India is replacing its traditional Tourist Visa with a broader “Visitor Visa” that lets foreign nationals combine leisure travel with business meetings, medical consultations, wellness retreats and cultural courses on a single permit, under a reform its Ministry of Home Affairs expects to implement by the end of 2026.
The overhaul cuts India’s main visa categories from 13 to nine and its subcategories from 49 to 23, the Daily Mirror reported on Friday evening. Application forms are to be shortened substantially, with the number of fields cut by 65 to 70 per cent.
Two visitor categories
The new Visitor Visa is split into two.
V-1 will be issued for 30 days with multiple entries. Beyond conventional sightseeing, it covers short-term business meetings, medical consultations, wellness retreats, short medical treatments, and courses in Indian languages, music, art and crafts. Short-duration yoga programmes are included.
V-2 is for longer stays, with validity options of one, five or 10 years depending on eligibility. It covers everything permitted under V-1 and adds mountaineering, for which a separate six-month multiple-entry provision will also be available.
The practical effect is that a traveller wanting to attend a meeting or see a doctor during a holiday would no longer need to apply under a separate category for those activities.
The medical visas change too
India is also reworking its medical visa system, in support of its “Heal in India” initiative aimed at patients who need several consultations or extended treatment.
Conventional medical treatment will fall under M-1. Treatment through AYUSH — India’s traditional medicine systems, covering Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy — will fall under M-3. Both visas, including their electronic versions, will normally be issued for one year with multiple entries, and separate permits will be available for accompanying attendants.
The filing does not say what the M-2 category covers, or whether it exists under the new structure.
Further reforms are to streamline visas for foreign students, researchers, investors and business professionals. The report does not detail them.
What is not yet in place
India currently offers electronic visas to nationals of 172 countries. Authorities are still updating the technology that will support the new framework, and implementation is expected by the end of 2026 — meaning the changes described here are announced rather than in force.
What this means for Sri Lankan travellers
The filing does not mention Sri Lanka at all, and nothing in it is specific to Sri Lankan passport holders. Readers should treat the application to Sri Lanka as unstated rather than assumed: no eligibility list, fee schedule or country-by-country rollout appears in the report, and it is not clear from it which nationalities will be offered the 10-year V-2 option.
What can be said is that the categories being consolidated — medical consultation, short treatment, pilgrimage-adjacent cultural courses and business meetings — are among the most common reasons Sri Lankans travel to India, and that the one-year multiple-entry medical visa with attendant permits addresses the pattern of repeat consultation trips.
This desk reported separately that India eased passport and visa rules for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees earlier this month. Whether that measure sits inside this wider restructuring is not stated in either filing.
Sourcing note
This is a single-source report, and the source is a republication. The Daily Mirror’s international desk carries the item with a credit line to TravelMole, a travel-trade publication that is not in this desk’s verified-domain list, and the filing is attributed to “DM Editorial” rather than a named reporter. The underlying announcement is India’s Ministry of Home Affairs’.
Searches of Al Jazeera, CNN and EconomyNext returned no filing on the reform, and this desk did not reach an Indian newsroom or the Ministry of Home Affairs’ own notification. Every figure above is therefore as TravelMole reported it, at one remove, and none has been checked against the primary document. A reader planning travel should confirm the position with the Indian High Commission rather than rely on this report.
Not reported
The filing gives no fees for any of the new categories, no date within 2026 for implementation, and no transitional arrangement for visas already issued. It does not say whether the e-visa country list changes, whether any category becomes more restrictive, or what happens to existing tourist visas when the Visitor Visa replaces them.
