Titelfoto: Placeholder — wants a photograph of our own arrivals team at work
Most long-haul arrivals into India land late at night or very early in the morning. You have been awake for a long time, the terminal is bright and busy, and the sequence in front of you — immigration, baggage, customs, the walk out into the arrivals hall — is one you will do exactly once and with no chance to practise. Nothing about it is difficult. It is simply a sequence of small procedural steps, each of which has one way of going smoothly and several of going slowly.
This is the hour the brochures skip. It is also, in our experience, the hour that most reliably shapes a guest's first impression of the country — not because anything dramatic happens, but because the difference between a considered arrival and an unconsidered one is roughly ninety minutes of tiredness, and tiredness on the first night is expensive.
Immigration, and the document people leave in the hold
If you are travelling on an e-Visa, your biometric details are captured at immigration on arrival — this is a formal requirement rather than a discretionary check, and it is the reason the e-Visa queue moves at the pace it does. Have your passport open and your hands free.
Carry a printed copy of the Electronic Travel Authorisation. The official guidance is explicit that the traveller should have the ETA with them at the time of travel, and the one place it is no use to you is inside a suitcase on the carousel. The same applies to a detail that catches people out every season: if your e-Visa was issued against a passport you have since renewed, you must be carrying the old passport too. A new passport with a valid visa attached to a document sitting at home is not a position anyone can resolve at the counter.
If you are arriving from a country in the yellow fever belt, the original vaccination certificate needs to be in your hand as well. A photograph of it is not the certificate.
The e-Visa is only valid for entry at designated airports and seaports — a long list covering every airport a leisure traveller is realistically going to use, but worth checking against your actual routing if a domestic connection or a smaller field is involved. The paperwork side of all this is covered properly in our guide to entry requirements, and it is worth reading before you fly rather than in the queue.
Money, and the declaration most people do not know exists
Two rules matter and both are easy to comply with once you know them. Foreign currency notes above the equivalent of US$5,000 must be declared, as must foreign exchange of all kinds — notes, traveller's cheques, the lot — totalling more than the equivalent of US$10,000. Below those thresholds there is nothing to declare and nothing to do.
The second rule surprises people more. Importing Indian currency is prohibited. The single exception is for passengers normally resident in India, who may carry up to ₹25,000 back with them. So the rupees a well-meaning friend pressed on you before departure, or the leftovers from a previous trip, are technically not supposed to travel. Draw rupees after you land instead.
Practically, this means arriving with a modest amount of your own currency and a card that works abroad, and getting rupees from an ATM in the arrivals hall. Do not change money at the first counter you see out of fatigue. And tell your bank you are travelling — a card frozen for suspicious activity at two in the morning in a country eleven hours from home is a genuinely miserable way to start.
The customs channels
Two channels, and the choice is simple. The red channel is for anyone carrying prohibited or restricted goods, goods in commercial quantity, or anything over the duty-free allowance. Everyone else takes the green channel. Most leisure travellers are green-channel travellers and walk straight through.
The things that catch people are not exotic. Drones are restricted and cause real difficulty. Large quantities of a single item — gifts, samples, anything that looks like stock — invite the commercial-quantity question. Satellite phones are a separate and more serious problem. If you are carrying professional camera equipment beyond an ordinary traveller's kit, know what it is and be able to say so.
A working phone
An Indian SIM requires your passport and your visa, and it is sold on that basis — the documents are the point of the transaction, not an afterthought. Counters operate in the arrivals halls of the major international airports, and the mobile operators have outlets in every city.
The part worth planning around is that activation is not instantaneous. There is a verification step between buying the SIM and having a working Indian number, and it does not always complete in the few minutes you are standing at the counter. Assume your first hour runs on terminal wi-fi. If being reachable from the moment you land matters, arrange an international roaming package before you fly and treat the local SIM as the longer-term solution you sort out on day two.
An eSIM, where your handset supports one, removes most of this friction and is worth checking before you leave home.
The drive in
The arrivals hall is where a well-run trip announces itself. A named driver inside the terminal with your name on a board, who takes the luggage trolley and walks you to a car that is already waiting, is worth a disproportionate amount at that hour — and it costs a fraction of the first night's room.
The alternative is the prepaid taxi counter or a ride-hailing app, both of which work, and both of which put a tired traveller into a negotiation in an unfamiliar currency in the middle of the night. Airport touts are a diminishing problem at the big terminals but not an extinct one; the answer is to have somewhere specific to walk to.
Then the drive itself, which is usually the first real look at the country: traffic that behaves by rules you have not learned yet, the horn used as conversation rather than complaint, and — in Delhi in midwinter — the possibility of genuine fog that turns a forty-minute transfer into two hours. Build that possibility into the first evening rather than scheduling something at the far end of it.
What to do with the first evening
Almost nothing. The most common planning error we see is a first morning that starts at six for a sunrise monument, booked by someone who has not yet met the jet lag. A first full day that begins gently, close to the hotel, and builds — rather than one that opens at dawn two hours' drive away — pays for itself across the rest of the trip.
Eat something simple, drink more water than you want to, and let the second day be the ambitious one. India is not going anywhere.
Fragen, beantwortet
What happens at immigration when you arrive in India on an e-Visa?
Your biometric details are captured at immigration on arrival — this is a mandatory step for e-Visa holders. You should be carrying a printed copy of your Electronic Travel Authorisation and the passport the visa was issued against, plus the old passport if the visa was issued on a document you have since renewed.
How much cash can you bring into India?
Foreign currency notes above the equivalent of US$5,000 must be declared on arrival, and so must foreign exchange of all kinds totalling more than the equivalent of US$10,000. Separately, importing Indian rupees is prohibited, other than for residents of India returning with up to ₹25,000.
Can I bring Indian rupees into India?
No, as a general rule. Import of Indian currency is prohibited. The one exception is for passengers normally resident in India, who may carry up to ₹25,000. Visitors should plan to draw rupees from an ATM after landing rather than arrive with them.
Do I take the green channel or the red channel at Indian customs?
Green, unless you are carrying prohibited or restricted goods, goods in commercial quantity, or anything beyond the duty-free allowance — in which case you must use the red channel and declare it. Drones and satellite phones are the two items that most often catch leisure travellers out.
How do I get a SIM card at an Indian airport?
Counters in the arrivals halls of the major international airports sell tourist SIMs against your passport and visa. The one thing to plan for is that activation involves a verification step and is not instant, so do not rely on having a working Indian number in your first hour.
Should I book an airport transfer in India in advance?
For a first arrival, yes. Most long-haul flights land late at night or very early in the morning, and having a named driver waiting inside the terminal removes the one part of the sequence that involves negotiating while exhausted. It is a small cost against the first night's accommodation.
Reisen, die Sie dorthin bringen
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