Indian medical visa extension for Bangladeshi patients: what happens when treatment outlasts your visa

Last checked: 13 September 2026. Every fact on this page was read that day, directly from the Indian government page or Gazette document named next to it. Nothing here is copied from another guide. Open the links and check us.

This page is about a situation nobody plans for: the treatment is not finished, and the date in the passport is coming closer. Rules change. If you are reading this long after 13 September 2026, treat the date above as the warning it is meant to be.

1. Read this first: what we could NOT verify

We are putting this at the top, not the bottom, because a guide that hides its gaps at the bottom is the kind of guide that gets people into trouble.

• We cannot tell you what a visa extension costs. The Bureau of Immigration tells you to apply on `indianfrro.gov.in`. That site is an application you have to log into; it showed us no content at all without a login, and no fee list is published on any page we could read. If anyone quotes you a figure, ask which government page it is printed on.
• We cannot tell you how long it takes. No processing time is published anywhere we could find.
• We cannot tell you the document list. One extension-related form is published outside the login, and it is worth reading — section 3. We could not confirm that it is compulsory, or that it is the only thing needed. The form points to a paragraph ("Para 11.3") of a larger manual that we could not find published anywhere. So treat it as the one document the government shows you, not as the complete list.
• We cannot tell you the maximum length of an extension, or whether an extension is granted as a matter of right. The government's own wording is that you "should apply". It does not say you will be granted.
• We could not trace one number the government itself publishes. The Bureau of Immigration's Penalties page states penalties "ranging from 10000 to 3 lakhs". We read the Act it cites, and the Rules made under it, and neither contains a figure of 10,000. See section 6 — we report the gap, we do not resolve it.
• Any hospital name, treatment price, waiting time, success rate or doctor. We have verified none, so we publish none. We give no medical advice.

A note about dates on the source. Unlike the visa documents covered on our requirements page, the Bureau of Immigration's content pages carry no date of their own. The site shows a sidebar headed "Lastest Updates" (spelling as it appears) with three dated items, identical on every page we opened; none of those items is the extension page. The Act and the Rules, being Gazette documents, do carry dates, and we give them in section 6.

2. The rule, in the government's own words

This is the whole published rule. It is four sentences, it sits three menus deep on the Bureau of Immigration's site, and it is the most important thing on this page:

"Foreign Nationals who are unable to leave/ exit India within the validity of their visa due to justifiable reasons, should apply for the appropriate visa service on https://indianfrro.gov.in.

Such visa services are available only to foreign nationals who are present in India.

This request/ application should be made within the validity of their current visa, allowing reasonable time for processing.

If the extension/ conversion of the visa/ permission to continue their stay is not granted within the validity of their current visa, they must depart from India. Failure to depart will be considered a willful illegal overstay and will be treated in accordance with the law."

— Bureau of Immigration, Extending stay on your Visa (source), read 13 September 2026. The identical text also appears at Visa Extension or Visa Conversion.

Three things in that paragraph are worth reading twice, because they are the opposite of what people assume.

One: applying is not the same as being allowed to stay. The sentence says that if the extension is not granted before your current visa expires, you must leave — even though you applied in time. Having a pending application is not, on this wording, permission to remain.

Two: "allowing reasonable time for processing" is the government's phrase, and it does not define itself. Since no processing time is published (section 1), nobody can tell you from a published source how early "reasonable" is. Applying on the last day is plainly not it.

Three: you can only do this from inside India. "Such visa services are available only to foreign nationals who are present in India." If you have already left, this route is closed; you would be making a fresh application from Bangladesh through the process on our visa process page.

When does your visa actually run out? There are two different dates

The Bureau of Immigration's own FAQ separates two things that people routinely treat as one:

"Visa validity or Visa expiry date refers to the validity period during which the foreigner can stay in India on the strength of Visa subject to stay stipulations.

Stay stipulations are the rules which determine the number of days a foreigner may be permitted to stay in India on the strength of Visa. Stay stipulations are of two kinds 1) Continuous stay in India from the date of last arrival. 2) Total Aggregate stay in India during the calendar year."

— Bureau of Immigration, FAQ (source), read 13 September 2026

So a visa can still be "valid" while your permitted continuous stay has run out. Both are printed on your visa. Read the stay stipulation on the actual sticker or e-visa, not only the expiry date — and if an agent, a relative or somebody at the hospital tells you "your visa is valid until March, you are fine", that answer is incomplete unless they have read the stay stipulation too.

3. The one extension document the government does publish — and a hospital fills it in, not you

This is the part no facilitator page we are aware of mentions, and it is downloadable by anyone.

On its Downloads page, the Bureau of Immigration publishes a set of blank certificate formats. Nothing on that page says which of them is compulsory, and we are not going to say it for them.

Two of those formats are medical. One is headed "Medical Certificate format for Visa service"; the other, "Medical Certificate format for registration service" (source, read 13 September 2026).

The first one is the extension form. Opened, it is a single page headed "Appendix XIV (Para 11.3)", numbered page 406 — it is an appendix lifted out of a larger official manual. We could not find that manual, or paragraph 11.3, published anywhere, so we cannot tell you what rule the form sits under.

It is addressed "To FRRO/ FRO (Address)". This is its text, exactly as printed, with the government's own blanks left in:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

This is to certify that …… (patient's name), ……… (age/ sex), ………. (Nationality), holding passport number ……… is admitted in Bed No. …….. under my care for medical treatment at ………. (name of the hospital and place). He is accompanied by ……….. (name of the companion/ attendant).

They need to stay in …… (place) for another …….. (duration) to complete their medical treatment. So kindly extend their visas for …….. (duration).

This letter is issued for visa purpose only.

— Bureau of Immigration, Medical Certificate format for Visa service, read 13 September 2026

Below that text the form carries a table with a column for the patient and a column for the attendant, side by side:

The signature block at the foot reads "(Name of the Doctor) / Sr. Consultant Department ……….. / (Name of Hospital and Place)", followed by blanks for a telephone number, a fax number and an email address.

What the form shows you, before you ever open the portal. These are observations about a blank form, not a checklist we are promising will be accepted:

• It is written by the hospital, not by you. The signature block is a named senior consultant, on behalf of a named hospital, and it asks for a bed number. Whatever else an extension needs, this part is not something you can produce yourself.
• It has a blank for a duration. Somebody has to decide "for another how long" and put it in writing.
• It has columns for the patient and the attendant side by side. If the person who travelled with you also needs more time, there is a place for their visa details on the same sheet.
• It asks for the attendant's visa number, type, validity, date and place of issue. Photograph both passports and both visa pages now, while nothing is urgent, so nobody is hunting for them under pressure.

The second format, "Appendix XV" (page 407), is the same letter with the request changed to "Kindly do their registration formalities" and an extra line, "Details of the disease ……………". That one is for FRRO registration, which is a different thing — see our arrival page — not for an extension.

We are describing a government form. We are not telling you what to write in it, and we are not saying any particular hospital will or will not sign one.

4. Extension is not the only route. "Conversion" is a different one

If you are in India on some other visa — a tourist visa, for example — and the treatment is what has overrun, the Bureau of Immigration's Medical Exigency page addresses that case separately. It states that OPD-only treatment can be taken on your existing visa, and that other foreign nationals must apply for conversion to a 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".

We quote that rule in full, with its source, on our arrival page, so we will not repeat it here. The point for this page is that "extension" and "conversion" are two different services, both applied for in the same place, and the government's extension paragraph (section 2) names both — "If the extension/ conversion of the visa…".

Also note what the Bureau of Immigration says about changing hospital, which is a live question if treatment is being extended and a referral is involved:

"Change of hospital/Place of treatment (endorsed on initial visa) shall be permitted only on case-to-case basis, subject to production of documentary proof justifying such change."

— Bureau of Immigration, Medical Treatment in India (source), read 13 September 2026

5. Where the application goes, and why we cannot show you the form

Both Bureau of Immigration pages send you to the same address: https://indianfrro.gov.in. On 13 September 2026 that address redirected us to `https://indianfrro.gov.in/efrro/`.

We could not read it, and we are telling you that rather than pretending otherwise. It is a logged-in application, not an information page; it returned no readable content to us at all. So we cannot tell you whether the form in section 3 is one of the documents it asks for. It also returns the same response for addresses that do not exist, so a page there appearing to "load" proves nothing. Everything inside — the document list, the fee, the processing time — is therefore unverified by us. We are not going to describe a form we have not seen.

What we can say is what the government says elsewhere on its own site: this is the only address the Bureau of Immigration names for the service, and the service exists only while you are physically in India.

6. What overstaying actually means under Indian law — and one number we could not trace

The law changed in 2025. Guides written before that are citing a repealed statute. The Bureau of Immigration's own policy page states that the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 repeals four older laws: the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920; the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939; the Foreigners Act, 1946; and the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act, 2000 (source, read 13 September 2026). If a website or an agent explains your position by reference to the Foreigners Act 1946, they are quoting a repealed law.

What the Act itself says

The Act is published in full on the Bureau of Immigration's own site. It is Act No. 13 of 2025; the Gazette front page records that it "received the assent of the President on the 4th April, 2025", printed in The Gazette of India Extraordinary, Part II — Section 1, New Delhi, Friday, April 4, 2025. The provision that covers overstaying is section 23:

"23. Whoever,—

(a) being a foreigner, remains in any area in India for a period exceeding the period for which the visa was issued to him or stays in India without a valid passport or other valid travel document in contravention of provisions of section 3 or does any act in violation of the conditions of the valid visa issued to him for his entry and stay in India or any part thereunder;

(b) contravenes any other provisions of this Act, other than sections 17 and 19, or of any rule or order made thereunder…

shall be punishable with an imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine which may extend to three lakh rupees or with both."

— The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, section 23 (full text PDF), read 13 September 2026

Read it carefully, because the wording is broader than "overstay": it also covers doing "any act in violation of the conditions of the valid visa". The conditions on a medical visa include which hospital treats you — see our process page.

"May extend to" is a maximum, not a tariff. The Act does not state a minimum for this section, and it does not state what a first-time, short, medically caused overstay attracts in practice. We have no source for that, so we are not going to tell you.

The number we could not trace

The Bureau of Immigration's Penalties page summarises the same Act like this:

"As per various sections under Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, foreigners as well as Indian stake holders like carriers, hoteliers, educational institutions or hospitals where foreigner associate with, are liable for legal action, penalties ranging from 10000 to 3 lakhs for each offence, as well as imprisonment, if found violating any of the provisions of said act."

— Bureau of Immigration, Penalties (source), read 13 September 2026

We searched the Act for that lower figure and did not find it. The money amounts the Act itself states are fifty thousand rupees, one lakh, two lakh, three lakh, five lakh and ten lakh rupees — there is no 10,000. We then searched the Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 (G.S.R. 596(E), a Ministry of Home Affairs notification dated 1 September 2025, also published on the same site) and did not find it there either.

There is a provision that could explain it and that we cannot check: section 25 of the Act allows certain offences to be "compounded… for such sums as the Central Government may, by notification, specify". We did not find that notification.

So: the Act says up to three lakh rupees. Where the government's own summary page gets 10,000 from, we do not know, and we are not going to invent an explanation. We are showing you both, with both links, exactly as we found them. This is also a reason not to trust any single sentence — including ours — without opening the source behind it.

Two more consequences that are published

"Foreigners who are overstaying in India or who have violated their visa conditions require Exit Permit to depart from India."

— Bureau of Immigration, Exit Permit (source), read 13 September 2026

In other words, if you have overstayed, you cannot simply go to the border or the airport and leave. There is a step in between, applied for on the same e-FRRO site.

And, from the Penalties page: "Violating the Indian visa norms is likely to affect the chances of obtaining entry into India and/ or Indian Visas in the future." For a patient who may need follow-up treatment, that is the consequence that lasts longest.

One more line, from the Bureau of Immigration's FAQ, for anyone whose visa has only just run out:

"In case I reach the Departure Immigration Counter few hours after the expiry of my Visa, will I be allowed to depart from India on that Visa? Ans. It may be considered on case to case basis by the Immigration Authorities."

— Bureau of Immigration, FAQ (source), read 13 September 2026

That is the government declining to promise anything either way. We are not going to improve on it.

7. If the extension pushes your stay past 180 days, registration starts to apply

This is a second obligation, separate from the extension itself, and it is easy to miss because the trigger is a length of stay rather than an event.

The Bureau of Immigration publishes the medical-visa conditions on its Terms and Conditions of your Visa page — you have to choose "Medical Visa (M)" from the dropdown to see them, which is probably why they are so rarely quoted. For M-1 (the patient) it states:

"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."

— Bureau of Immigration, Terms and Conditions of your Visa → Medical Visa (M) (source), read 13 September 2026

The same page states the same 180-day/14-day rule for M-2 (the attendant), M-3 and M-4.

Note what the trigger is: the visa being valid for more than 180 days, and the deadline running from arrival, not from the extension. We cannot tell you how that is applied to someone whose visa only crosses 180 days because it was extended after they arrived — nothing we read addresses that case. If your extension takes you past 180 days, ask the FRRO in writing and keep the answer. The general registration rule, and the hospital's own separate duty to report you within 24 hours, are on our arrival page. Our after-you-arrive tool has a separate answer for a visa that only passes 180 days because it was extended, and what it returns for that answer is the same admission, in the words our arrival page makes it in.

8. Check it yourself — the addresses everything above came from

None of these is Infirmy, and you do not need us to read them.

• Extending stay on your Visa — https://boi.gov.in/boi/contents/visa-oci/already-in-india-have-a-visa/extending-stay-on-your-visa
• The medical certificate format your hospital fills in — https://boi.gov.in/boi/pdf/Medical%20Certificate%20Format-2.pdf, listed on https://boi.gov.in/boi/contents/help-support/downloads
• Penalties — https://boi.gov.in/boi/contents/registration-authority/penalties
• The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, in full — https://boi.gov.in/boi/pdf/Annexure-The_Immigration_and_Foreigners_Act,_2025.pdf
• Exit Permit — https://boi.gov.in/boi/contents/registration-authority/visa-services/exit-permit
• Terms and Conditions of your Visa — https://boi.gov.in/boi/terms-and-conditions-of-your-visa — then select "Medical Visa (M)". The conditions load into the page after you choose; the address they load from returned "not found" to us when we requested it the way a browser does, so use the dropdown.
• e-FRRO, where the application is made — https://indianfrro.gov.in

If anyone tells you a rule that is not on one of these, ask them which page it is on. That question costs nothing and it is the single most useful one on this site. There is a longer list of them on our questions to ask before you pay anyone page, and IVAC's own standing warning about agents is covered on our visa fraud page.

9. 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.
• After you arrive in India — FRRO registration, the hospital's own duty to report you, the e-Arrival Card.
• 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, we are not lawyers, and we do not sell visas, appointments or extensions. Nothing here is legal advice; where your own stay is at risk, the government pages above and the FRRO are the authority, not us. Every fact on this page carries the government document we read it in, and the date we read it. 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.