Where Can I Get a Visitors Visa for India?
- An Indian Visa
All visitors to India, including children, need a separate visa in their passports before arrival; parents must apply on behalf of their children. U.S. passport holders must have six months' validity remaining on their passports, along with two blank pages, or their applications will be rejected.
Travisa Outsourcing handles all of India's visa requests from inside the United States as a private contractor to the Indian Embassy and the country's consulates. Applicants can drop off their passports and paperwork at Travisa offices in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Houston.
If applying in person, applicants must first complete an application form at Travisa's website (indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com), print it out, sign it, and bring it with their passport and fee. Applicants must also select a particular time and date for their appointment from the choices offered by the Travisa website. Once the application is made, its progress can be tracked online at the same website. - Applicants can also mail their applications and passports (registered mail is recommended) to the appropriate Travisa office. The following Travisa offices offer service by mail for the states and territories listed after each.
The Washington, D.C., office handles applications from the District of Columbia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. It also services U.S. armed forces addresses, as well as U.S. Pacific territories such as American Samoa and Guam.
The New York office handles Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont; and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Chicago office handles Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
The San Francisco office handles Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
The Houston office handles Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. - In a very few cases, the Indian Embassy or its consulates in the United States still issue visas. But these are confined to emergency visas issued to applicants of Indian origin who can demonstrate a need based on "extreme compassionate grounds," according to the embassy.
Outside the U.S., visas are generally still handled by Indian government consulates, to which applicants can go in person. The same rules about passport validity and having two blank pages apply.
Within India, it's difficult to get a visa extended. "The only circumstances where this might conceivably happen is if you were robbed of your passport just before you planned to leave the country at the end of your visa," notes Lonely Planet.
