India’s Bureau of Immigration (BoI) has completed the transition to a paper-free arrival system. Effective 1 April 2026, every foreign national – including Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card-holders – must complete an online e-Arrival Card within 72 hours of their flight to India and present the generated QR code on arrival. The six-month grace period during which paper disembarkation cards were still accepted ended on 31 March. The policy was formally highlighted in a government reminder and industry advisory released on 7 May 2026.
For travellers looking for help navigating these new rules, VisaHQ offers an end-to-end online solution that not only processes India visa applications but also facilitates completion and storage of the mandatory e-Arrival Card. Corporate travel managers can use the platform’s dashboard at https://www.visahq.com/india/ to send automated reminders, collect QR codes and maintain compliance records for multiple employees, simplifying trip preparation.
The e-Arrival Card is submitted through the Su-Swagatam mobile app or the AirSuvidha web portal. Travellers enter basic passport information, contact details in India, a short health/customs declaration and flight particulars; no fee or document upload is required. BoI says 91 % of submissions are cleared in under five minutes, but travellers who forget to save the QR code must re-file or queue at a staffed kiosk – a pain point frequently reported by corporate travel managers. For businesses, the new requirement means travel coordinators need to build an additional 15-minute compliance step into departure check-lists. Many companies are adding QR-code verification to their duty-of-care apps so that mobile employees cannot check in for a flight without proof of completion. Airlines have likewise updated online and kiosk check-in flows to flag passengers who have not produced a QR code, avoiding denied-boarding situations at the gate. Immigration officials insist the digital card will shorten overall airport processing times by pre-validating biographic data, but some carriers reported longer queues in the first week after the grace period ended as passengers unfamiliar with the rule attempted to complete the form on their phones after landing. BoI says additional Wi-Fi hotspots and help desks have been deployed at Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad to smooth the learning curve. In the medium term, the e-Arrival database will integrate with India’s wider Immigration, Visa, Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT) platform, enabling advanced passenger analytics and risk-scoring similar to systems used in Singapore and Australia. The move aligns with the government’s goal of a fully contactless border for business and leisure travellers in time for the 2036 Olympics bid.