkesson becomes AKESSON and Öberg becomes OBERG. The printed name line shows the diacritic form. Enter your name to match the printed line and make sure your airline booking uses the same version — three variants of one name across visa, ticket and passport is what triggers questions at check-in.
Swedish citizens receive 90 days per visit, not the 180 days granted to American, British, Canadian and Japanese nationals. This matters for the long winter-escape pattern: a 90-day cap still comfortably covers December to February, but a five-month stay is not available on an eVisa, and it cannot be extended from inside India.
Swedish travellers book winter trips early — often in spring. On a one-year eVisa, validity runs from the grant date, so applying in May for a January trip throws away most of the visa. Book the flights early by all means, but apply for the visa two to three weeks before departure.
A five-year eVisa spans much of a passport cycle. Renewing your Swedish passport invalidates the eVisa attached to the old number, and there is no transfer process. Coordinate the two, particularly if you are relying on the same visa for several consecutive winters.
Eligibility follows citizenship, not residence. A permanent resident living in Stockholm on an Iranian, Syrian 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
The embassy in Stockholm is not involved in eVisa applications, which are handled entirely online — worth knowing, since it is the only Indian mission in Sweden and also covers Latvia. It deals with what the eVisa cannot: employment, journalism, research and long-term student visas, OCI cards and Surrender Certificates, and consular services for Indian nationals in Sweden.
FAQs
The questions Swedish 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. The machine-readable zone will show A for Å and Ä and O for Ö — so Åkesson appears as AKESSON there. Either form is generally accepted, but consistency across your visa, passport and airline ticket is what matters. Pick the printed version and use it everywhere.
If you repeat the trip, yes — clearly. The five-year multiple-entry tourist eVisa costs considerably less than five separate applications and allows unlimited entries at up to 90 days each. That fits the Swedish winter-escape pattern precisely. The one thing to watch is that renewing your passport during the five years invalidates the visa.
Fees are set by nationality and duration, so the pricing panel on this page loads live figures for Swedish 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 year-round nonstop service. Every routing involves at least one connection — commonly Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Helsinki or Istanbul, or Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Total journey time is 11 to 17 hours. For Goa and Kerala, Gulf-connected routings are usually faster than flying into Delhi or Mumbai and connecting domestically.
No. The eVisa is applied for and issued entirely online, your passport stays with you and there is no appointment to book. The embassy is only relevant for categories the eVisa does not cover — employment, journalism, research, long-term study and OCI cards.
No. Indian Visa on Arrival is limited to Japanese, South Korean and Emirati nationals. Swedish citizens need an approved visa before boarding, and because most routings start with a European leg, your airline may check it at Arlanda.
The eVisa cannot be extended or converted from inside India, but 90 days per visit covers December through February comfortably. If you want longer, the practical approach on a multiple-entry visa is to leave India — a short trip to Sri Lanka or Thailand is common — and re-enter on a fresh 90-day allowance. For genuinely extended stays, discuss a regular visa with the embassy in Stockholm before you travel.
Your nationality is already set to Sweden. 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.
