The Short Answer
A Fijian passport holder needs a visa for India, and the visa rule itself has not changed: the e-Visa is still required, the short version still runs 30 days, and it still costs a Fiji national nothing. What has changed is the paperwork either side of it. Since 1 October 2025 every foreign national, including Overseas Citizen of India cardholders, has had to file an e-Arrival Card before landing, and since 1 April 2026 the paper disembarkation card handed out on aircraft is no longer accepted. A separate health self-declaration was added on 25 June 2026. Neither is a visa and neither costs money, but both are checked at immigration. On the visa itself there is no visa-free entry and no visa on arrival: India grants that only to nationals of Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. What Fiji has instead is the cheapest version of the requirement. Fiji is on India's e-Visa eligibility list, at entry 52 of the official roster, so the application can be done online from Nadi or Suva without visiting the High Commission, and the published fee schedule prices it at US$0 for Fiji nationals in every category a visitor is likely to need. If you would rather have a paper visa in the passport, the High Commission in Suva issues the tourist visa gratis as well.
The Indian e-Visa Costs a Fiji National Nothing
India prices the e-Visa by nationality, and the current Country/Territory Wise e-Tourist Visa Fee schedule, dated 8 September 2026, lists Fiji at 00 in all four columns: the 30-day visa in the April-to-June window, the 30-day visa from July to March, the one-year visa and the five-year visa. For the same four documents an Australian pays US$10, US$25, US$40 and US$200, a British passport holder pays US$484 for the five-year version and an American US$160. A Fijian pays nothing for any of them. The separate schedule covering e-Business, e-Medical and e-Medical Attendant visas, dated 15 April 2026, also lists Fiji at 00 across all three, against US$120 and US$80 for most nationalities and US$215 for an Australian business visitor. The only charge in the government's own footnote is a 3% bank transaction fee on applicable fees, and 3% of zero is zero. Fiji sits in a small group of zero-rated countries alongside Argentina, the Cook Islands, Indonesia, Jamaica, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uruguay and Vanuatu. This is why the commercial facilitation sites that dominate the search results for this route deserve a second look. On most routes an agency at least adds convenience on top of a real government fee; here there is no government fee to add to, so the whole amount is the agency's own, for a form you can complete yourself in ten to fifteen minutes. The only place to apply is indianvisaonline.gov.in, and the government states plainly that it makes no provision for emergency or express e-Visa fees, so any site offering to expedite one for money is selling something India does not sell.
What the e-Visa Gives You, and What It Does Not
The e-Tourist Visa comes in three lengths: 30 days with multiple entry, one year (365 days from the date the authorisation is granted) with multiple entry, and five years with multiple entry. On the one-year and five-year versions, total stay in India across a calendar year must not exceed 180 days. The 30-day version cannot be extended or converted once you are in the country. You may hold an e-Tourist Visa a maximum of twice in a calendar year, so a family making three or four trips a year should take the one-year or five-year variant from the start. Apply at least four days before your arrival date, and pay at least four days before travel, or the application will not be processed. Your passport needs six months of validity and two blank pages, and you need a return or onward ticket. Biometrics are captured at immigration when you land. Beyond tourism, the electronic route also covers business, medical, medical attendant, student, transit, family and conference visits, each with its own duration. What it does not cover is employment: the Bureau of Immigration is explicit that an e-Visa is not allowed for employment, NGO activity or journalism, though unpaid voluntary work of up to one month is permitted. It is also unavailable to diplomatic and official passport holders, to laissez-passer holders, and to anyone endorsed on a parent's or spouse's passport, and it does not admit you to Protected, Restricted or Cantonment areas, which need separate permission from the civil authority.
You Can Only Land Where the e-Visa Says You Can
An Indian e-Visa is valid for entry only at designated ports, and arriving anywhere else means being refused entry with a visa that is perfectly valid. The current network, per the Bureau of Immigration's Authorized Immigration Checkposts panel, is 36 international airports, 38 seaports and 12 land immigration check posts. Indian press reported the network at 88 points after the Home Ministry's notification of 10 August 2026; the portal's own lists add up to 86, and the portal is what immigration officers work from, so check the panel rather than a headline. Since there is no direct flight between Fiji and India, most Fijian travellers connect through Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney or Auckland into Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru or Kolkata, all designated. The trap is a domestic-looking onward leg into a smaller Indian airport as your first point of entry. Check the port you actually clear immigration at, not the city you are ultimately going to. Exit is easier: you may leave through a considerably wider list of authorised checkposts, including land and rail posts that are not valid for entry.
The Paper Route at the High Commission in Suva
The regular visa still exists and for some trips it is the only option, because the e-Visa does not cover employment, journalism or NGO work, and because a paper visa can run longer than the electronic one allows. The process is a hybrid: you fill in the Regular Visa Application online at indianvisaonline.gov.in, book an appointment date, print the computer-generated form, and submit it in person at the Mission's consular counter on the fifth floor of the LICI Building on Butt Street in Suva. Applications are accepted between 0930 and 1230, and passports are collected between 1600 and 1630. There is no online payment for regular visas, so bring cash to the counter, or a banker's cheque if you are applying by post. Personal cheques are not accepted. For a tourist visa the mission asks for a passport with more than two blank pages and more than six months of validity, two 2-inch by 2-inch colour photographs on a white background, a return itinerary showing departure from Fiji at least two to three working days after you submit, and a bank statement no older than one month showing a minimum balance of FJ$2,000 per person. Processing is a minimum of two working days, rising to five if you pay by banker's cheque, because the cheque has to clear first. Same-day collection costs an extra F$96 after counter hours, and the consular officer can refuse it if the emergency does not look genuine. One warning about the mission's own page: its e-Tourist Visa section still lists 25 entry airports and three seaports, a decade out of date, directly above a fee table revised in April 2026. Use the Bureau of Immigration panel for entry points and the mission page for fees.
What the Suva Counter Charges Fiji Nationals, Effective 1 April 2026
- Tourist visa up to 1 year: gratis for Fiji nationals (Kiribati, Tonga and Tuvalu nationals pay FJ$230)
- Entry, medical, journalist, research, conference, missionary and mountaineering visas up to 6 months, and the same categories again for 6 months to 1 year: gratis for Fiji nationals
- Tourist, entry, research and missionary visas valid over 1 year to 5 years: FJ$452, against US$0 for the five-year e-Tourist visa online
- Business visa up to 1 year: FJ$274, and over 1 year to 5 years FJ$564, against US$0 for an e-Business visa online
- Student visa for the validity of the course: FJ$185. Intern visa up to 1 year: FJ$185. Film visa up to 1 year: FJ$274
- Employment visa up to 6 months: FJ$274, and over 1 year to 5 years FJ$675. Employment is not available as an e-Visa at all
- Transit visa valid up to 15 days: FJ$52, allowing a single journey, entry within 15 days of issue and a stay of 3 days
- Transferring a valid visa from an old passport to a new one: FJ$19
Two Forms That Are Not Visas, and Are the Easiest Thing to Miss
Both are free, both are separate from your visa, and both are checked on arrival. The first is the e-Arrival Card. Since 1 October 2025 all foreign nationals, including OCI cardholders, have been required to complete it before entry into India. You file it in the 72 hours before you land, at indianvisaonline.gov.in or boi.gov.in or through the official Indian Visa Su-Swagatam app, and the Bureau of Immigration states that it is for arrival information and is not a visa. The paper disembarkation card handed out on aircraft was accepted through a transition period that ended on 1 April 2026, so there is no longer a form you can fill in on the plane instead. The second is newer. India launched an Air Suvidha 2.0 Ebola Disease Surveillance portal on 25 June 2026, and the US Mission in India confirmed in a notice of 6 July 2026 that all international passengers arriving in India are required to submit a health self-declaration covering their travel history over the preceding three weeks, including any visits to Ebola-affected countries. It is submitted at airsuvidha.civilaviation.gov.in within 24 hours of starting your journey to India, and the email acknowledgement has to be shown to immigration on arrival. Because that requirement is tied to an active outbreak, check whether it is still in force close to your travel date rather than assuming it from an article.
If Your Family Came to Fiji as Girmitiya, Answer the OCI Question First
Roughly a third of Fiji's population is of Indian descent, most of it descended from the girmitiya indentured labourers who arrived between 1879 and 1916. An Overseas Citizen of India card removes the visa question permanently, so it is worth resolving before you apply for anything else. The published rules reach a child, a grandchild or a great-grandchild of someone who was an Indian citizen on or after 26 January 1950, or who was eligible to become one on that date, or who belonged to territory that became part of India after 15 August 1947. That is the fourth generation, and given the dates of the Fiji indenture many Indo-Fijian families are now further down the line. India does lift the limit, but country by country, and the Ministry of Home Affairs publishes the full list of who may register beyond the fourth generation: Suriname and Dutch nationals who migrated from Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Malaysia, Reunion Island, Guadeloupe and Martinique, and Indian-origin communities in Sri Lanka, all to the sixth generation, with Mauritius and South Africa to the seventh. Fiji is not on that list. So count the generations in your own family tree first: within four you can apply now, and beyond four, whether Fiji is added is a question for the High Commission in Suva. Two 2026 changes matter if you do apply. The April 2026 overhaul dropped the requirement to have spent six months in India before applying, and an electronic OCI card became available in May 2026. There is also a new fine of US$25 for failing to update your passport details on the OCI portal within three months of a new passport being issued. New OCI registration costs US$275, and cardholders still file the e-Arrival Card before every trip.
Key Takeaway
Fijian passport holders need a visa for India, and it is free. The e-Visa is priced at US$0 for Fiji in the tourist, business, medical and medical-attendant categories, and the High Commission in Suva issues the paper tourist visa gratis, so any amount you are asked to pay online is an agency fee for a service that costs nothing. Apply at indianvisaonline.gov.in at least four days ahead, land only at a designated port, and file both the e-Arrival Card and the Air Suvidha 2.0 health declaration. If your family arrived under indenture, count the generations and ask the Suva High Commission about OCI first. Our India country guide covers the e-Visa categories and stay limits in more detail.
