a rule · IndiaIndia's e-Medical Visa

A dedicated electronic visa class for treatment in India, applied for online before travel. The Bureau of Immigration states it runs "One year (365 days) from the date of arrival into India" with multiple entries, and requires a "Copy of Letter from the Hospital concerned in India on its letterhead which including the date / tentative date which admission have been suggested". A companion class, the e-Medical Attendant Visa, runs alongside it, and the rule is numerical: "Only two e-Medical Attendant Visas will be granted against one e-Medical Visa (patient)".

India is the state that wrote the treatment trip into its immigration system most explicitly, and the class reads as a statement of what such a trip is taken to involve. A year of validity, because oncology and transplant courses run long and return for review. Multiple entries, because the patient goes home between cycles. A hospital letter on letterhead, because the state wants the facility named and on the record. And two attendants, because somebody decided a patient travelling for surgery arrives with family.

Inference — the named class does two things at once. It ties the stay to a particular hospital, so a change of provider on arrival is a paperwork problem as well as a clinical one. And it puts the purpose of the journey on the record, which matters in both directions: it makes the trip countable, and it makes it visible.

The visibility is the part that cuts. A patient travelling for a treatment that is lawful in India and not lawful at home has, by applying, told two governments what they are doing. That is not a defect of the Indian class; it is what any named class does, and it is why the states that issue none are attractive to some travellers for reasons that have nothing to do with price.

The application is online, with the hospital letter uploaded. The class is nationality-restricted: the e-Visa scheme is open to nationals of a published list of countries and not to others, and the list moves.

What the class does not do: guarantee admission at the named hospital, move with the patient if the treatment date slips beyond the validity window, or cover a third companion. A patient arriving with a spouse and two adult children has one attendant visa too few.

Alongside it India runs an ordinary Medical Visa and Medical Attendant Visa issued at missions rather than online, for nationals outside the e-Visa list and for stays the electronic class does not fit.

As of 17 September 2026 the duration, the entry rule, the hospital-letter requirement and the two-attendant cap are read off the Bureau of Immigration's own e-Visa page.