India Tourist Visa Questions for Naturalized US Citizen (not enough time to apply for OCI before travel)

[musicalm 1]

Hi,

 

My wife recently became a naturalized US citizen.

 

She would like to apply for an OCI, but given that we are planning to travel to India in a couple of months, I don't think that that will be enough time to apply for and receive the OCI, especially since we have discovered that the 'Certificate of Renunciation' is a pre-requisite for the OCI application.

So, we are thinking of applying for regular tourist visa/toruist e-visa for her.

 

We had a few questions in this regard:
 
 1. Does applying for a regular tourist visa also require the 'Certificate of Renunciation' as a pre-requisite (for those tourist visa applicants who were Indian citizens and have recently become naturalized US citizens)?

 

 2. Is applying for the tourist e-visa an option? Is it supposed to be faster? And, do we have to mail the physical US passport as part of the application process, or would it be via scanning and uploading the US passport pages?

 

 3. What is the typical/average turnaround time for a (a) regular tourist visa and (b) tourist e-visa (from submitting the application to receiving the visa)?

 

Thanks for your help

[Mike E 11,723]

1 hour ago, musicalm said:

Is applying for the tourist e-visa an option? Is it supposed to be faster?

Always faster IME

 

1 hour ago, musicalm said:

3. What is the typical/average turnaround time for a (a) regular tourist visa and (b) tourist e-visa (from submitting the application to receiving the visa)?

Depends on the consulate. I once waited over 3 months for SF.

 

Houston was  a week.

 

e-visa is under a week.

[musicalm 1]

10 hours ago, Mike E said:

Always faster IME

 

Depends on the consulate. I once waited over 3 months for SF.

 

Houston was  a week.

 

e-visa is under a week.

 

Thanks a lot for the quick response.

 

We were planning to apply for the certificate of renunciation and then OCI after we get back.

 

However, can we apply for a tourist visa without applying for the certificate of renunciation of Indian citizenship (since I read somewhere that you need to show proof of cancelled Indian passport to apply for a visa? My wife's Indian passport is not physically cancelled)

 

Also, are there any disadvantages to applying for a tourist e-visa over a regular tourist visa?

[Jot18 47]

4 hours ago, musicalm said:

 

Thanks a lot for the quick response.

 

We were planning to apply for the certificate of renunciation and then OCI after we get back.

 

However, can we apply for a tourist visa without applying for the certificate of renunciation of Indian citizenship (since I read somewhere that you need to show proof of cancelled Indian passport to apply for a visa? My wife's Indian passport is not physically cancelled)

 

Also, are there any disadvantages to applying for a tourist e-visa over a regular tourist visa?

For regular visa you don't need to carry additional paper which you get with evisa... regular visa is stamped on the passport itself and requires you to send the passport. You can apply for renunciation concurrently with regular visa. I don't rmbr uploading renunciation with evisa but I highly recommend that you apply for renunciation when you apply for evisa. Once your wife returns, apply for OCI.

[Mike E 11,723]

3 hours ago, musicalm said:

However, can we apply for a tourist visa without applying for the certificate of renunciation of Indian citizenship (since I read somewhere that you need to show proof of cancelled Indian passport to apply for a visa?

You can always try. 
 

3 hours ago, musicalm said:

My wife's Indian passport is not physically cancelled)

I do not recommend her attempting to use her Indian passport.

 

3 hours ago, musicalm said:

 

Also, are there any disadvantages to applying for a tourist e-visa over a regular tourist visa?

* A U.S. citizen can get a 10 year multi entry paper visa. The maximum length of a multi entry e-visa is 5 years.

 

* An e-visa can only be used at a specific set (over 100) ports. Since those ports include Bangalore, Bombay, and Delhi, I personally do not care. Some people prefer thay their international flight arrives at their final destination in India. Still I think even 99 percent of Indians 

 

* airlines are not properly trained on Indian e-visas. For example there is a business e-visa good for 365 days. Not a year. 365 days. Do you see the difference? Well mine was issued in 2019, after the end of February, October 1, 2019. It expired September 29, 2020. Do you understand why it was not September 30, 2020?

 

The airline clerk insisted my e-visa was wrong and insisted she was going to enter an expiration of September 30, 2020 in the API sent to Indian immigration. I demanded she not do that. I also asked her if she had heard of leap years. She had not.  In the end she reluctantly agreed as I asked and I entered India 2 days later no problem.  

Even with the disadvantages, I will never get a paper visa from India again. Next time will be a 5 year e-visa.

 

 

[musicalm 1]

Thank you very much, Jot18 and MikeE, for the additional pointers.

 

Yes, makes sense to apply for the reununciation certificate and visa at the same time.

 

And, no, not planning to use my wife's Indian passport. I was just noting that it is not physically cancelled (that is, it is not physically clipped/stamped as null yet).

 

We will try for the 5-year tourist e-visa. Assuming we get that in time, and are able to travel to India, the plan will be to apply for the OCI once we get back from India.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[allotherstaken 4]

I’m in the same boat. I recently got my US citizenship and I need to travel to India in Oct 1st week.
I’ve already applied for Renunciation and there is no time for OCI before travel. So evisa is the only way forward.
The evisa application is pretty straightforward and I’ve also filled it up temporarily. There is only one question that is confusing 

 

See the attached screenshot.

 

Because I was an Indian citizen, I have visited in previous years based on my citizenship, So I answered,Yes to the question "Have you ever visited India before?" 

But then it asks to fill the previous visa information and visa type. Because I was an Indian Citizen before, I didn't need a visa. Therefore, i’m not sure what should I fill for the following two fields:
  Last Indian Visa
   Type of Visa:

 

I’m planning to add my Indian passport number and just select a random visa-type value from the dropdown.

what are you’ll planning to do? Or have done for this section

 

They have not designed the evisa form for naturalized India citizens who don’t have OCI. 

[musicalm 1]

What did you end up doing, @allotherstaken?

 

This is a good question. I haven't applied for the e-visa yet as our travel plans have shifted out a bit, but will be doing so in the next month or so.

 

I am not sure what the answer is. I think I would have to go with the 'no' answer for 'Have you ever visited India before'? because I think only non-Indian citizens would 'visit' India, and if you were formerly an Indian citizen (like my wife), you would not be 'visiting' India when going to India. But I might be misinterpreting this. I don't think I could pick any of those visa categories as that is not correct for my application.

 

@Mike E and @Jot18 - Do you have any guidance on this question?

 

Also, do I need to have travel tickets purchased before applying for the e-visa? Since they ask for an arrival date (or can it be an estimate)?

 

Thanks

Edited September 30, 2023 by musicalm
Typo correction

[Jot18 47]

37 minutes ago, musicalm said:

What did you end up doing, @allotherstaken?

 

This is a good question. I haven't applied for the e-visa yet as our travel plans have shifted out a bit, but will be doing so in the next month or so.

 

I am not sure what the answer is. I think I would have to go with the 'no' answer for 'Have you ever visited India before'? because I think only non-Indian citizens would 'visit' India, and if you were formerly an Indian citizen (like my wife), you would not be 'visiting' India when going to India. But I might be misinterpreting this. I don't think I could pick any of those visa categories as that is not correct for my application.

 

@Mike E and @Jot18 - Do you have any guidance on this question?

 

Also, do I need to have travel tickets purchased before applying for the e-visa? Since they ask for an arrival date (or can it be an estimate)?

 

Thanks

If you haven't had any previous visa for India then the answer is no. You don't need travel tickets for evisa ...it could be any date in the future 4 months. I just applied for my son's visa and it was issued under 12 hours...

[Mike E 11,723]

2 hours ago, musicalm said:

Also, do I need to have travel tickets purchased before applying for the e-visa?

No

[faithful12 27]

On 9/6/2023 at 7:39 PM, musicalm said:

Thank you very much, Jot18 and MikeE, for the additional pointers.

 

Yes, makes sense to apply for the reununciation certificate and visa at the same time.

 

And, no, not planning to use my wife's Indian passport. I was just noting that it is not physically cancelled (that is, it is not physically clipped/stamped as null yet).

 

We will try for the 5-year tourist e-visa. Assuming we get that in time, and are able to travel to India, the plan will be to apply for the OCI once we get back from India.

 

Thanks again for your help.

Did you apply for evisa? How was the process? 

[musicalm 1]

On 10/3/2023 at 12:11 PM, faithful12 said:

Did you apply for evisa? How was the process? 

 

I did and it was a pretty smooth process. Got approved in ~2 days, so pretty fast.