Visa and residence for unmarried partners

naiviv

My partner (who also happens to qualify as a POI - although hasn't yet applied for it) has likely to be offered a 2 year post in India and I would like to join him. We are unmarried, so technically, I believe I cannot count as a spouse. I am a British/ French national.

Can I still qualify for an X-visa? Or can I only join him on a tourist visa? If that is the case, what is the longest tourist visa I can aspire to? 6 months? 12 months? More?

And I imagine the best course of action is probably to try and get a working visa on my own to join him, but I don't anticipate that being easy.... I have heard that if you register with certain employement agencies, they will act as your Indian reference for the purposes of working visas. Is this correct?

Any help appreciated! Many thanks!

edwardseco

No visa status at all I am afraid. Maybe in Sweden its different. You need a job to get a working visa. Tourist visa length depends on your nationality, US 6 months stay (with a much longer period of validity) or as little as 3 months for Italy, Vietnam..

curtdfw

No. Employment visas have never been easy to get and India is currently tightening access to them. Basically, your prospective employer has to satisfy the Indian authorities that an Indian citizen could not do the job, and the visa must be applied for from your home country (i.e. you can't go to India, find a job and then apply for the visa). I got my Employment visa as I was managing offshore operations for a US company (who also employs several thousand Indians, which probably made it more palatable).

Any employment agency that suggests they can get you an Employment visa is scamming you...

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Haylo

Unless you are some form of specialist in your own right, forget about the idea of an employment visa, you won't be able to work.

Yes, assuming you're British without Indian ancestry, the very longest tourist visa you can get is 12 months, which you can only get in the UK. You may only get six months. Before your visa expires, you can return to the UK to apply for a new one, although having lived in India full time on a tourist visa may affect your second application for a one year visa.

I advise against applying for further Indian visas in a neigbouring country such as Nepal as they are clamping down on people using tourist visas as a way of living in India, so people wanting "back to back" visas are often given only three months, or even refused, especially if it's a second renewal.

Whatever the length of your visa, the longest anyone can stay in India on a tourist visa is 180 days in any one trip.

I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear, but you may as well know the situation now.

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joseph10

As your partner is of Indian origin i suggest him to go for OCI instead of PIO.
To get another visa then a tourist one, without being married to an Indian citizen, will be as good as impossible i think.

Peace