Indian Passport & Visa Processing in UAE Shifts to Al Hind Tours and Travels from 1 July

The Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi has awarded its multi-million-dirham outsourcing contract for passport, visa and other consular services to Al Hind Tours and Travels LLC, replacing long-time service partners BLS International Services and SGIVS Global. In a late-evening announcement on 13 June, mission officials confirmed that BLS and SGIVS will continue accepting applications only until close of business on 30 June, after which all submissions must be routed through Al Hind’s new centres across the Emirates. India is by far the UAE’s largest expatriate community—estimated at 3.5 million residents—and accounts for a significant share of the country’s outbound and inbound mobility flows.



For businesses and individuals seeking a seamless workaround during this transition, VisaHQ’s online platform can shoulder much of the administrative load. Through its UAE-dedicated portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-arab-emirates/), the firm offers step-by-step application guidance, real-time tracking and corporate account management, allowing HR teams to consolidate visa, passport and document-attestation requests in one dashboard while Al Hind’s physical infrastructure beds in.

Any change to paperwork pipelines therefore has outsized operational implications for employers managing Indian talent, whether on local contracts or short-term secondments. According to the Embassy, the tender focused on service-level benchmarks such as biometric accuracy, appointment availability and digital-first processing. Al Hind, already a well-known travel agency in the Gulf, has pledged to roll out extended-hour ‘‘fast track’’ counters in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah and to launch a multilingual helpline before the transition date. For corporates, the immediate action point is to audit pending applications: files lodged with BLS/SGIVS before 1 July will continue to be processed by the outgoing providers, but any re-submission or supplementary documentation after that date must follow the new Al Hind workflow. Mobility teams should also update employee communication templates and vendor master data to reflect revised centre addresses and payment details. The Embassy emphasised that official fee structures remain unchanged and warned applicants against unauthorised agents exploiting the hand-over period. Companies are advised to monitor both the Embassy’s website and Al Hind’s soon-to-launch portal for real-time appointment slots, especially in the run-up to India’s festival travel peak in October.