The framework
You are not the first, and the system knows you are coming.
Treating international patients is not something India does informally. There is a dedicated visa category, a visa for the person travelling with you, and a national hospital accreditation scheme. Here is what each one is.
India operates a specific medical visa for people coming for treatment, a companion visa for the family member travelling with them, and a national accreditation scheme for hospitals. There is also a government programme promoting medical value travel.
None of that is an endorsement of any particular company, ours included, and none of it guarantees the quality of any individual hospital or surgeon. It means the country has built a route for patients like you, which is worth knowing when you are deciding whether this is a reasonable thing to do at all.
Medically reviewed
Reviewed by Dr Gunjan Patel, MBBS, registered with the Gujarat Medical Council (G-65059). Last reviewed 27 August 2026. Reviewed for accuracy only. This page is general information, not advice about your own case, and Dr Gunjan Patel does not diagnose, prescribe or treat.
The medical visa
A separate category, not a tourist visa.
Travelling for treatment on a tourist visa is the single most common avoidable mistake in this process.
An undated Ministry of Home Affairs document, whose server date is February 2018, says the initial period of an Indian medical visa may be up to one year or the period of treatment, whichever is less, and that a medical attendant visa lasts only as long as the patient’s medical visa, and that the visa can be extended by the registration office for up to a further year
Ministry of Home Affairs, Details of Visas Granted by India (Annexure III, undated, file name suggests 1 February 2018) Checked 2026-09-25.
The Ministry document carries no date in its text and its file name suggests 1 February 2018, so it may be out of date, and individual Indian missions publish shorter or different validities, so the period on your own visa is set by the mission that issues it. Confirm against the official Indian government visa portal or your Indian mission before booking anything. Not immigration advice.
The Government of India e-Visa portal says e-Medical and e-Medical Attendant applications may be made online at least 4 days before the date of arrival, within a window of 120 days, and that an e-Visa is non-extendable and non-convertible
Government of India e-Visa portal, instructions and FAQ Checked 2026-09-25.
Read directly from the live portal on 25 September 2026; the page shows no date of its own. The portal contradicts itself on how long an e-Medical Visa lasts, so this site states no single validity here. A Ministry of Home Affairs document whose file name suggests 2018 says e-Medical extension may be granted up to six months by the registration office, which the portal does not say; confirm before relying on either. Processing times are not promised, eligibility depends on nationality, and this is not immigration advice.
Two different validities
are given, 365 days in its validity table and 60 days in its FAQ, for the e-Medical and e-Medical Attendant Visas on the same page of the Government of India e-Visa portal
Government of India e-Visa portal (validity table and FAQ 9) Checked 2026-09-25.
The portal does not say which figure applies, so this site states no single validity or number of entries. Confirm both with the e-Visa support contacts on the portal, or with the Indian mission in your country, before you apply or book anything. Not immigration advice.
The Bureau of Immigration’s visa-terms page says an e-Medical Visa is granted for up to 60 days from the date of first entry into India with triple entry, and that the e-Medical Attendant Visa lasts only as long as the patient’s e-Visa
Bureau of Immigration, Terms and Conditions of Your Visa, Medical Visa (M) Checked 2026-09-25.
The page shows no date, and the Government of India e-Visa portal gives different validities for the same visas, so this site states no single validity. Confirm with the e-Visa support contacts on the portal, or with the Indian mission in your country, before you apply or book anything. Not immigration advice.
The Government of India e-Visa portal says only two e-Medical Attendant Visas will be granted against one e-Medical Visa (patient)
Government of India e-Visa portal, instructions and FAQ 33 Checked 2026-09-25.
The Bureau of Immigration gives the same limit of two for nationals other than those of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The portal states no nationality exceptions and shows no date of its own.
The attendant visa matters more than people expect. Somebody has to be able to speak for you on a day when you cannot speak for yourself, and the framework anticipates that rather than treating it as an afterthought.
The Ministry of Home Affairs introduced a dedicated Ayush visa category in August 2023 for foreign nationals travelling to India for treatment under traditional systems of medicine, alongside the existing medical visa
Ministry of Home Affairs announcement, via policy reporting Checked 2026-08-25.
What this looks like for four different nationalities: Uzbek nationals apply for a dedicated e-Medical Visa with its own published fee, validity and entry-point rules, Turkmen nationals, whose country is not on the e-Visa list, apply for a Medical Visa through the Embassy of India, Maldivian nationals need no visa at all for a stay under ninety days, medical treatment included, and Nepali nationals cross under an open-border treaty that predates the whole visa framework by decades. Four real examples of the “differs by nationality” point below, not an abstraction. Packing medicines is a separate matter with its own official texts, gathered in carrying medicines to India and bringing them home.
Practical points that catch people out
- Apply for the medical category, never the tourist one
- The attendant visa is a separate application from your own
- You will normally need a letter from the treating hospital
- Eligibility and rules differ by nationality
- Registration with local authorities may be required for longer stays
Check every one of these against the official Indian government visa portal before you book a flight. Not against us, and not against any agency.
The national programme
India is actively building for international patients.
Heal in India is a Government of India initiative to promote medical value travel, led by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare together with the Ministry of Ayush, and the 2026 to 2027 union budget committed to establishing five regional medical value travel hubs, a description of the national programme only, which does not imply government endorsement, partnership or accreditation of any individual provider
Government of India policy reporting Checked 2026-08-25.
Reported through policy coverage rather than read from a primary government release. It describes a national programme and implies nothing whatsoever about any individual company, including this one.
Why this matters to you is narrower than it first sounds. It does not mean the government has vetted your hospital, and it certainly does not mean it has vetted us. What it means is that hospitals treating international patients operate inside a national policy framework with attention on it, rather than in a grey area.
For someone weighing whether treatment abroad is a fringe activity or an established one, that distinction is the useful part.
Hospital accreditation
What NABH is, and what it is not.
NABH is the national hospital accreditation scheme, run under the Quality Council of India. Accreditation means a hospital has been assessed against a published standard covering patient safety, infection control, record keeping and clinical processes.
It is a floor, not a ranking. It tells you a hospital meets a standard. It does not tell you that it is better than another hospital meeting the same standard, and it says nothing at all about the individual surgeon who will operate on you.
The useful thing about it is that you can check it yourself, on the accrediting body’s own register, rather than trusting a badge on a website. For what a hospital’s own success rate does and does not tell you, see how to read a hospital’s success rate.
What accreditation does not cover
- Your specific surgeon’s experience in your specific operation
- Published, comparable results for your operation, which the standard text does not say hospitals must publish or have checked outside the hospital
- What happens after you fly home
- Whether the operation was necessary in the first place
- Whether the price you were quoted is reasonable
Those five gaps are, more or less, the reason this company exists.
Questions
What people ask about the rules.
Does the Indian government approve medical travel companies?
Not in the sense of certifying that a private company is trustworthy. Be careful with any company that suggests otherwise, or that displays a ministry emblem on its site. Hospitals are accredited. Facilitators generally are not, and we are not.
Can I come on a tourist visa and get treated?
You should not plan to. There is a specific medical category for exactly this and using the wrong one creates avoidable problems, including at the hospital. Apply for the right category from the start.
Can my husband or daughter travel with me?
There is an attendant visa category for the person travelling with you, and the Bureau of Immigration says the attendant visa ends when the patient’s visa ends. The portal is not consistent about how long an e-Medical Visa lasts, so confirm the validity with the e-Visa support contacts on the portal, or with the Indian mission in your country, before you apply. How long the trip lasts is a separate question, covered in how long to stay in India before you fly home.
Do you handle the visa for me?
We help you understand what is needed and make sure the hospital letter arrives in time. We do not submit applications on your behalf and we are not immigration advisers. The application is yours, and the official portal is the authority.
If a hospital is accredited, is the surgery safe?
Accreditation raises the floor and it is worth insisting on. It cannot tell you that a particular operation is right for you or that a particular surgeon does enough of them. Individual results cannot be guaranteed by anyone, anywhere, and any company that tells you otherwise is not being straight with you.
Work out whether the trip makes sense before you apply for anything.
Thirty minutes, free. A visa is easy to get and the wrong plan is expensive, so the order matters.