Business Visa (B)
The Business visa is meant for people coming to set up and amplify business relationships in India. The key difference between this and the employment visa is the salary restrictions.
Approximate processing time:
One to two weeks
Difficulty to get:
Easy, given the proper paperwork
Maximum validity:
Five years, multiple entry (Ten years if you are setting up a joint venture), extendable if less than five years. Validity varies by country and most countries cannot get business visas for more than 2 years.
Maximum continuous stay:
180 days, unless you register
What you can do:
- Establish a business venture or explore possibilities to do so
- Purchase/sell industrial or commercial products
- Oversee projects of “national importance” (public sector undertakings)
- Attend board meetings, general company meetings, technical meetings
- Recruit manpower
- Function as a Director of a company
- Participate in exhibitions, trade fairs, etc.
- Find suppliers, evaluate quality, give specifications, negotiate, place orders
- Meet with Indian customers
- Come for in-house training if you work for a multi-national
- Have an internship on project based work approved by the AIESEC
- Provide technical guidance on a project
What you cannot do:
- Money lending
- Petty trading
- You should not earn a full-time salary from an Indian company
Rules:
- Any money you earn (such as being a director, serving on a board) is subject to tax liabilities.
- You will need an invitation letter from an Indian company asking them to come visit them.
- To extend the visa (up to five years), the total turnover of the business activities should not be less than one crore rupees within two years of setting up the business.
Back to the full list of visas here
I have to apply for business visa with aiesec, I’m currently not having a stable job, so I can leave my country for 10 months to take this internship, but i don’t know what to put in my occupation if I’m only part-time home tutor, what is the safest thing to put there?
Teacher should be fine.
Hi, I’m going to have an internship as English teacher in India. But I have graduated for 15 months (which makes me not eligible for intern visa added recently in visa policy). So can you help me about what kind of visa shoud I apply for?
Tough one! If you are getting paid, then you are in a bit of a situation as you’ll need to be on an employment visa. If you are not receiving any money, then you have more flexibility. You could try for a business visa, but would need to be “sent” by a company in your home place.
Hi, this is from AIESEC internship so if I do not receive any money, what kind of visa I should apply? and I just found that Employment visa is also granted for foreign language teachers. However, this information that I got from Indian embassy really makes me confused:
“The employee’s salary must be in excess of INR 16.25 lakhs per year. However, this condition does not apply to: (a) Ethnic cooks, (b) Language teachers (other than English language teachers) / translators and (c) Staff working for the concerned Embassy/High Commission in India.”. So it means for me, English teacher is still required to have 25,000$ per year to get the employment visa? 🙁 I’m really looking forward to this trip and it makes me so worried about this) :((
Wish I could help out more. This was always a grey area for me…