Nepal and Bhutan: India amends travel-document exemptions

The Centre has amended the travel-document exemptions for journeys between India, Nepal and Bhutan, making identity documents specified in its Visa Manual an express condition and setting out exceptions for third-country travel. The Ministry of Home Affairs’ order S.O. 6027(E), dated 4 November 2026, took effect on publication in the Gazette of India on 5 November 2026.

The Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) (Amendment) Order, 2026 covers Indian citizens travelling to or from Nepal or Bhutan by land or air, and citizens of Nepal or Bhutan entering or leaving India by those modes. Under the ministry’s revised provisions, travellers covered by these exemptions must produce one of the documents specified in the Visa Manual to establish their identity before an immigration officer.

The order also requires them to provide any other information the officer requires. It does not reproduce the list of acceptable identity documents, instead incorporating that requirement through the manual.

Issued under Section 33 of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, the amendment revises the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025. An exemption removes a specified legal requirement for the people and circumstances it covers; here, the underlying order concerns passport, travel-document and visa requirements under Section 3 of the Act and associated rules.

Indian citizens: direct journeys and third-country travel

The ministry’s substituted clause expressly covers an Indian citizen entering India from Nepal or Bhutan, or departing India for either country, by land or air. The exemption remains subject to the identity-document and information requirements.

The amendment draws a separate line for Indians using these borders while travelling to or returning from another country. According to the order, the exemption does not apply to an Indian citizen travelling to or from a country other than Nepal or Bhutan through the India-Nepal or India-Bhutan border by land or air.

In those cases, the ministry requires a valid passport. It also directs that departure from India or entry into India must take place only through a designated immigration post, meaning a crossing authorised for immigration processing.

The wording therefore distinguishes a journey between India and one of its two neighbours from a journey that uses that neighbour as a route to another country. The order attaches the passport and designated-post requirements specifically to the latter category, rather than imposing them on every Indian traveller covered by the bilateral-route exemption.

Nepalese and Bhutanese citizens: passport and visa exceptions

For citizens of Nepal and Bhutan, the ministry’s replacement clause covers entry into and exit from India by land or air, subject to proof of identity through a document listed in the Visa Manual and any information required by the immigration officer.

The clause then sets out exceptions. When travel into or out of India involves a place other than Nepal or Bhutan, the order specifies that a valid passport is required.

A separate provision addresses citizens of Nepal or Bhutan who have embarked from or transited through China, Macau, Hong Kong or Pakistan. In those cases, the ministry requires both a valid passport and a valid visa.

That distinction matters to the scope of the amendment: the order expressly specifies a passport for the general third-country exception, while expressly specifying both a passport and a visa for the four named places. Its wording does not support treating the bilateral-route exemption as covering every itinerary merely because the traveller holds Nepalese or Bhutanese citizenship.

How the wording differs from the 2025 order

The ministry’s original order, S.O. 3997(E), was dated 1 September 2025 and published in the Gazette on 2 September 2025. Its Indian-citizen clause referred to entry into India by land or air over the Nepalese or Bhutanese frontier. The substituted clause now expressly addresses departures from India to Nepal or Bhutan as well.

For Nepalese and Bhutanese citizens, the original clause covered entry over the Nepal or Bhutan border. It also addressed travel to or from other destinations with a valid passport, excluding entry from China, Macau, Hong Kong or Pakistan.

The amended text explicitly addresses embarkation and transit through those four places and states the passport-and-visa requirement. The revised travel clauses also expressly connect identity checks to the Visa Manual.

The ministry has added a definition of that manual to the exemption order: it is the Central Government’s manual incorporating instructions issued from time to time on visas, immigration and connected matters. The Gazette amendment thus identifies where the accepted-document requirements are set out without supplying the document list itself.

India’s exemption is separate from Bhutan’s entry permit

The amendment governs exemptions under India’s immigration framework. Separate guidance published by the Embassy of India in Thimphu distinguishes Bhutan’s visa exemption for Indians from its entry-permit process.

The embassy’s guidance says Indian nationals do not require a visa to visit Bhutan but describes obtaining an entry permit at specified land-border immigration offices or at Paro International Airport. It lists a valid Indian passport with at least six months’ validity or an original Election Commission voter identity card, along with recent passport-size photographs, as travel documents. For children below 18 without a passport, it specifies an original birth certificate.

Those documents appear in the embassy’s Bhutan-entry guidance, not as a list reproduced in the new Indian order. The 5 November amendment leaves the accepted identity-document list for its own exemptions to the Visa Manual; it does not itself identify which cards or certificates satisfy that requirement.