India’s High Commissioner in Dhaka, Dinesh Trivedi, announced that regular tourist-visa processing for Bangladeshi nationals will restart on 28 June 2026 at five Indian Visa Application Centres across Bangladesh. The leisure-travel channel was frozen in August 2024 amid post-election unrest in Dhaka, with India limiting issuances to medical emergencies only. The reopening follows a series of bilateral meetings since Bangladesh’s BNP-led coalition took office in February. Tour operators on both sides of the border say demand is pent-up: before the freeze, India issued roughly 1.6 million tourist visas a year to Bangladeshi citizens, making them the country’s single-largest inbound nationality.
![India to Resume Regular Tourist Visas for Bangladeshis After Two-Year Suspension]()
For Bangladeshi travellers trying to meet the stricter document and quota requirements, VisaHQ can streamline the journey by pre-screening paperwork, booking application-centre appointments and offering real-time status updates; its dedicated India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) also posts the latest quota alerts and biometric guidelines, reducing the risk of delays.
The return of short-term visas is expected to boost hotel occupancy in Kolkata, Siliguri and Delhi and revive cross-border medical tourism to Chennai and Vellore. From a mobility-management perspective, the decision restores a critical people-to-people corridor for Indian companies that employ Bangladeshi technicians under short project contracts and for Bangladeshi SMEs that source components from India. Border-security agencies will maintain the e-medical-visa fast track and add biometric kiosks at the Petrapole-Benapole land port to handle the expected traffic spike. Analysts note that India’s move comes just weeks after Dhaka relaxed import duties on Indian pharmaceuticals, signalling a thaw in relations. Still, consular officials caution that initial visa quotas will be capped to prevent processing bottlenecks, and applicants must upload hotel bookings and return-ticket evidence under a stricter fraud-prevention protocol. Travel-trade bodies in both countries are urging airlines to add Dhaka–Delhi and Chattogram–Kolkata frequencies before the Puja holiday rush. Businesses planning October-November meetings should secure slots early, as first-month allocations may sell out within days.
For Bangladeshi travellers trying to meet the stricter document and quota requirements, VisaHQ can streamline the journey by pre-screening paperwork, booking application-centre appointments and offering real-time status updates; its dedicated India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) also posts the latest quota alerts and biometric guidelines, reducing the risk of delays.
The return of short-term visas is expected to boost hotel occupancy in Kolkata, Siliguri and Delhi and revive cross-border medical tourism to Chennai and Vellore. From a mobility-management perspective, the decision restores a critical people-to-people corridor for Indian companies that employ Bangladeshi technicians under short project contracts and for Bangladeshi SMEs that source components from India. Border-security agencies will maintain the e-medical-visa fast track and add biometric kiosks at the Petrapole-Benapole land port to handle the expected traffic spike. Analysts note that India’s move comes just weeks after Dhaka relaxed import duties on Indian pharmaceuticals, signalling a thaw in relations. Still, consular officials caution that initial visa quotas will be capped to prevent processing bottlenecks, and applicants must upload hotel bookings and return-ticket evidence under a stricter fraud-prevention protocol. Travel-trade bodies in both countries are urging airlines to add Dhaka–Delhi and Chattogram–Kolkata frequencies before the Puja holiday rush. Businesses planning October-November meetings should secure slots early, as first-month allocations may sell out within days.
