A rejected India e-visa application stings twice: your trip is suddenly uncertain, and the government processing fee is non-refundable whether the visa is granted or not — that's official policy, stated on indianvisaonline.gov.in. The good news: most rejections are caused by a small set of avoidable mistakes, rejection is not a ban, and you can usually reapply immediately once the underlying problem is fixed.
First: confirm it's actually a rejection
Check your status on the official portal's Check your Visa Status page before assuming the worst. Applications sit in several states that are not rejections: still processing, payment not yet confirmed (payment status can take a couple of hours to update), or — commonly missed — a document re-upload request. If a photo or passport scan doesn't meet specifications, the government often emails asking you to re-upload rather than rejecting outright. That email normally arrives within about 24 hours of submission and can land in spam. If you ignore it, the application stalls or fails; if you catch it, you can fix the document and continue without reapplying.
The most common rejection causes
1. Photo doesn't meet specifications
The portal's requirements are strict and specific: JPEG format, between 10 KB and 1 MB, square (equal height and width), full front-facing view with eyes open and no spectacles, plain light or white background, no shadows on face or background, no borders, and the full head visible from hair to chin. Casual crops from phone photos fail on the square requirement and background more than anything else.
2. Details don't exactly match your passport
Name (including middle names), date of birth, passport number, and nationality must match the passport bio page character for character. A missing middle name or a transposed digit is enough to trigger a rejection or manual review — the application is checked against the exact document you upload.
3. Wrong visa category for your trip purpose
Tourist, business, and medical e-visas permit different activities. Applying under tourist while your documents suggest business meetings (or vice versa) gets applications flagged. Journalism and NGO work are not permitted on any e-visa category at all, and e-visas are never valid for employment.
4. Passport problems
Your passport needs at least six months of validity remaining at the time of application and at least two blank pages. Diplomatic and official passport holders are not eligible for e-visa, and neither are travelers on non-passport travel documents or children endorsed on a parent's passport — every applicant, including minors, needs their own passport.
5. Poor-quality document scans
The passport bio page must be a PDF between 10 KB and 300 KB, clear and uncropped. Supporting documents (business card, hospital letter) must be in English — non-English documents are grounds for rejection.
6. Eligibility issues you can't fix with a re-application
Some rejections are about who is applying, not how. Travelers of Pakistani origin (including by parent or grandparent) are not eligible for e-visa and must apply for a regular visa at an Indian mission. Applicants with a defence, military, security, or police background are also ineligible for e-visa. If either applies to you, reapplying online will produce the same result — the regular visa route is the correct next step.
What to do after a rejection, step by step
- Re-read the notification email carefully. It may be a re-upload request rather than a final rejection — those are recoverable without a new application.
- Identify the likely cause using the list above. If nothing obviously matches, compare every field of your application against your passport bio page — mismatches are the most frequent silent killer.
- Fix the actual problem before reapplying. A new application with the same non-compliant photo will fail the same way, and each application means paying the government fee again.
- Reapply with corrected details. There is no formal waiting period after a rejection. Mind the timing rules: e-visa applications can be made no more than 120 days before travel, and must be submitted at least 4 days before arrival.
- Watch your inbox (and spam) after resubmitting for any re-upload request, and track status on the official portal.
- If you're not eligible for an e-visa at all, apply for a regular visa through the Indian mission serving your country — rejection of an e-visa does not prevent a regular visa application.
Protect your trip while you sort it out
Don't book non-refundable flights or hotels until your e-visa shows GRANTED. Approval is never guaranteed in advance, and the fee is charged for processing, not for a result. If your travel date is close, remember the 4-day minimum lead time — a rejection discovered a week before departure leaves little room for a second attempt, which is exactly when careless mistakes happen.
Where a filing service fits
Everything above you can do yourself directly on the official portal. What a review-and-filing service like EasyIVisa adds is a second pair of eyes before submission — checking your photo against the specs, your entries against your passport, and your category against your trip purpose — because the government fee is non-refundable and a rejection costs you both money and time. If your application was already rejected once, a careful review before the second attempt matters even more.
Nationality-specific guides
- Indian visa for American citizens
- Indian visa for British citizens
- Indian visa for Canadian citizens
Ready to apply (or reapply)? Start your application — we review everything before it's filed.