Indian medical visa from Bangladesh: the process, as of 11 September 2026

Status checked 11 September 2026. Rules change. The link next to each fact is the source we read. Check it before you act.

One warning about other websites, including an official one. The IVAC homepage still shows an advisory from the restricted period saying the centres are offering only "limited appointment slots". That text has not been updated since 2024. It was overtaken by the High Commission's announcement of 25 June 2026 and by the new appointment system of 1 July 2026, both linked below. Do not read the old advisory as today's status.

Medical visas for Bangladeshi citizens were never suspended. The Indian High Commission's own words: "India has been issuing more than 1,500 visas daily across all categories except tourist visas" (source, read 11 September 2026). Section 2 below has the full statement.

1. What other sites will tell you, and what we won't guess at

Search for this topic and you will find pages stating "valid up to 1 year" or a processing time as plain fact, with no source attached. We read the same government and IVAC pages they did. Some numbers are published. Some are not. Here is the difference, checked one at a time:

• Validity, number of entries, permitted length of stay. Not stated on the IVAC pages we read. If a site gives you a number, ask which page it came from.
• Processing time. Not published on those pages either.
• Daily appointment capacity at any centre. IVAC says capacity is "configured" per centre. The number itself is not published.
• Number of medical attendants permitted per patient. The M-2 attendant category exists (section 4). No limit on how many is stated anywhere we read. Corrected 13 September 2026. That was wrong. IVAC's own pages still print no number, but India's Bureau of Immigration does, and it names Bangladesh: "Three medical attendants shall be allowed in case of Bangladesh nationals" (source, read 13 September 2026). See section 4.
• Whether paper arrival cards are still accepted. IVAC's own six-month window for accepting them has passed (section 8); we could not confirm what replaced it.
• Any hospital name, treatment price, waiting time or success rate. We have verified none, so we publish none.

We would rather tell you what we could not find than invent a number that sounds complete. Everything we could verify is below, each fact linked to the government or IVAC page it came from.

2. Medical visas were not suspended — urgent cases continued throughout

After August 2024, Indian visa operations in Bangladesh were reduced. Tourist visas stopped. Medical visas did not.

Note the word the Indian side keeps using: urgent. What the sources below confirm is that medical visas continued for urgent cases, on humanitarian grounds. They do not say every medical application was processed as normal.

The Indian High Commission's own statement, quoted by The Daily Star:

"Despite the security challenges, India continued operating visa centres in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Sylhet and Rajshahi to meet humanitarian needs, particularly for patients seeking medical treatment … India has been issuing more than 1,500 visas daily across all categories except tourist visas."

— Indian High Commission statement, in The Daily Star, 25 June 2026 (source, read 11 September 2026)

On 25 June 2026, the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi, announced that tourist visas would resume from 28 June 2026. In the same announcement he said:

"We will continue to facilitate medical visas in urgent cases on humanitarian considerations."

— Prothom Alo (English), 25 June 2026 (source, read 11 September 2026)

The Daily Star reported the same press conference with the same meaning: "Urgent medical visas will continue to be provided for humanitarian reasons."

Five centres are open: Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong, Sylhet and Khulna. The High Commissioner said operations are expected to expand to other cities gradually (both sources above).

Note on sourcing: we tried to read this announcement on the High Commission's own site, hcidhaka.gov.in, and the server did not respond to us on 11 September 2026. So we are citing two Bangladeshi newspapers of record that reported the same press conference, and quoting the High Commission's written statement as they published it.

3. The real constraint is appointment capacity, not eligibility

This is the honest version, and it is different from what most websites say.

You are not blocked from applying. What is limited is how many people each centre can see per day.

Since 1 July 2026, appointment times across all visa categories are assigned by the system:

"Time-slots shall be allotted automatically by the system in a sequential manner based on the daily configured appointment capacity of each visa application centre."

— IVAC advisory, reported by The Daily Star, 1 July 2026 (source, read 11 September 2026)

The same report states that applicants "will not be required to manually select a time slot during appointment booking", and that they should attend "as per the time slot allotted in their appointment confirmation".

Three things follow, and they matter:

1. You cannot choose your time. The system chooses it.
2. Nobody else can choose it for you. Not an agent, not a middleman. If someone offers to get you a slot for a fee, that claim does not match what IVAC itself publishes — see how to recognise a fake visa offer.
3. The capacity number is not published. IVAC says capacity is "configured" per centre. It does not say what the number is. We have seen slot figures on other websites; none of them traced back to a government source, so we do not repeat them.

4. Which visa category

India's published visa list includes a Medical Visa category, "M", with four sub-categories:

IVAC also publishes this note: "Minor applicants have to be compulsorily accompanied by parent/guardian as medical attendant. In case patient is minor, then parents may apply visa as medical attendant (M2) and any other sibling or minor child who is dependent on M2 visa holder may apply for X-Misc visa."

(source, read 11 September 2026)

We could not find a published limit on how many attendants one patient may bring on this route. The M-2 category exists. The number does not appear on any page we read. If a website or an agent tells you a specific number, ask them where it is written.

Correction added 13 September 2026. The number is published, just not by IVAC. India's Bureau of Immigration — part of the Ministry of Home Affairs — states it on its Medical Treatment in India page, under "Country-Specific Guidelines", and names Bangladesh by name:

"Not more than two persons shall be given Medical Attendant visas in case of foreign nationals other than Pakistan and Bangladesh nationals."

"Only one medical attendant shall be allowed in case of Pak nationals."

"Three medical attendants shall be allowed in case of Bangladesh nationals."

— source, read 13 September 2026

It is still not on IVAC's page, which is what we had read when we wrote the struck-through sentence above. The Bureau states the same number a second time, with a different verb, on its Terms and Conditions of your Visa page. So if an agent tells you three, they may well be right — ask them for the page, and compare it with the two the Bureau publishes.

There is a separate online visa route — the e-Medical Visa — where the government publishes a different number: two. See how many people can travel with a patient: the Indian medical attendant visa for that route, its own documents, its own fee, and why it is not simply interchangeable with the M-2 route described here.

5. The documents IVAC publishes for a medical visa

This is IVAC's own list, read on 11 September 2026 from https://www.ivacbd.com/kind-of-visas-documents.

General documents, all applicants:

• Passport in original, valid for at least six months on the date you submit, with at least two blank pages. A copy of pages 2 and 3. All old passports must be submitted — without them the application is treated as incomplete.
• One recent colour photograph, not more than three months old, 2x2 inches (350x350 pixels), full face, white background.
• Proof of present residence: copy of National ID card plus a utility bill (electricity, telephone, gas or water), not more than six months old.
• Proof of profession: employer's certificate; for students, institution ID card; for a retired person, retirement papers.
• Proof of financial soundness: an international travel card, or an updated bank statement for the last three months, or a foreign-currency endorsement of the equivalent of US$150 per applicant (endorsement not older than one month when you submit), or an international credit card with a running-year endorsement in the passport. IVAC states plainly that a fake dollar endorsement is treated as a reason for rejection.
• The online visa application form carrying the BGD registration number.
• Your date of birth and place of birth must match across your current passport, old passport, NID card and birth certificate.

Additional documents for a medical visa:

• Medical invitation letter from India, with a specific date.
• Medical certificate in original from a recognised hospital or doctor, describing the patient's medical condition in detail.
• Recommendation from the attending doctor to seek treatment abroad, if this is the first visit; or a recommendation from the attending doctor in India, if this is continued treatment.
• All medical original documents.
• For hospitalisation or long-term treatment, proof of financial resources may be asked for: bank statements for the last six months, and a solvency certificate from a bank.

Honest caveat: this IVAC page carries an old content-management date of 16 January 2017 even though it describes a newer visa-category structure. It is the checklist IVAC publishes, and it is what we read on the day. Open the page yourself before you assemble your file.

Correction added 13 September 2026 — a second official list exists, and it does not match this one. The High Commission of India in Dhaka publishes its own category-wise document list as a PDF (https://hcidhaka.gov.in/pdf/Visa_Category_Wise_Documents_Required_13082026.pdf, read 13 September 2026). Its medical-visa section states a US$ 200 foreign-currency endorsement, an endorsement not older than three months, and a six-month bank statement — against IVAC's US$150, one month and three months above. It also carries requirements IVAC's page does not, including a clearance for organ-transplant cases and a compulsory attendant for a child patient. Neither document says it replaces the other. We have set out every difference, verbatim and with both URLs, on a separate page in this series, and we do not resolve the conflict, because no source we can find resolves it.

If you are assembling the file now rather than reading about it, our Indian medical visa document checklist tool sets out what each official source publishes for one situation at a time — patient or attendant, paper IVAC route or e-Medical Visa — with the page it came from and the date we read it beside every line, and the places where those sources disagree left marked as disagreements rather than settled for you. It sends your answers nowhere and stores them nowhere, and it prints on paper you can tick and carry.

6. What it costs

Two numbers. Both from IVAC's own notice, read 11 September 2026 at https://www.ivacbd.com/.

• Government of India visa fee for Bangladeshi citizens: nothing. IVAC: "Government of India does not charge any visa fees to citizens of Bangladesh and the Indian visa continues to remain free of charge for all Bangladeshi nationals."
• IVAC processing fee: BDT 1,500, all inclusive, effective 10.08.2025. IVAC describes it as "a service charge levied by IVAC to facilitate visa application handling" and says it is the first revision since 2018.

There is a third number, but it is not a fee — the US$150 equivalent in paragraph 4 is proof that you have funds, not money you pay to anyone. See the correction in section 5: the High Commission's own document list, published in August 2026, states US$ 200 for that same proof of funds. Both are official. We are not choosing between them.

We publish no other price on this page. We have not verified any treatment cost, any hospital charge or any agent's fee, so we state none. If you see a treatment price on a website, ask whose written quotation it is.

7. The four steps, as IVAC publishes them

1. Apply online — https://indianvisa-bangladesh.nic.in/visa/index.html
2. Select appointment and payment — https://appointment.ivacbd.com/
3. Submit the forms at IVAC
4. Collect the passport

(source, read 11 September 2026)

Your assigned time is in your appointment confirmation (section 3).

Before you travel to the centre, note IVAC's published security rules: mobile phones, cameras, laptops and other electronic devices are not permitted inside, and neither are bags — only a plastic bag with your application papers. There is no storage facility at the centre. Friends, relatives and business contacts are not permitted to accompany applicants; interpreters may accompany hearing-impaired applicants, and staff accompany applicants with disabilities (source, read 11 September 2026).

8. On arrival in India

e-Arrival Card. IVAC's notice dated 14 October 2025 states that from 1 October 2025, all foreign nationals visiting India "will have the option to submit the Disembarkation Card (e-Arrival Card) online prior to their arrival", through the Bureau of Immigration website https://boi.gov.in, the Indian visa website https://indianvisaonline.gov.in, or the "Indian Visa Su-Swagatam" mobile app. It may be submitted within 72 hours before arrival (source, read 11 September 2026).

Unverified: the same notice said the paper form would stay available "for the next 6 months or till further notice". That six-month window has now passed and we could not confirm whether paper forms are still accepted. Submit online if you can, and ask your airline.

The designated-hospital rule. This one carries a real penalty.

"Applicants seeking medical visa should visit the designated hospital only for which visa has been issued. Change of Hospital requires FRRO permission in India. Change of hospital without FRRO permission amounts to visa rules violation and may lead to restrictions on travel to India in future."

— IVAC Bangladesh, Important Advisory for medical visa, 24 April 2024 (source, read 11 September 2026)

The FRRO is the Foreigners Regional Registration Office: https://indianfrro.gov.in/frro/.

Do you have to register with the FRRO yourself, just for a medical visit? Usually not — registration is only required if your visa is valid for more than 180 days, and the hospital has its own separate legal duty to report your arrival within 24 hours regardless. We cover that rule, and a real contradiction on the government's own e-Visa page about crossing into India by land, in what happens after you arrive.

This is why the hospital named on your invitation letter is a decision, not a formality. Whoever arranges that letter has chosen where you will be treated. Ask which hospital will be named on it, before the letter is written.

9. The rest of this series

• 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.
• 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 appointment slots. 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.