On this page First: which “eVISA” you actually get · The documents, by why you are going · What it costs, and who never asks you for money · How long it takes · The five-year visa most people never hear about · At the airport
Step 1 of 6
First: which “eVISA” you actually get
🔴 Japan uses the word “eVISA” for two different things, and getting them confused is the most common way an application from India goes wrong. There is an online application portal at evisa.mofa.go.jp — and you cannot use it. It is open only to people legally resident in Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, the United Kingdom or the United States, and India is not on that list. What India got, from 1 April 2024, is the other meaning: you submit your application in person exactly as before, and what you receive back is an electronic visa rather than a sticker in your passport. So when the Embassy says eVISA has started in India, and the portal says you are not eligible, both are correct. Aggregators routinely send Indian readers to the portal.
Applications from India go through the Japan Visa Application Centres run by VFS Global, and you do not need a prior appointment. The Embassy itself accepts applications only for diplomatic and official visas, and for cases needing special attention on humanitarian grounds — so turning up at the Embassy with a tourist application is a wasted trip. Applications are accepted from three months before your travel date, and the Embassy's own advice is to plan well in advance.
You must apply at the Japanese Embassy or Consulate-General closest to where you live; you cannot pick a mission because its queue looks shorter. And a request for a multiple-entry visa is not a guarantee of one — the mission may issue a single-entry visa instead after examining your application.
Source: the Embassy of Japan
Step 2 of 6
The documents, by why you are going
Everyone brings these
- A valid passport — machine-readable or electronic to the ICAO standard if you are applying for multiple entry
- One visa application form, with the photograph attached
- One photograph to the 45 by 45 mm specification above
- A flight itinerary giving the flight or ship number and the dates you arrive in and leave Japan
- Evidence that you can pay for the trip — an income certificate or tax return issued by a public agency, or a bank statement or balance certificate. No minimum amount is published
- A day-by-day itinerary in Japan, on the Ministry's own form where you prefer to use it
45 by 45 millimetres, which is square and is NOT the size Japan asks for everywhere else — several other Japanese missions publish 45 by 35, so a photo cut to a size you found on a general Japan page can be the wrong shape. It must be in colour on a plain white background, taken within the last six months, clear and front-facing, with no hat and no edges or borders. Dark or patterned backgrounds are refused.
🔴 Two rules that quietly decide applications. Every supporting document must have been issued within the last three months and must still be valid on the day you submit — a bank statement or income certificate you gathered for an earlier trip will not do. And apart from your passport, nothing you hand in comes back: submitted documents are not returned, so keep your own copies of anything you might need again.
Build these files with the checklist above
Source: the Embassy of Japan
Step 3 of 6
What it costs, and who never asks you for money
For Indian nationals the visa fee is INR 500, whether single or multiple entry — unusually low, and it is not a mistake. Nationals of other countries applying from India pay INR 8,650 for a single entry and INR 17,350 for a double or multiple. These rates apply from 1 July 2026. The transit visa has been abolished. VFS charges its own service fee on top of the visa fee, and that is the only other legitimate charge.
The Embassy puts this above everything else on its visa page, so it belongs high here too. The only money you ever pay is the visa fee and the service charge published on the official page. The Embassy will never telephone or email you asking for a payment to verify your documents or to speed up your application. If someone contacts you that way, do not respond — the Embassy suggests reporting it to the police, and would like to be told as well.
Source: the Embassy of Japan
Step 4 of 6
How long it takes
Roughly a week once everything required is in, and the Embassy is blunt about the rest: processing cannot be expedited or reordered to suit your travel dates, additional documents may be asked for case by case, and it can take longer if the mission needs to consult the Ministry in Tokyo. The Embassy also does not answer enquiries about the status of an application, the documents, or the reason for a refusal — so there is no one to chase, and planning early is the only lever you have.
Source: the Embassy of Japan
Step 5 of 6
The five-year visa most people never hear about
🔴 If you have any travel history at all, read this before applying for a single-entry visa. India has its own multiple-entry route: a temporary visitor visa valid for five years, allowing stays of up to 90 days at a time, for tourism, business or visiting relatives and friends. You qualify on any one of five grounds — you have visited Japan twice or more in the last three years; you have visited Japan once in the last three years and can show you can pay for the trip; you have visited Japan and also a G7 country in the last three years; you have sufficient financial capacity, which needs no travel history at all; or you are the spouse or child of someone who qualifies on that last ground. The evidence is mostly your old passports showing the Japanese visas and entry stamps, plus an income tax return or a deposit balance certificate where funds are the ground you are relying on.
There is a separate multiple-entry track for business travellers and for cultural or intellectual figures, and it goes further: stays of 15, 30 or 90 days on a visa valid for 1, 3, 5 or even 10 years. It is aimed at regular employees of listed companies, public enterprises, Japanese-affiliated firms and companies with steady Japanese business, and at artists, humanities specialists and scholars — with spouses and children included. The first visit must be for business, but from the second you may use it as a tourist or to visit family.
For any multiple-entry application your passport must be a machine-readable or electronic passport meeting the ICAO standard. Ordinary Indian passports have met this for years, but an older handwritten booklet will not qualify.
Source: the Embassy of Japan
Step 6 of 6
At the airport
🔴 This is the trap most likely to actually stop you boarding, and it catches careful people because the careful instinct is wrong. Your visa arrives as a “visa issuance notice”, and at check-in you must display it on a mobile device — a phone or tablet, with working internet at the airport. A printed copy will NOT be accepted. Neither will a PDF, a photo of the screen, or a screenshot. There is no sticker in your passport to fall back on, so charge the phone and check you can actually open the notice before you leave for the airport.
A Japanese visa is one of the requirements for entry, not entry itself. Permission to land is granted by an immigration officer at the port when you arrive, and the status of residence written on that landing permission is what actually governs what you may do in Japan. It is worth knowing the distinction: people often say “visa” when they mean status of residence, and the two are handled by different authorities.
Source: the Embassy of Japan
Each section names its source underneath it. Where a line came from the agent channel rather than the authority, or from a single filing, it says so on that line — those are not the same kind of fact and this page does not blur them.
Frequently asked questions
Japan visa from India — what documents are needed?
It depends on why you are going, and Japan publishes the list. Every applicant provides a valid passport, one application form, one 45 by 45 mm photograph, a flight itinerary showing arrival and departure, and a day-by-day itinerary in Japan. Tourists add evidence they can pay for the trip — an income certificate, tax return, bank statement or balance certificate, with no minimum published anywhere. Visiting relatives or friends adds proof of the relationship and usually an invitation letter; business adds a letter from your employer and a certificate of employment. Two rules apply to all of it: documents must have been issued within the last three months, and nothing except your passport is returned.
Japan visa — where do I apply?
In person, through a Japan Visa Application Centre run by VFS Global, with no prior appointment needed, at the mission closest to where you live. You cannot apply online: Japan's online eVISA portal is open only to residents of nine countries and India is not one of them. India's eVISA means something different — you submit as usual and receive the visa electronically instead of as a sticker. Applications are accepted from three months before travel, and the fee for Indian nationals is INR 500 plus the VFS service charge.
Can I print my visa documents from here?
Yes — print any document individually, print the whole set as one PDF, or print a blank checklist to tick off. One warning specific to Japan: print your supporting documents, but do NOT rely on a printout of the visa itself. The visa issuance notice has to be shown on a phone or tablet at check-in, and a printed copy is explicitly not accepted.
Are my documents uploaded anywhere?
No. The checks, the merged PDF, the ZIP and printing all happen in your browser. Your passport and bank statements are never sent to any server.
A PDF was skipped when building.
Password-protected PDFs (like some bank statements) are no longer skipped — the pack asks for the password while it builds. A file is only skipped if the password was not given.