If you hold an Indian passport and you are flying home to India, you do not file the e-Arrival Card. The requirement is scoped to foreign nationals and to OCI and eOCI cardholders arriving in India, who submit it free of charge within the 72 hours before they land (Bureau of Immigration, General Guidelines, accessed 2026-08-27).
That is the answer most people looking this up actually need, and it is worth stating plainly before anything else, because the question is asked far more often by Indians who do not have to file than by the foreign nationals who do.
This guide is maintained by Zurich Kotak General Insurance, an IRDAI-registered general insurer in India and part of the Zurich Insurance Group.
How Zurich Kotak fits in: Zurich Kotak is an Indian general insurer whose Smart Travel plans are bought in India to cover trips abroad: emergency medical treatment overseas, medical evacuation and repatriation, baggage loss or delay and trip cancellation for specified reasons, up to the limits of the plan you buy, issued online once the dates are fixed. Those policies travel outward from India, so they are not what the foreign national or OCI cardholder filing this card is looking for, and nothing about the e-Arrival Card asks for insurance in any case.
Last verified: 2026-08-27.
Who must file the e-Arrival Card
Foreign nationals and OCI or eOCI cardholders arriving in India must file it. Indian passport holders do not.
Every official statement of the rule scopes it the same way. The Bureau of Immigration’s General Guidelines page names Indian citizens and foreigners together for immigration clearance, and then narrows to foreigners for the card itself:
Foreigner must complete and submit the e-Arrival card online within 72 hours before their arrival in India
Source: Bureau of Immigration, General Guidelines, accessed 2026-08-27.
The advisory on the official visa portal states the same scope and adds the OCI category:
Foreign Nationals and OCI/eOCI cardholders must complete and submit the eArrival Card
Source: indianvisaonline.gov.in , accessed 2026-08-27.
Traveller | Files the e-Arrival Card? |
Indian passport holder arriving in India | No |
Foreign national of any nationality arriving in India | Yes |
OCI cardholder | Yes |
eOCI cardholder | Yes |
An OCI card is not an exemption. An OCI cardholder is a foreign national of Indian origin, not an Indian passport holder, and the requirement names the category explicitly. This is the second most common misunderstanding on the page after the first one.
The official portal, and only the official portal
File at indianvisaonline.gov.in/earrival , or through the official Indian Visa Su-Swagatam mobile app. Those are the only routes, and both are run by the Bureau of Immigration.
The card is also reachable from the Bureau’s own site at boi.gov.in . Type the address rather than following a search advert: the results for this query are crowded with services that charge to submit a free government form.
Route | Address |
Direct | |
Visa portal | |
Bureau of Immigration | |
Mobile app | Indian Visa Su-Swagatam, the official app |
What it costs: nothing, and the government says so
The e-Arrival Card is free, and the Government of India publishes a warning about anyone who charges for it.
From the official visa portal, verbatim:
The Government of India does not authorize any agent or intermediaries to charge fees for emergency, express visa, eVisas and eArrival card.
Source: indianvisaonline.gov.in , accessed 2026-08-27.
The e-Arrival application says the same thing in its own page header:
e-Arrival Card (It is free of cost service of Indian Immigration)
There is no government charge, no express tier and no priority option. Any amount asked for is a service fee for filling in a short form on someone else’s behalf.
This is not a visa
The e-Arrival Card is a declaration of arrival information. It grants nothing.
The official application states it twice, above the form itself: “This is for arrival information, not a visa”. A foreign national still needs a valid visa, e-Visa or OCI card, and the card neither replaces one nor extends a stay. Filing it does not make an ineligible traveller eligible.
The 72-hour window
Submit within the 72 hours before arrival in India.
The window is stated identically by the Bureau of Immigration and on the visa portal. Filing on the day the window opens is the safest approach: it is done, and there is still time to correct a mistake before check-in.
How to file it
It is a short online form with nothing to upload, and it takes a few minutes.
Have to hand:
1. The passport, for the number, the exact name spelling and the expiry date.
2. Flight details and the arrival date.
3. The port of entry.
4. The address of the stay in India and the purpose of the visit.
Then:
1. Open https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/earrival/ , typing the address rather than following an advert, or use the Indian Visa Su-Swagatam app.
2. Enter the passport and personal details, matching the passport exactly.
3. Enter the travel details: flight, arrival date, port of entry.
4. Enter the address and purpose of the stay.
5. Submit, and keep the confirmation available offline as well as in an inbox.
Enter the name exactly as the passport prints it. Not the everyday version, not an initial in place of a middle name. Mismatches are what turn a formality into a queue.
Why you will see “mandatory from 1 April 2026” quoted, and why this page does not
The requirement is in force now. We do not print a commencement date, because no government source publishes one.
A great many pages state that the e-Arrival Card became mandatory on 2026-04-01, with a grace period for paper disembarkation cards that ended on 2026-03-31. We went looking for the source of those dates and could not find one. What the Bureau of Immigration actually publishes is a notice about the card dated 2025-09-24, and current General Guidelines that state the obligation with no commencement date attached at all.
The inference is a reasonable one, and it is probably how the date came about: a six-month transition from a late-September 2025 notice does land at the end of March 2026. But an inference is not a published rule, and a date printed with confidence on a page like this gets quoted back as though it were.
What matters practically is unchanged. If you are a foreign national or an OCI cardholder arriving in India today, the card is required today.
Common mistakes
The two failures that cost the most time here are an Indian passport holder filing a card that does not apply to them, and an OCI cardholder assuming the opposite.
Mistake | What happens | The correction |
An Indian passport holder filing it | Time spent on a form that does not apply | The obligation covers foreign nationals and OCI or eOCI cardholders |
An OCI cardholder assuming they are exempt | Arriving without a required declaration | OCI and eOCI are named in the requirement |
Paying an agent | Money spent on a free service | The Government of India does not authorise anyone to charge for it |
Treating it as a visa | Arriving without the entry permission actually needed | A valid visa, e-Visa or OCI card is still required |
Filing outside the 72-hour window | The submission is not valid for the arrival | File inside the three days before landing |
Using a lookalike domain | Personal data handed to a stranger | Only indianvisaonline.gov.in , boi.gov.in and the Su-Swagatam app |
Where this sits, and what it has to do with travel insurance
Nothing, and it is worth saying so. The e-Arrival Card asks nothing about insurance, and no insurance is required to file it or to be granted entry on it.
This page is about arriving in India. If you are the one leaving, most of the region now runs a pre-arrival declaration of its own, filed free in the days before a flight, and they are not interchangeable: see which countries require a digital arrival card for the country-by-country position. Cover for an Indian resident travelling abroad starts at travel insurance .
Frequently asked questions
Do Indian passport holders need to fill the India e-Arrival Card? No. The e-Arrival Card applies to foreign nationals and to OCI and eOCI cardholders arriving in India. An Indian passport holder returning home does not file it.
Do OCI cardholders have to file the e-Arrival Card? Yes. Both OCI and eOCI cardholders are named in the requirement, alongside foreign nationals. Holding an OCI card is not an exemption.
Is the India e-Arrival Card free? Yes. It is free on the official portal, and the Government of India states that it does not authorise any agent or intermediary to charge a fee for it.
When should the e-Arrival Card be submitted? Within the 72 hours before arrival in India. It is filed online at indianvisaonline.gov.in/earrival or through the official Indian Visa Su-Swagatam mobile app.
Does the e-Arrival Card replace an Indian visa? No. The official application states that it is for arrival information and not a visa. A valid visa, e-Visa or OCI card is still required.
When did the e-Arrival Card become mandatory? No commencement date is published by the Bureau of Immigration. The requirement is in force now, and the Bureau’s own notice about the card is dated 2025-09-24. A date of 2026-04-01 circulates widely, but it could not be traced to a government source.
