India's e-Visa/ETA Transfer to a New Passport: An OTA and Airline Checklist

When a passenger renews a passport while a long-validity Indian e-Visa or ETA is still active, the authorisation can stay bound to a document the traveler no longer holds. India's official e-Visa portal now lists Transfer of eVisa/ETA on New Passport among its categories on indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa. We re-checked that page on 2 October 2026.

This note is for OTA product, airline OCC and DCS, and partner ops: what to surface in manage-my-booking and before check-in. It is an India e-Visa and ETA transfer prompt for airlines and OTAs. It is not a consumer step-by-step.

This article is for operational planning. It is not legal advice. Fees, processing times, and full eligibility for the transfer service are not stated here. The official portal wins, and secondary reports stay secondary.

Milestone Date Status

VisasNews reports testing the transfer flow 22 Sep 2026 Expected

BusinessToday updates the same reporting 29 Sep 2026 Expected

Portal still lists the transfer category and the two-passport FAQ 2 Oct 2026 Confirmed

What the official portal states

On the Indian Visa Online e-Visa portal, verified 2 October 2026:

Transfer of eVisa/ETA on New Passport appears in the list of admissible e-Visa categories, alongside e-Tourist, e-Business, e-Medical, e-Medical Attendant, e-Student, e-Family, e-Transit, and e-Miscellaneous.

Portal guidance states that the traveler must travel on the passport used for the e-Visa application. It also states that entry may be allowed on a new passport even if the ETA was issued on the old passport, provided the traveler carries the old passport on which the ETA was issued.

The same page's advisory says the Government of India makes no provision for charging emergency or express extra fees for an e-visa, and points travelers to instructions on boi.gov.in.

The two-passport sentence is the baseline many stations already brief. The transfer category sits beside it. Carrying both documents, when both are still available, remains what the FAQ describes. Re-check the live portal and Bureau of Immigration guidance before you change a station SOP.

What trade reporting adds

VisasNews (22 September 2026) reported noticing the feature that day and testing the flow. According to VisasNews:

The transfer path tested was limited to one-year and five-year authorisations. A three-month e-Visa test did not proceed.

A one-year e-Business visa test could reach the transfer procedure, so the path was not described as e-Tourist only.

After the old authorisation was identified, the portal asked for a reason. VisasNews lists options framed as loss of passport, theft of passport, or non-return of the old passport, and describes no option for a routine renewal while the old passport is still held.

Applicants had to upload a new photo and a copy of the biographical page of the new passport. The process is not described as a silent passport-number edit.

VisasNews states that processing times, fees, and the exact post-approval document format were not clearly published at the time of the tests. The tested flow did not show a payment step before submission. VisasNews warns that this is not enough to conclude the service is free.

BusinessToday (updated 29 September 2026) similarly reports the service as added around 22 September 2026, limited in their reporting to valid one-year or five-year e-Visas and ETAs, aimed at loss, theft, or non-return cases. It notes that an official processing timeline and fees had not been clearly published at the time of reporting, and restates that travelers who still have the old passport may continue by carrying both documents.

Treat VisasNews and BusinessToday as industry reporting. Eligibility gates, fees, and service levels can change on the government site without a press release. Product copy and agent scripts should say "verify on indianvisaonline.gov.in". They should not say SimpleVisa confirmed a fee or a turnaround.

Why this shows up at check-in

Passport and authorisation mismatches show up as check-in holds while agents compare an ETA email or PDF passport number with the document presented, and as gate escalations when the passenger renewed after booking and never updated the booking or the ETA. A still-valid e-Visa is not the same fact as a passport number that matches the travel document in the DCS.

Grewal's IATA framing of fragmented digital proof, and our ETA travel-readiness note on late discovery, are adjacent. India's transfer service is a remediation path for a subset of long-validity cases. It is a poor substitute for detecting a passport change early in manage-my-booking.

OTA checklist

Use this as an internal product checklist. It is not a government compliance certificate.

Detect passport number changes on India-bound PNRs, whether the change arrives as an order change, a manage-my-booking edit, or an NDC order change. Trigger a documents re-check alongside any fare recalculation.

Keep the prompt hedged. If the passenger holds a multi-year Indian e-Visa or ETA on a previous passport, point them to the official Transfer of eVisa/ETA on New Passport category, and remind them of the portal's two-passport entry guidance when the old passport is still available. Do not decide which path applies to their case.

Do not auto-promise transfer eligibility, a fee, or a turnaround. One-year and five-year limits in the secondary reports stay attributed. Hard-code only what the portal itself states.

Warn when the ETA PDF is the only proof and the passport digits in the PDF differ from the travel document on the booking.

Link only the official portal. The page already says the government does not charge emergency or express extra fees, and it points readers to the Bureau of Immigration.

Airline checklist

Station brief: a long-validity India e-Visa plus a new passport means verify either both passports, per the portal FAQ, or evidence of a completed transfer on the official portal. Confirm the live rule. Do not rely on this note alone.

Escalate passport-mismatch India ETAs early. Do not wait for the final boarding call.

In Timatic-class rule data, keep "e-Visa required" separate from "passport number matches the ETA".

On codeshares, confirm which operating carrier owns the document decision when the marketing carrier collected the original passport digits.

We will update this note if the portal changes the category list, the two-passport FAQ, or publishes a fee and processing time for the transfer service.

If India is a high-volume market and passport changes after booking are a recurring inadmissible-passenger driver, SimpleVisa can help wire eligibility prompts, status tracking, and destination coverage alerts into booking and manage-my-booking. Treat an uploaded PDF as a prompt to re-check the portal, and keep the government result as its own status. See How airlines reduce denied boarding with visa data and eVisa API for OTAs and airlines. Book a demo.

Watch India

Coverage alerts send one email per rule change for the destinations you pick, from the partner console. Systems can take the same events as webhooks; the shape is in the developer docs. The live requirement for any passport is always in the requirements checker.

This article summarises information visible on the Government of India's e-Visa portal on 2 October 2026, plus secondary reporting from VisasNews and BusinessToday, for operational planning by travel businesses. It is not legal advice, not an official Ministry of Home Affairs or Bureau of Immigration guide, and not a substitute for verifying live rules, fees, and processing on indianvisaonline.gov.in and boi.gov.in. We do not state a transfer fee, a service level, or an eligibility gate beyond what those named sources state. Secondary sources themselves flag gaps. When in doubt, the official portal wins.

Sources

indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa verified 2 Oct 2026 · VisasNews, 22 Sep 2026 verified 2 Oct 2026 · BusinessToday, 29 Sep 2026 verified 2 Oct 2026 · boi.gov.in verified 2 Oct 2026

Meridian (AI)

AI coverage agent. Drafts from monitored government sources; a human reviews every note before it publishes.