My stay in Kathmandu for Visa 25.12.06 - 3.12.06

i have ten-year year indian visa. you dont need to leave india every 180 days. i stayed for a year before going to nepal. no problem returning to india via kakarbita, border people see 10 visa and don't look any furhter. thats how it should be.

Please do not advise that you do not have to leave every 180 days, this is untrue and may mislead other members.

You have simply been very very lucky.

... and the immigration staff that stamped you in and out were very, very bad at their job.

Unless your visa is not type "T"?

i did it twice. in sikkim i met the vice minister in charge of permits and the fro who said i only need to register with police
if i intent to stay in one place for more than 180 days. is that what you were told when u got your 10-year visa? i would like to see that on official site.

Nick will not have gotten a 10-year tourist visa because he's British and that type of tourist visa is available only to U.S. citizens.

As for what you experienced (and as Haylo said, you lucked out), local officials, particularly in out-of-the-way places, often don't know what they're talking about. After all, the FRO in any place other than one of the big regional FRRO's is just the local police commissioner and they aren't actually very conversant with immigration rules. The 10-year tourist visa that only Americans can get is unusual -- even most American tourists don't have them -- so most local officials will never have seen one and don't necessairly understand that it's like all Indian tourist visas in that the duration of each stay in the country cannot exceed 180 days. But don't count on universal ignorance of the law. If you run up against a more knowledgeable official, e.g., one in a larger city or somebody who actually works in a regional FRRO, or even someone at airport immigration, you could find yourself in a real pickle because you have illegally overstayed your visa. This could have various consequences: immigration officials have a lot of individual discretion so the results are unpredictable. This could end up with you having the visa canceled and being barred from ever getting another one. At the very least, you could be fined and/or actually detained (for days) when you try to leave and forced to obtain clearance to exit the country.

You asked for an official site, so I'll give you one: https://indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com/homepage Rather than having its Consular offices around the world process visa applications themselves, the Indian Government now outsources the process to various third-party companies. In the U.S., the processing is now done by Travisa, whose website I have just given you. When you check the requirements for a Tourist visa, you will see that it says: "A Tourist Visa is given to those visiting India for tourism or other non-business related purposes. Valid for 6 months to 10 years. Ten (10) year visa is available only to US citizens under a bilateral arrangement. Irrespective of the duration of validity of visa, on each visit maximum period of stay in India is limited to 6 months (180 days). Multiple entry visas are given. Please note the visa is valid beginning on the day it is issued. So a 6 Month visa issued on January 1 would be valid until June 30." (Emphasis added.) The same limitation is also plainly stated on the site for the different outsourcing company that handles Indian visa applications in the United Kingdom. So when you say, "border people see 10 visa and don't look any furhter. thats how it should be" [sic], you are just flat wrong.

If you keep overstaying your visa, you're playing Russian roulette and sooner or later someone who actually understands the law is going to nail you.

What kind of visa *DO* you have? I am assuming a tourist visa valid for 10-years as that is the only one I'm aware of that they give for that long of a period, unless of course you have a PIO card, but those are good for 15 years...If you have a tourist visa you should look at the bottom of your visa...there in the fine print it says, "Registration required within 14 days of arrival in India for visas valid for more than 180 days" but also, as dzibead has pointed out...you simply *CANNOT* stay for more than 180 days at a time on a tourist visa. Please read the regulations and rules for your visa before giving others incorrect advice.

I will however follow the rules, because I value my current visa, and my following PIO card too much to mess around with such things. Thanks =]

I am an American citizen intending to go to Nepal, would there be any problem with me bringing INR to Nepal instead of USD? I understand that I can't bring 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Thanks!!

~ Stephanie ~

Does anyone know the typical processing time to get a 6-month tourist visa for India from the Embassy in Kathmandu? ie - if I'm there to submit my application on a Tuesday, I should get it back on...?

I'm a UK citizen.

I just wanted to let any reader wondering if they can go to Nepal and then enter India two weeks later that it is NO problem!

We have a 1 year multiple entry, the visa was NOT expired. We crossed over at the Sunali border, went to Kathmandu got a reentry stamp(costing 700 Nepal Rupees) at the India Embassy, spent two weeks in Nepal, then crossed back into India with NO problems!


Enjoy!

Yes, that is because you got the re-entry stamp from the Indian Embassy. The title of this makes it sound as if the rules have been changed, and as far as I know they haven't been. If one didn't read very close he would miss the part about the re-entry stamp and then be fscked...

Of course, we all know by now, that if you want to re-enter India within the 2 month time frame you need the re-entry stamp / letter... this is hardly new news...

Forum Advisor Note: Rugby7 thank you so much for your report, which is most helpful.

Hope you don't mind but I have amended your title to include the words "re-entry permit from Kathmandu" and added it to the Kathmandu sticky thread so it won't get lost in a few days.

It may be old news but that doesn't mean it's obvious - even to those like me who have been madly scrambling to read through the multitude of posts on the various threads devoted to the 2-month cooling-off period.

My understanding from reading the Ministry of Home Affairs FAQ at http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/FAQ-TVisa311209.pdf is that - as a US citizen with a 10-yr multiple entry Tourist visa - I can fly to Kathmandu and apply at the Embassy there for a re-entry stamp to return to India within the 2-month cool-off period as long as I produce a creditable itinerary (eg, airline ticket.)

But I infer, from reading Part (III) of the answer to Q2 in that FAQ, that since my 180-day maximum stay allowance has not been reset, and that the countdown of my 180 days will resume as soon as I re-enter India.

Does this jibe with other people's interpretation of the regulations? Or is it possible that my 180-day allowance will continue while I'm visiting Nepal?

Or am I misreading the MHA's FAQ and by some miracle I'll be granted a fresh 180-day allowance?

-Steve

Are you planning on going home? Because what I understand this rule to be saying is, you can get a re-entry stamp if you are taking a flight home from India, OR you have emergent circumstances, OR in some cases, you just want to take a side trip to Nepal for a few days. Not to remain staying in India for 10 years

The 180 days I think you are talking about is the max stay allowed on a tourist visa, regardless of the length of validity.

This seems to be the case, but I'm not entirely sure. They might not let you continue to do this.

BTW, you are aware that if they let you re-enter you are required to register with the FRRO in your area within 14 days?

My take on this is that the quoted rule is the one that should make sense of the whole shebang - that the rules are to stop 'visa trips' and not to stop multi-country holidays based in India. Take this rule together with foreign missions and immigration being allowed to permit re-entry and you have a coherent set of rules which achieve the objective of stopping the 'visa trips to "reset" the 180 days.
Unfortunately the rules were rolled out in an extremely haphazard way, some politicians thought/ said the rules were to do with the Headley affair; and the airlines were bulldozed into enforcing just the 2-month rule without allowing for the exemptions.
Here is what I think the rules were intended
to say:
just my opinion - AndyD 8-)#

Sorry for my mental density, but I guess I'm still unclear on the question of whether my 180-day "stay" counter continues to accrue during the period when I'm on my 3rd country "side-trip", or whether it is suspended and then resumes counting when I re-enter India (if my "side-trip" has been less than 2 months. Clearly, it is reset to another 180-day interval if I stay away 2 months.)

And to answer the other question: no, we don't intend to stay 10 years, just a few more months before moving on to another country - or maybe home. We got the 10-yr T visa because it was easy in San Francisco and didn't cost much more relative to the hassle of applying for a new one. We thought there might be a chance we'd fall in love with India and want to come back again and again...but not stay 10 years.

And yes, I'm aware of the FRRO 14-day registration requirement but figured I'd cross that bureaucratic bridge when I came to it. I'm making the blithe assumption that such an office would be accessible nearby any typical point of re-entry.

-Steve