It’s no longer news that India has opened up following the Covid-19 pandemic, and international flights have resumed already.
If you are traveling to India, then the Self Declaration Form on the ‘Air Suvidha’ portal is now one of the prerequisites for international travel to India, to facilitate hassle-free entry.
Note : The Air Suvidha has been discontinued now. You can enter India without this.
My Indian husband and I, filled in the Air Suvidha Form in March 2022, before traveling to India from Colombia.
In this article, I will describe the whole process, the documents required, the issues you might run into, and how things work out in immigration when you enter India. I will also keep on updating the article when I come across new info.
Table of Contents
Since the Covid-19 vaccinations started, different countries have come up with ways to track the health status of travelers to facilitate their entry. For example, to enter Qatar you need to do the Ehteraz registration.
For India, Air Suvidha is a Self Declaration Portal for all international passengers arriving in India from abroad. It is a portal where they can upload some documents for contactless self-declaration to ease their arrival process in India.
Air Suvidha official website
The short answer is yes.
It doesn’t matter whether you are an Indian citizen or OCI holder or NRI or a foreigner visiting India on a tourist visa, you would need to fill in the Air Suvidha form.
The implementation of the Air Suvidha portal intends to provide hassle-free, queue-free, and convenient air travel to all international passengers arriving in India
Although there used to be an Air Suvidha Exemption in the past, it has been discontinued since the Omicron outbreak.
Irrespective of the airport you are landing at, you need to fill in the Air Suvidha form. It is a one-stop solution designed for all international arrivals in India. It is just the website is of Delhi airport.
But whether you are flying to Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai from abroad, you still need to fill in the self-declaration form for India.
Completing the Air Suvidha form is not that complicated at all. You can do it anytime before boarding ideally if you are fully vaccinated. If not, you can do it 3 days before departure to India.
There is only one document that you definitely need for the Air Suvidha Form. It can be either one of the documents below.
Along with this, you can optionally upload the passport bio page.
Head to the Air Suvidha official website, and fill in the mandatory details.
If you are taking connecting flights with a shared PNR code, then the country of departure should be the one which you take the first flight from.
In our case, we flew from Colombia to India, with stopovers in Brazil and Qatar, with the same PNR. So the country of departure was Colombia, while the flight number that arrived in India was the one we flew on from Qatar to India.
In the same way, for us, Bogota in Colombia was the city of departure.
If you are taking a direct flight, then the city and country would be from where you are flying.
If you are taking any domestic flights after landing in India, you need to provide the domestic flight number as well.
The final destination should be where you would be staying at.
So for example, if the first airport in India that you would be landing at is Delhi but from Delhi, you would be taking a domestic flight to Patna, where you live, then your final destination is Patna.
So the address should be for Patna only in that case.
In our case, we landed in Bangalore which was our final destination, so we provided the address details for Bangalore.
You also need to provide a working phone number.
After this, you need to provide your health status by choosing Yes/No for the following.
Since we didn’t have any of them, we simply provided No for all of them.
Then, you can provide the countries you have been to in the last 14 days.
We provided Qatar and Colombia.
Once you fill in the forms, you can upload the documents like passport and vaccination proof and RT-PCR test in PDF format. The maximum upload size is 1MB.
Once you click on submit, you should see a confirmation screen with a reference number.
At the same time, you will also receive an email with a PDF of your application.
You can do the Air Suvidha status check by visiting Track Application Status, from the Air Suvidha dropdown on the top right corner.
After this, you would need to provide the application request number, your passport number, and your date of birth.
Usually, the status would be that your application has been received.
While many countries still need the mandatory RT-PCR conducted 72 hours prior to the scheduled departure, for entering India it is no longer required if the travelers can show their full Vaccination Certificate.
The vaccination certificate must be for one of the approved vaccines.
However, this applies to people from 87 countries, including Canada, Australia, the USA, & the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and many others. You can check the entire list here.
Since we were fully vaccinated, there was no reason for us to upload the RT-PCR test results on the Air Suvidha portal. However, this was a required field and we were not able to complete the form without uploading the PCR test results.
Now, in our case, we had to do the RT-PCR test as we needed to pass through Brazil and then Qatar. So we simply uploaded the same test.
If you face a similar situation, try to clear the cache and cookies from the browser and resubmit the form again. Or try doing it on a different browser. You’ll most likely be able to submit the form without the RT-PCR test.
If that doesn’t work, here is what you can do.
This is approved by the Air Suvidha Delhi Airport authorities, and we have known people personally who have done it.
In case you believe that you have made a mistake while filling out Air Suvidha Form, you can always go and edit the form.
To do this, navigate to Air Suvidha > Edit Self Declaration Form on the top right corner of Air Suvidha Portal.
You would need to provide the following details and click on the Submit button.
We were asked to demonstrate the Air Suvidha form (that we received in the email) by the airlines before boarding the flights in Colombia and Qatar. So there is a big chance that they will ask you the same.
We landed at Bangalore airport and were asked to queue up at a health-check counter right before the immigration. There are no separate queues for Indians and foreigners at the health check counter.
There we had to produce the Air Suvidha Form, which we simply showed from the phone. You can carry the Air Suvidha Form printout as well.
We also had to show the Covid vaccination certificates. We took the vaccines in India so they verified it real fast. In case, you took it in any other country, you can show the same.
After all this, they stamped our boarding pass and we proceeded to the immigration.
In case, you aren’t fully vaccinated for Covid or belong to countries (other than the 87 countries mentioned above), then you will have to upload the COVID test on the 8th Day on Air Suvidha.
To do this, you would need to retrieve the application using
Here are a few frequently asked questions when it comes to Air Suvidha.
You can fill in Air Suvidha anytime before boarding ideally if you are fully vaccinated. If not, you can do it 3 days before departure to India.
Yes, parents or legal guardians can complete the Self Declaration Form on the Air Suvidha portal on behalf of any children who are too young to fill one in themselves.
There is no Air Suvidha app. The form filling on the website is enough.
Born in Colombia, Claudia now calls India home. She is keenly interested in the spiritual and cultural aspects of India. She is a certified Spanish teacher and a creative thinker.
Dear Claudia, I really appreciate your hardwork in letting me know how to fill Air Suvidah form. It was really helpful. Thanking you once again.
June 20th 2022.
Hello Claudia, Appreciate your time and willingness to share your experience with the Air Suvidha form process. This is very helpful. My mother is travelling in June which helps with the process. Cheers,
Jeff
Thank you so much Claudia. It was very informative and helpful. You have spent a lot of time which is helping everyone. Thanks again. We are leaving on August 31st. We have taken all vaccinations. Can I fill it now
Radha
Do you know if we have already entered India with all the information, and come into Thailand, going back do we need to re do tests and the form again?
Thank you
Hi Lisa,
I believe you would need to do it again. No need for test if you are fully vaccinated and it is recognized in India.
Thank you for your helpful article. Please can I ask about the section that asks for a final destination pincode? What is this & where do I find it?
Thank you,
Cathy
Hi Cathy,
The final destination pinched would be for the address where you would be staying after arriving in India. Could a residence or hotel address.
Thank you, Claudia, for helping so many needy travelers’ life easy.
Appreciate your efforts and time taken to write this article.
Keep up the good work.
God bless you.
