India

India’s immigration system is built for the diaspora and for employees of Indian companies. Everyone else is a visitor, and the visitor permission is capped at 180 days per calendar year no matter how many years the visa is valid for.

Can you stay in India long term?

No, not unless you have Indian ancestry, an Indian spouse, or an Indian employer. There is no retirement visa, no digital nomad visa, no golden visa and no investor residency permit. A foreigner cannot arrive with savings and settle. Ten years in India is realistic only for people of Indian origin, their spouses, or someone working through a rolling series of employment visas. Nobody in the last group gets a status to convert at the end.

The two things that look like long stay routes are not. The five year e-Tourist Visa is a five year permission to visit, limited to 180 days in any calendar year, counted across all tourist visas whether paper or electronic, and not extendable inside the country. The ten year version for US nationals is the same ceiling with a longer validity. Both produce a life of forced annual exits. That arrangement, winters in Goa and summers elsewhere, is what most people mean when they say they retired to India, and it is a visitor pattern, not residence.

The one genuine long stay status is the OCI card. It is lifelong, gives unlimited stay and the right to work, and is closed to anyone without Indian ancestry or two years of marriage to an Indian citizen or OCI holder. It is also not citizenship. OCI holders cannot vote, cannot hold constitutional posts, cannot sit in Parliament or a state legislature, and cannot take government employment. They cannot buy agricultural land, a farmhouse or a plantation either.

For the non-diaspora foreigner the remaining option is an Indian job. The Employment Visa needs an employer, a role no qualified Indian could fill, and a salary at or above USD 25,000 a year, and it leads to extensions rather than permanent residence. India has no general PR scheme. There is no clock to start.

Ways to move to India

Start with the last two rows before you start with the first. If neither your ancestry nor an Indian employer applies to you, India has nothing to offer beyond visitor stays.

The programmes

OCI card. A lifelong registration for foreign nationals of Indian origin and for foreign spouses after two continuous years of marriage. It gives unlimited stay, work rights and property rights short of agricultural land. The trap is the name: it is not citizenship, and the people who buy into that misunderstanding discover at the first election that they cannot vote.

Employment Visa. The employer-sponsored permit, five years or the contract term, with a salary floor of USD 25,000 (2026) as published in the Startup India guide. The role must be one no qualified Indian could fill, dependants cannot work, and a business visa cannot be converted into it from inside India. There is no permanent residence at the end.

e-Business Visa. One year, multiple entry, 180 days per visit, granted online in about 72 hours. It covers meetings, negotiations and supplier visits. It does not cover running the Indian entity, it cannot be converted, and no dependants can be attached.

5 year e-Tourist Visa. Five years of validity and 180 days per calendar year of actual stay. Land entry is barred, extension inside India is not available, and remote work for a foreign employer is not a permitted purpose even though it is common. The ceiling is the whole story of this visa.

One more thing applies to every arrival on this page. The e-Arrival Card has been mandatory since 1 October 2025, for all foreign nationals including OCI holders. It is free, it is completed online up to 72 hours before arrival, and it is not a visa. It neither extends nor validates anything. Travellers have been refused boarding believing it was an entry permission.

What India is bad at

Settlement, for almost everyone. There is no retirement visa, no digital nomad visa, no golden visa and no permanent residence scheme for ordinary foreigners, so the middle of the market is missing rather than merely difficult. The visitor visas that look generous are capped at 180 days a calendar year and cannot be extended in country.

The work route is narrow and precarious. It requires an Indian employer, a salary floor tested on cash pay and taxable perquisites, and a role that survives a “no Indian could do this” test. Change of employer is barred during the initial term, dependants cannot work, and five years ends in a discretionary extension tied to the job.

OCI is generous but tribal. It is available only through ancestry or marriage, and even then it withholds the vote, public employment and agricultural land. And the arrival formalities have their own trap, with a compulsory e-Arrival Card that a large number of travellers still mistake for a visa.

Guides

• OCI card: eligibility limbs, document chains, what it does not confer, re-issuance after 50
• Employment Visa: salary arithmetic, the no-Indian-could-fill test, FRRO registration, why five years leads nowhere
• e-Business Visa: permitted purposes, the 180 day visit cap, the conversion ban
• 5 year e-Tourist Visa: the annual day count, land entry ban, remote work exposure

Sources

• Ministry of Home Affairs, ociservices.gov.in, OCI eligibility and benefits, 2026-10-22
• Indian Visa Online, e-Business and e-Tourist Visa categories, 2026-10-22
• Startup India, government guide to Indian visas including the employment visa salary floor, 2026-10-22
• Bureau of Immigration, e-Arrival Card requirement, 2026-10-22
• Consulate General of India, San Francisco, tourist visa 180 day annual cap, 2026-10-22

Last updated 2026-10-22.