India's New Digital Visa Tool: How It Streamlines Foreign Expert Invitations

The launch of this digital platform is a part of a series of reforms that the Government of India has instituted under the business visa regime for improving the ease of doing business in India.

According to the release by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, in August 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a circular for resolving certain issues related to employment visa, business visa and e-PLI business. As part of this circular, two activities, which were earlier covered under the employment visa, namely, Foreign nationals coming for the installation and commissioning of equipment as part of a contract of supply of equipment and for which Indian companies pay fees or royalties, are now brought under the business visa regime.

Further, a new sub-category of 'Production Investment Visa' has been created under the Business Visa regime and called the 'B-4 Visa' for enabling foreign subject matter specialists/ engineers/ technical people being engaged by Indian companies under the following categories: installation and commissioning; quality check and essential maintenance; production; IT and ERP Ramp-up; training; supply chain development for empaneling vendors, plant design and bring-up; and senior management and executives to visit India for such production investment activities seamlessly.

Moreover, the existing e-PLI business visa was dispensed with. The Ministry of Home Affairs also made amendments to relevant chapters of the Visa Manual, 2019.

As part of this reform, this Production Investment Visa will be issued as an e-visa and has to be applied for in the online Visa portal. Further, to facilitate the Visa application process for e-B-4 visa, Indian companies shall generate a sponsorship letter digitally. For enabling this facilitation digitally, DPIIT had launched the e-Production Investment Business registration module on the National Single Window System (NSWS) on 29th November, 2025, which can be availed by PLI as well as non-PLI businesses, the press release said.Processes have been streamlined with simpler forms, and the recommendation requirement of the Line Ministry has been done away with. With this module, Indian companies and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) can instantly generate sponsorship letters for inviting foreign professionals for production-related activities under the e-B-4 Visa category on NSWS.

The auto-population of data and automatic authentication through existing databases like MCA, GSTN, etc. have eliminated the requirement of approval of the line ministry. The unique ID of the generated Sponsorship Letter shall be referred to by the foreign professional when he applies for a Visa on the e-Visa portal, where the module has been integrated with NSWS through API, the ministry said.

- ANI