If you are someone who enjoys combined trips,“Nepal-India”🇳🇵🇮🇳 or land-based adventures, you have probably encountered frustrating administrative hurdles in the past. Until recently, the electronic visa (e-Visa), so convenient and easy to obtain through your agency, had one major drawback: it only worked if you arrived by plane or boat.
Entering by road used to be an obstacle course: you had to obtain a traditional “paper” visa from a consulate. Those days are over. India has just opened its first official land border crossing to e-Visa holders: Raxaul.
Here is what this means in practical terms for your next travel file.
The problem: e-Visas were “prohibited” at land borders.
This was a subtle point that visa agencies often had to explain to disappointed customers. The Indian e-Visa was only valid for arrivals via 32 international airports (such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Jaipur) and six seaports.
If you were planning to land at Kathmandu (Nepal) and then travel down to India by bus or train to continue your journey, your e-Visa was worthless. You had to send your original passport to the embassy to obtain a physical visa sticker, which was a longer, more expensive, and more stressful process.
Raxaul, the first digitized land entry point
The Indian administration has broken this barrier. From now on, Raxaul, a strategic crossing point located on the border between India (Bihar state) and Nepal, officially accepts travelers with an e-Visa.
This is a minor revolution for your travel logistics: it is the very first land border crossing to be added to the list, complementing airports and seaports. This point is particularly useful for those traveling in South Asia to go trekking and wishing to enter India by road from Nepal without having to go through the embassy.
Please note Once you have entered India via Raxaul (or an airport), you must also comply with exit points, which are much more frequent than entry points. The good news is that, You can apply for a 30-day e-Visa up to 4 months before arriving in India. from now on!
Fill in a file from e-Visa India
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