After you arrive in India: FRRO registration, who actually has to report you, and the land-border question

Checked 12 September 2026. Corrected and re-checked 13 September 2026 — two dated corrections are marked in sections 1 and 2, one of which withdraws a sentence we could not support once we read the underlying law. Every fact below carries the government page we read it on. Rules change — check the link before you act on anything here.

The short version

• A short medical visit almost never requires you to personally register with the FRRO. Registration is only required if your visa is valid for more than 180 days. Most medical visas are shorter than that.
• The hospital has its own, separate legal duty to report you — within 24 hours of your arrival, by law, whether or not you ever have to register yourself.
• The e-Arrival Card is a different thing again — submitted before you travel, online.
• If you plan to cross by land, read section 4. The government's own e-Visa page contradicts itself about whether that is allowed on an e-Visa.

1. Do you have to register with the FRRO yourself? For most medical visits, no.

This is the Bureau of Immigration's own published rule, part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, read 12 September 2026:

"Foreign nationals entering India on a Student, Employment, Medical or Work visa (E3) for missionary purpose where visa is valid for more than 180 days, should register with jurisdictional FRO/FRROs, within 14 days of arrival to India."

"Foreign nationals entering India on any type of visa (except on Official/Diplomatic passport) will be required to register, if their aggregate stay in a calendar year or continuous stay on each visit exceeds 180 days..."

— Bureau of Immigration, Registration Requirements, updated 13 August 2026 (source, read 12 September 2026)

Read plainly: the trigger is 180 days. If your medical visa is valid for less than that, or you are not planning to stay that long, this rule does not require you to personally register with an FRRO or FRO. If your treatment runs long and you do cross 180 days, you must register within 14 days of arrival — the same page states non-compliance "shall result in legal consequences or monetary penalty or both."

This is a separate matter from the FRRO permission you need if you change which hospital treats you — that rule applies regardless of how long your visa is valid, and we cover it in the visa process page and again below in section 3.

Added 13 September 2026: the Bureau of Immigration does say this about medical visas specifically, and we had not found it. Our first version of this page said we found no rule naming medical visas. There is one. It is on the Bureau's Terms and Conditions of your Visa page, and it only appears after you select "Medical Visa (M)" from a dropdown — which is why it is so rarely quoted:

"Foreign nationals (other than Pakistan nationals) holding M-1 Visa for a period exceeding 180 days will be required to get themselves registered with the FRRO/ FRO concerned within 14 days of arrival in India. If the M-1 Visa is valid for a period of 180 days or less, no registration would be required."

— source, select "Medical Visa (M)", read 13 September 2026

The same page states the same rule for M-2 (attendant), M-3 and M-4. It confirms rather than changes what this section already said, and it says it in the clearest words we have found anywhere: below 180 days, no registration. The Bureau states it a third time on its Medical Treatment in India page: "Foreigners (other than Pak nationals) whose Medical/Medical Attendant visas are valid for more than 180 days should register themselves within 14 days of their arrival in India" (source, read 13 September 2026).

What none of them addresses is somebody whose visa only crosses 180 days because it was extended after arrival. The deadline in every version runs from arrival, not from the extension. We have no source for that case. Ask the FRRO in writing and keep the answer.

If your case is unusual, confirm with the FRRO directly rather than relying on this page alone. Our after-you-arrive tool asks how long your visa is valid for and returns the registration sentences that apply to that answer, each with its source and the date we read it.

2. The hospital has its own duty to report you — you may not need to do anything

This is the fact most guides for this route do not mention, and it directly answers "does the hospital tell the government I'm there?" Yes, by law, and the deadline is short. The Bureau of Immigration's own page, read 12 September 2026:

"Every hospital, nursing home or any other medical institution providing medical, lodging or sleeping facility in their premises shall require every foreigner... to furnish the necessary particulars for recording, and sign, on his arrival at such hospital, nursing home or any other medical institution... which shall be maintained by the hospital, nursing home or any other medical institution electronically for a period of one year."

"The person in charge of hospital, nursing home or any other medical institution shall, as soon as may be but not beyond twenty-four hours, after the arrival of a foreigner, transmit a copy of duly filled in Form III... electronically to the Registration Officer."

— Bureau of Immigration, Obligation of Hotels, Hospitals & Educational Institutes (source, read 12 September 2026)

The records the hospital keeps are open to inspection by a Registration Officer, a District Magistrate, or a police officer.

Correction added 13 September 2026, and it is an odd one. Read what is being withdrawn: the deadline, not the duty. This page originally said "the hospital must record your date of departure and the address you are going to, and report that within 24 hours too." The recording duty and the reporting duty are both real and both still stand — the law requires the hospital to take your date and time of departure and your onward address, and to transmit those departure details. It is the "within 24 hours" that the text does not support, because a word is missing from it. The rule on the Bureau of Immigration's page is rule 18 of the Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 (G.S.R. 596(E), a Ministry of Home Affairs notification of 1 September 2025, made under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025). Rule 18(6), as published in the Gazette, reads:

"The departure details shall also be transmitted as soon as may be but beyond twenty-four hours, after departure of the foreigner…"

The word "not" is missing. Compare rule 17(6), the identical provision for hotels and other accommodation, in the same document:

"The departure details shall also be transmitted as soon as may be but not beyond twenty-four hours, after departure of the foreigner…"

— both from the Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025, read 13 September 2026. The Bureau of Immigration's web page reproduces the hospital version exactly as gazetted, missing "not" and all (source, read 13 September 2026).

It looks like a drafting slip. We are not going to declare it one. What we will do is quote it exactly and stop asserting a 24-hour departure deadline that the text as published does not support. To be clear about what survives: rule 18(1) still requires the hospital to take your departure date, time and onward address, and 18(6) still requires those details to be transmitted. Only the timing wording is broken. The arrival duty — rule 18(5), quoted above — does say "not beyond twenty-four hours", and that one is unambiguous. This is a duty on the hospital either way, not on you.

This is a legal duty on the hospital, not on you. It is worth knowing for a practical reason: if a hospital, agent, or facilitator tells you that you personally must go and register somewhere as a routine step of a short medical visit, that is not what this rule says. Ask them which rule they mean, and whether it is the 180-day FRRO rule (section 1) or something else.

If you are staying in a hotel or other accommodation before or after treatment, the same page states an identical 24-hour reporting duty on "the keeper of the accommodation" — hotels, guest houses, and similar premises. This is the requirement sometimes referred to as a "C-Form"; the government's current published rule describes it as an electronic "Form III" submission made by the keeper of the accommodation, not by you.

3. Minor treatment vs. inpatient treatment: a rule that decides whether you need a medical visa at all

A separate Bureau of Immigration page answers a question worth checking before you apply for anything:

"Any foreigner (including Pakistani national) suffering from any minor medical condition which needs only OPD consultation can take treatment at any hospital on his/her primary Visa."

"Other Foreign Nationals shall apply for visa conversion to Medical visa if: the medical treatment exceeds the stay stipulation of their primary visa; and/or the treatment of the disease requires an organ transplant."

— Bureau of Immigration, Medical Exigency (source, read 12 September 2026)

Read plainly: outpatient (OPD) treatment does not, by this rule, require a medical visa at all — treatment on whatever visa you already hold is described as sufficient. It is admission as an inpatient beyond your visa's permitted stay, or an organ transplant, that this page says requires converting to a medical visa. This is a Bureau of Immigration rule about visa conversion inside India; it does not replace the IVAC medical-visa application process described on our process page for patients applying from Bangladesh before travel. If your situation is borderline, this is a question worth putting to the FRRO or the hospital in writing before you travel, not after.

The designated-hospital rule we have covered elsewhere still applies once you are on a medical visa: IVAC states that changing hospital after arrival "requires FRRO permission in India," and doing so without permission "amounts to visa rules violation and may lead to restrictions on travel to India in future" (source, read 12 September 2026).

4. The e-Arrival Card, and a real contradiction about entering by land

The e-Arrival Card is separate from all of the above. IVAC's notice, effective 1 October 2025, states that foreign nationals may submit a Disembarkation Card (e-Arrival Card) online before arrival, through https://boi.gov.in, https://indianvisaonline.gov.in, or the "Indian Visa Su-Swagatam" mobile app, within 72 hours before arrival (source, read 12 September 2026). It is about declaring your arrival information, not about your visa.

Now the contradiction, and it matters if you plan to cross by land rather than fly. Many Bangladeshi patients travel to Kolkata by road or rail through land border points — the government's own e-Visa portal names Haridaspur, Ghojadanga and Gede among the Bangladesh-facing crossings on its official list of authorised entry points (source, "Authorized Immigration Checkposts" — Landport / Land ICPs section, read 12 September 2026). Those exact names are what people are searching for.

But the same government page, in its own FAQ, states the opposite about entry by land on an e-Visa:

Q23. Can I enter India using Land border even if I am having valid e-visa for any other airport or seaport which is not listed for the e-Visa? Ans. No, You can only enter through the designated airports/seaports which are listed on the e-Visa website.

Both of these are on the same government page, read the same day. We are not going to pick which one is right for you. What we can tell you: if you hold an e-Medical Visa or e-Medical Attendant Visa (section 2 of the attendant visa page) and plan to cross by land, this contradiction is unresolved on the government's own site, and you should confirm your specific crossing point in writing with the mission before you rely on it. The IVAC paper visa route, which our main process page covers, does not carry this ambiguity — it does not restrict entry to named airports and seaports the way the e-Visa FAQ claims to.

5. What we still could not find, and are not going to guess at

• Whether the 180-day FRRO threshold has ever been applied differently to medical visas specifically. We found no such exception stated; the general rule appears to apply as written.
• Which of the two contradictory e-Visa land-border statements is authoritative. We read both on the same official page and are publishing both rather than guessing.
• A named FRRO office, address, or direct phone line for a specific city. `indianfrro.gov.in/frro/` and the linked eFRRO portal did not render usable content to us; we could not verify individual office contact details and are not publishing any we have not confirmed.
• What happens if your visa expires before treatment finishes, and what the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 says about overstaying. That is a separate set of rules, and they are now written up on When treatment outlasts your visa.
• Any hospital name, treatment price, waiting time or outcome. We have verified none, so we publish none.

6. The rest of this series

• Indian medical visa from Bangladesh: the process — the four steps, the categories, what it costs, why appointments are the real constraint.
• Indian medical visa requirements from Bangladesh — the two official document lists, and the three ways they disagree about money.
• How many people can travel with a patient — the attendant routes, and the numbers each one publishes.
• When treatment outlasts your visa — the Bureau of Immigration's one-paragraph extension rule, the blank certificate a treating hospital fills in, and the numbers it does not publish.
• Changing hospital on a medical visa — both offices say FRRO permission is required; neither publishes a form, a document list, a fee or a deadline for asking.
• Indian medical visa fraud from Bangladesh — what the High Commission itself says about agents, fees and appointment slots.
• Questions to ask before you pay a medical travel agent — the questions, and what a real answer looks like.

About this page

Infirmy is a marketplace. Hospitals and medical facilitators list for free and pay only per qualified lead they receive — no commission on treatment. Today it has none listed. This page names no hospital, quotes no treatment price and gives no medical advice. We are not a visa agent and we do not sell visas or appointments. If something here turns out to be wrong, we will correct it here and record when we did.

This is general information about process and paperwork, not medical advice. Infirmy does not diagnose, recommend a treatment, or tell anyone what care to seek.