India's tourist eVisa is one of the most-applied-to visas in the world, and one of the most-rejected at the point of submission. The rejection rate at the consulate is low; the rejection rate at the upload screen is high. Almost everything that goes wrong is fixable in fifteen minutes once you know what to look for.
Here are the five reasons our advisors see week after week, in roughly the order of frequency.
1. Photo background tone.
The Indian Government spec requires a plain white background. “White-ish” off-white walls, eggshell, or “white with subtle texture” all fail. The auto-validator picks up the dominant background colour by sampling the corners of the image; if it returns anything but pure white, the application is rejected before a human ever sees it.
2. Passport bio-page edges cropped.
The bio-page scan must show all four edges of the passport page including the machine-readable zone. Phone scans often crop the bottom edge by a few pixels in landscape orientation. Place the passport flat, photograph slightly above so the full page is in frame with a small white border.
3. Indian address field.
The application asks for your address in India for the duration of the stay. Hotel names alone don't pass validation. Use the full address including street, locality, city and PIN code exactly as it appears on the hotel booking confirmation.
4. Reference contact in home country.
A working phone number for someone in your country of residence who isn't travelling with you. This trips up solo travellers who instinctively list the friend they're going to visit in India. It needs to be someone home.
5. Travel history dates that don't match the passport.
If you've travelled to India before, the dates you give for that visit need to match the stamps in your current passport. An old passport's stamps don't count. If your visit was on a previous passport, list it but flag it explicitly in the comments field.
Axis Visa is not a government organisation. Visa requirements depend on passport, residence status, destination and travel purpose. The Indian Government's specifications can be updated without notice; check the live requirements before submitting.