Policy Update
Tanisha
Background
The Immigration, Visa, Foreigners’ Registration and Tracking (IVFRT) programme was sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 13 May 2010 as a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan with budgetary provision of ₹1,011 crore and a project duration up to September 2014 (Prime Minister’s Office [PMO], 2026). It aimed to establish a networked and comprehensive digitization process that connects Indian missions abroad and Immigration checkposts and Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) and Foreigners Registration Offices (FROs) from visa application to departure (PMO, 2026).
After fifteen years, the legal basis for IVFRT has only recently been replaced. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025) received assent from the President on 4 April 2025 and will come into effect on 1 September 2025, amalgamating four earlier legislations, namely, Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000 (Ministry of Home Affairs [MHA], 2025a). It gives an actual break in statute from its previous phases rather than a usual reapproval of funding.
Functioning
IVFRT’s core mechanics remain intelligent document scanners and biometric capture at entry and exit points, online registration of foreigners at the time of visa grant, and a centralised system for sharing traveller information across missions, immigration checkposts and registration offices (PMO, 2026). Hoteliers, educational institutions, hospitals and others accommodating foreigners are required to furnish prescribed information to enable tracking, an obligation carried forward into the new Act (MHA, 2025a).
The platform now networks 117 Immigration Posts, 15 FRROs and 854 FROs, with Superintendents of Police or Deputy Commissioners of Police acting as Registration Officers where no FRRO exists, across the country (PMO, 2026), a considerably more granular footprint than the 178-mission, checkpost-and-FRRO structure envisaged at launch (PMO, 2026). The e-FRRO platform, launched by the Union Home Minister on 13 April 2018, lets foreigners obtain up to 27 visa and immigration-related services, registration, extension, conversion, exit permits, online, without an in-person FRRO visit except where the Registration Officer specifically calls for one (MHA, 2018).
In accordance with the new Act’s implementing regulations, foreigner visas not exceeding 180 days wishing to extend their visa period will now have to register before expiry of the period of 180 days as opposed to the previous system where one was allowed to register even after 14 days of expiry of the said period; late registration is allowed only in emergent situations (MHA, 2026a).
Secondly, the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025 issued on 1st September 2025 pursuant to Section 33 of the Act, brings together exemptions for passport, travel documents, and visa for categories such as armed forces personnel, Nepalese and Bhutanese nationals at designated border stations, and religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered into India up to 31st December 2024 (MHA, 2025b).
| Dimension | Then (IVFRT at launch, 2010) | Now (post Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Legal backbone | Foreigners Act, 1946; Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939; Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920; Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000 | Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025), in force from 1 September 2025, replacing all four earlier laws |
| Coverage | 178 Indian missions abroad; immigration checkposts and FRROs/FROs envisaged at launch | 117 Immigration Posts, 15 FRROs and 854 FROs/SPs/DCPs networked into the platform |
| Registration timeline for long-stay foreigners | Registration within 14 days of arrival, for visas exceeding 180 days | Foreigners on visas of 180 days or less must register before the 180-day period expires if extending stay; late registration allowed only in emergent circumstances |
| In-person FRRO visits | Registration and visa services required physical FRRO/FRO visits | e-FRRO (2018) enables online registration, visa extension, conversion and exit permits without an in-person visit in most cases |
| Approved outlay | ₹1,011 crore (2010-14), later revised to ₹638.90 crore (2017-21) | ₹1,365 crore (2021-26); ₹1,800 crore approved for 2026-31 |
Table 1. IVFRT then and now, spanning the 2010 launch and the post-2025 Act framework. Compiled from Prime Minister’s Office (2026), Ministry of Home Affairs (2025a, 2025b, 2026a) and Ministry of Home Affairs (2018).
Performance
IVFRT’s approved outlay has moved in successive phases rather than a single, steady trajectory. The original ₹1,011 crore, four-and-a-half-year outlay was revised down to ₹638.90 crore in 2015 alongside a timeline extension to 31 March 2017 and then to 31 March 2021, against which ₹613.28 crore was actually spent (PMO, 2026). A further continuation from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2026 was approved on 19 January 2022 with a ₹1,365 crore outlay, and the Cabinet approved a fresh five-year continuation from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2031 with a ₹1,800 crore outlay on 25 March 2026 (PMO, 2026).
Figure 1. Approved outlay across IVFRT’s four funding phases, 2010 to 2031. Source: Prime Minister’s Office (2026).
On service-delivery metrics, the government reports that 91.24% of e-Visa applications were cleared within 72 hours over the preceding five years, and that average passenger clearance time at Immigration Posts, including biometrics, has fallen to 2.5-3 minutes from a conventional 5-6 minutes (PMO, 2026). The Fast Track Immigration-Trusted Traveller Programme, using automated e-gates at 13 major airports and currently offered free to Indian nationals and OCI cardholders, has cut immigration clearance time to about 30 seconds (PMO, 2026). On mobility volumes, the Bureau of Immigration reported that 31.74 lakh e-visas were issued to tourists between 1 November 2024 and 30 November 2025 (MHA, 2025c).
Impact
On security, IVFRT’s core achievement has been to centralise foreigners data that was previously siloed across missions, checkposts and FRROs. The new Act builds directly on this centralising logic, extending mandatory reporting obligations to hotels, universities, hospitals and other institutions hosting foreigners so that overstaying can be tracked more systematically (MHA, 2025a).
On mobility and ease of travel, e-Visa issuance and the post-2018 e-FRRO scheme have measurably reduced the need for foreigners to interact in person with Indian officials before reaching the immigration counter (MHA, 2018), and the clearance-time and 72-hour processing figures reported above point in the same direction (PMO, 2026). The scheme’s own framing acknowledges the dual, sometimes competing mandate at its centre, facilitating legitimate travellers while strengthening national security screening (PMO, 2026), and its most recent design choices, faster clearance alongside tighter registration timelines and a new exemption architecture, sit on both sides of that line at once.
Emerging Issues
Because IVFRT has just entered a newly funded, newly legislated phase rather than winding down, the issues here concern implementation risk rather than programme closure.
- A funding history of contraction as well as growth. The outlay was cut nearly in half between the original 2010 approval and the 2015 revision, before recovering across the 2022 and 2026 continuations (PMO, 2026). This non-linear funding record is worth tracking as the 2026-31 phase begins, since the schemes budget has not simply grown in a straight line with its expanding technical scope.
- Newly tightened registration timelines carry compliance risk during the transition. The shift from a post-facto 14-day registration window to a pre-facto requirement to register before a 180-day visa expires (MHA, 2026a) changes the compliance logic for long-stay foreigners; the public record reviewed here does not show data yet on registration compliance rates under the new timeline.
- Genuinely Act-attributable performance data remains limited. Because the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 commenced only on 1 September 2025, most currently available figures, including the 31.74 lakh e-visa count spanning November 2024 to November 2025, straddle the old and new legal regimes and cannot yet be cleanly attributed to the new Act’s enforcement mechanisms (MHA, 2025c).
Way Forward
- Publish registration-compliance data under the revised 180-day timeline separately from pre-Act figures, so that the new Act’s effect on compliance, rather than carryover behaviour from the old regime, can be assessed on its own terms.
- Track the 2026-31 phase stated priority areas, emerging technology adoption, core infrastructure transformation and service optimisation, against measurable milestones (mobile-based services, self-service kiosks, expanded FTI-TTP coverage) rather than outlay alone.
- Treat the natural policy bridge to trade and cargo mobility, where the Land Port Management System aims at a comparable single-window digital integration for goods rather than persons, as an explicit cross-scheme convergence question for the Bureau of Immigration and the Land Ports Authority of India.
- Extend the FTI-TTP e-gate network beyond its current 13 major airports in step with rising e-Visa volumes, using the existing 30-second clearance benchmark as the standard against which expansion sites are judged.
References
- Ministry of Home Affairs. (2018, April 13). Union Home Minister launches e-FRRO scheme [Press release]. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1528992
- Ministry of Home Affairs. (2025a). The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025). Government of India. https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/2025-09/Immigration_and_Foreigners_Act_2025_16092025.pdf
- Ministry of Home Affairs. (2025b, September 1). Central Government notifies Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025 [News release]. Doordarshan News, Government of India. https://ddnews.gov.in/en/central-government-notifies-immigration-and-foreigners-exemption-order-2025/
- Ministry of Home Affairs. (2025c, December 11). Foreign tourist arrivals [Press release]. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=2202210
- Ministry of Home Affairs. (2026a). Government notifies Immigration and Foreigners (Amendment) Rules, 2026 with key changes to registration timelines [News release]. NewsOnAir, Prasar Bharati, Government of India. https://newsonair.gov.in/mha-revises-immigration-rules-allows-flexible-registration-timeline/
- Prime Minister’s Office. (2026, March 25). Cabinet approves continuation of the Immigration, Visa, Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT) Scheme [Press release]. Government of India. https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/cabinet-approves-continuation-of-the-immigration-visa-foreigners-registration-tracking-lvfrt-scheme/
About the Contributor
Tanisha is a Political Science graduate (BA Hons, University of Delhi; MA, IGNOU), currently pursuing a Diploma in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, with research interests spanning international relations, environmental governance, and gender studies. She is keen to build a career in policy research.
Acknowledgements
The author sincerely expresses gratitude to the reviewers Divya N and Kaustav Majumdar for their valuable comments, constructive suggestions, and continuous guidance throughout the preparation of this article. Their insightful feedback significantly enhanced the clarity, organisation, and analytical quality of the manuscript. The author also acknowledges the support and encouragement received during the research and writing process, which contributed to the successful completion of this work.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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