India has launched its biggest visa reform in a decade, replacing the familiar “Tourist Visa” with a broader “Visitor Visa” and slashing the number of main visa classes from 13 to 9. Under the changes—outlined in a Ministry of Home Affairs press release on 11 November—the 49 sub-categories that often confused travellers have been consolidated into 23, and more than two-thirds of the online application fields have been removed. Officials say the leaner framework should go live “before the New Year”, once consular software, e-Visa portals and biometric-capture kits are updated. Why the re-brand? The government argues that the term “tourist” no longer reflects how foreigners actually use short-stay visas. A single Visitor Visa (V-1) will now cover business meetings, short courses, wellness retreats and medical consultations—activities that previously required travellers to pick between separate tourist, business, conference or medical visas. A multi-entry allowance of 30 days seeks to encourage “side trips” to industrial hubs such as Bengaluru or Pune after leisure travel. For corporates, the fine print matters. A new B-1 Business Visa will continue to support longer-term, licence-based work such as commissioning factories or installing IT systems, but technical experts will find clearer wording on permissible activities—plant design, ERP roll-outs, senior-management training and supply-chain audits are all name-checked. Indian subsidiaries can therefore deploy foreign specialists with less anxiety that an airport officer will question their paperwork. Consular officers have begun beta-testing the shorter forms. Early feedback suggests that the drop-down menus are easier to navigate and that mandatory uploads have been cut by 40–70 per cent depending on category. The e-Visa platform is also being recoded so that renewals and conversions (for example, Visitor-to-Student) can be lodged entirely online. The Ministry expects most e-Visas to be issued within 72 hours once the new rules take effect. Practically, international HR teams should review invitation-letter templates, update intranet guidance and brief travellers that the visa names on their passports will soon look different. Travel-management companies likewise need to refresh booking filters so that a “Visitor Visa (V-1)” is recognised as valid for both tourism and short business trips. No fee changes or visa-free arrangements are included in this reform, but officials hint that a pricing review will follow in the 2027-28 budget cycle.
