Last verified: 17 August 2026
The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 has governed the entry, stay, movement and exit of foreigners in India since 1 September 2025. It repealed four Acts running back to 1920 and raised the maximum sentence for a forged travel document to seven years.
The Ministry of Home Affairs rewrote the registration timetable under this Act in 2026. Rule 12 of the Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 now requires a foreigner to complete registration before the 180th day from arrival runs out, replacing an earlier window that opened only once those 180 days had already expired. The same amendment sends appeals against a civil authority’s direction to the Commissioner, Bureau of Immigration, filed online within thirty days. For anyone advising foreign students, expatriate staff, or the institutions that host them, a compliance date moved.
This article sets out what the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 demands at each stage, from the immigration post through registration and reporting to penalties and removal.
The Act splits the duty to report a foreigner between the foreigner himself and whoever houses, teaches or treats him, and the split is not obvious until you apply it. Take a research scholar who lands on a student visa for a fourteen-month programme, spends three weeks in a family-run homestay booked through a travel site, then moves into university accommodation.
The homestay is let commercially, so its keeper owes the Form III return within twenty-four hours under Section 8, and the scholar cannot file it for him. In a friend’s flat the non-commercial carve-out would have applied, unless the civil authority had issued a direction covering that area. Her own registration under Section 6 is a separate duty running to the 180-day mark, and the university owes a third return under Section 9. Each runs on its own clock, and the first starts at the immigration post.
Entry into India under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025
The Act requires every person entering India to hold a valid passport or other travel document, and it requires a foreigner to hold a valid visa on top of that. Section 3(1) imposes both at entry, and then does something the repealed Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 never did. It carries the requirement forward into the stay, so a foreigner already inside India must hold a valid passport and a valid visa throughout, unless the Central Government has exempted him under Section 33 or an intergovernmental agreement covers him.
Two provisos sit under that subsection and carry most of its force. The first bars entry or stay where a foreigner is found inadmissible on account of a threat to national security, to the sovereignty and integrity of India, to relations with a foreign State, or to public health, or on any other ground the Central Government specifies. That last limb is open-ended by design, and it applies whatever visa the traveller holds, business visas included.
The second proviso is the one to read twice. The decision of the Immigration Officer, it says, shall be final and binding. Section 3(2) mirrors the structure on the way out, opening notwithstanding Section 3 of the Passports Act, 1967, so a departure can be stopped where an authorised agency requires the person’s presence in India.
That finality attaches to two questions, admission and departure, and not to everything the Act does. Section 15 lets a civil authority or Immigration Officer decide which nationality a dual national is treated under and calls that final, but the Central Government may revise it on its own motion or on the foreigner’s application. Section 14(3) gives a thirty-day appeal to the Central Government against a direction about premises, and Sections 17(4) and 19(2) give carriers a thirty-day appeal, extendable by a further thirty days for sufficient cause.
The machinery behind those decisions is new in form, if familiar in practice. Section 4 lets the Central Government notify designated immigration posts, each manned by an Immigration Officer, and Section 5 constitutes the Bureau of Immigration under a Commissioner, assisted by Foreigners Regional Registration Officers, Foreigners Registration Officers and Chief Immigration Officers. Several summaries of this Act state that it created a “National Immigration Authority”. It did not: the body the statute constitutes is the Bureau of Immigration, under Section 5 of the Act.
Carrier obligations under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025
A carrier must hand the authorities its passenger and crew manifest, its advance passenger information data, and its passenger name record information, in the form and within the time the Rules prescribe. Section 17(1) creates that duty, and Section 2(b) gives it a reach wider than anything in the repealed Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000, because a carrier is now anyone transporting passengers or cargo by air, water or land.
Section 17(13) extends the label to individuals, so the pilot of an aircraft, the master of a vessel, a company representative, a station manager or an operator all answer as the carrier. Section 18 sets a penalty of up to fifty thousand rupees for a Section 17 breach, and Section 17(3) allows it to be charged for each item of information that goes unfurnished or is furnished falsely, after the carrier has been heard. Section 19 is heavier, at not less than two lakh rupees and up to five lakh, for bringing a person into India contrary to Section 3.
Two provisions give those penalties teeth the old Act lacked. Section 19(5) lets the authority recover an unpaid penalty by seizing or detaining the aircraft or the ship itself, or by seizing and selling the carrier’s goods. Section 20(3) reverses the ordinary position on proof: a carrier by which a foreigner enters or leaves India in contravention is deemed to have contravened the Act, unless it proves that it exercised all due diligence.
The obligation does not stop at the gate. Where an Immigration Officer refuses a foreigner entry, Section 17(9) hands that person back to the carrier, which must remove him from India without delay. Where a foreigner did get in, Section 17(10) lets the authority direct the carrier, within two months of the entry, to provide removal accommodation at its own expense. Under Section 17(12), no aircraft or vessel may leave a port in India until the Immigration Officer grants clearance on a general declaration.
Registration and reporting duties that run through a foreigner’s stay
A foreigner must register with the Registration Officer concerned after arriving in India. Section 6 states that duty in a single sentence and leaves the conditions and the manner to the Rules, which is where the operative detail sits and where it has already changed once.
The Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 set the timetable, and the amendment notified in 2026 rewrote Rule 12. A foreigner staying beyond 180 days must now complete registration at any time before that 180-day period expires. The earlier rule allowed registration within fourteen days after the period had run out, which put the compliance moment outside the window it was meant to police. Registration after the prescribed period is now permitted only in emergent circumstances, and the whole process runs online through the FRRO platform, alongside the other registrations a foreigner working in India has to complete.
Reporting duties on hosts, universities and hospitals
The duty to report a foreigner sits on whoever houses, teaches or treats him, not on the foreigner alone. The Act builds three separate returns into Sections 8, 9 and 10, each owed by a different institution to the same Registration Officer, and each running on its own trigger.
Section 8(1) puts the first on the keeper of accommodation, who must submit the prescribed information about foreigners accommodated on the premises. “Accommodation” is defined at Section 2(a) as temporary or permanent premises of any nature where a foreigner is accommodated, which is about as wide as a statutory definition gets. Section 8(2) then requires the foreigner to give the keeper whatever particulars he needs, so the two duties interlock rather than compete.
There is a carve-out, and it is narrower than it first appears. The proviso to Section 8(1) takes residential premises of a non-commercial nature outside the subsection, so a friend’s spare room ordinarily falls outside the duty. But that proviso is expressly subject to Section 8(3), under which the civil authority may direct that in a specified area every person occupying or controlling residential premises must report a foreigner staying there. The carve-out is a default that a direction can switch off, not an immunity.
Operationally this is Form III, the return practitioners still call Form C. The Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 require it to be filed online within twenty-four hours of the foreigner arriving, and the duty belongs to the keeper: a guest cannot file it on his host’s behalf. Hotels, guesthouses, serviced apartments and commercially let homestays all sit inside it.
Sections 9 and 10 add the other two returns. Every university, educational institution or other institution admitting a foreigner must furnish information about that person to the Registration Officer, and the University Grants Commission has separately directed institutions to comply when they admit foreign students. Section 10 reaches every hospital, nursing home or other medical institution providing medical, lodging or sleeping facilities, and it covers not only a foreigner taking indoor treatment but the attendant given a bed alongside him.
Restrictions the Central Government can impose on a foreigner
Beyond registration, the Central Government may prohibit, regulate or restrict a foreigner’s entry into India, his departure from it, or his presence and continued presence in it. Section 7(1) grants that power in general terms, and it can be exercised against all foreigners, against a specified class, or against one named individual.
Section 7(2) itemises what such an order may do, and clause (f) carries the practical weight. A foreigner can be required to present himself for examination, to reside at a particular place, to accept restrictions on his movements, to furnish proof of identity, to allow his photograph and biometric information to be taken, to give specimens of his handwriting and signature, and to submit to medical examination. He can also be barred from associating with specified persons, from specified activities, and from possessing specified articles. Clause (d) is the one that catches people out: a foreigner ordered not to remain in India must meet the cost of his own removal, and of his maintenance while he waits for it, from his own resources.
Geography adds its own layer. Section 11 bars a foreigner from a Protected area, a Restricted area or a Prohibited place without a special permit, and Section 2 defines the three separately, the protected one being contiguous with India’s international border. Section 13 governs foreigners required to live in supervised accommodation and makes it an offence to knowingly harbour such a person or help him escape, while Section 14 lets the civil authority close or condition premises frequented by foreigners.
Penalties and removal after a breach of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025
The Act punishes entry without documents with up to five years, a forged travel document with two to seven years, and everything else, overstay included, with up to three years. That ladder runs across Sections 21 to 24, and the fines moved by an order of magnitude when the new statute replaced the old one.
Section 21 covers a foreigner who enters any area in India without a valid passport, travel document or visa, contrary to Section 3. It carries up to five years, or a fine of up to five lakh rupees, or both. PRS Legislative Research records that the equivalent fine under the repealed framework was fifty thousand rupees.
Section 22 is the only offence in the Act carrying a mandatory minimum. Anyone who knowingly uses or supplies a forged or fraudulently obtained passport, travel document or visa, whether to enter India, to stay in it, or to leave it, faces not less than two years and up to seven, with a fine of not less than one lakh and up to ten lakh rupees. The proviso makes an attempt an offence under the same section.
Section 23 catches the rest, and it is the provision most foreigners actually meet. It covers overstaying the period the visa was issued for, staying without a valid passport, and acting in violation of the conditions attached to the visa, which are set separately for each category, including the employment visa in India. It then sweeps in any other contravention for which the Act provides no specific punishment, and the penalty throughout is up to three years, or up to three lakh rupees, or both. Section 24 gives abetment the same punishment as the offence abetted, borrowing its meaning from Section 45 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, while Section 20 deems an attempt or even a preparatory act to be a contravention in its own right.
The onus of proving that a person is not a foreigner
Where a question arises whether someone is a foreigner, the person who says he is not carries the burden of proving it. Section 16 places the onus on him, and it does so notwithstanding the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, so the ordinary rule that whoever asserts must prove does not apply here.
This is not new law. Section 16 carries forward the substance of Section 9 of the repealed Foreigners Act, 1946, so the body of practice built around the old section continues under the new one, including the way the Foreigners Tribunals in Assam approach the question. Section 15 is expressly carved out of Section 16, because it answers the different question of which nationality a dual national is treated under.
What follows a failure to discharge that onus is why the section bites. Section 26 lets any police officer not below the rank of Head Constable arrest without warrant a person who has contravened Section 3, or against whom a reasonable suspicion of it exists, with Section 58 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 applying to the arrest. PRS records that the rank under the old framework was sub-inspector. Section 29 then lets the Central Government order a foreigner’s removal, either for a contravention of the Act or on an adverse security report alone.
Compounding of offences under Section 25
An offence under Section 21, 23 or 24 can be compounded, either before prosecution is instituted or during the trial, by the officers the Central Government notifies. Section 25 provides that route, and the section it leaves out is the one worth noticing: Section 22, the forged-document offence, cannot be compounded at all.
Two limits shape the mechanism. The proviso to Section 25(1) caps the compounded sum at the maximum fine available under Section 21 or Section 23, so a compounding cannot cost more than a conviction. Section 25(2) closes the door on repeat offenders, making it unavailable to any person or company that compounded a similar offence within the preceding three years, though Section 25(6) treats a further offence after three years as a first offence again.
The effect turns on timing. Compounding before prosecution bars a prosecution outright under Section 25(4), while compounding after proceedings have begun is brought to the court’s notice and the offender is discharged under Section 25(5). Sitting above all of it is Section 33, the exemption power. The Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025 uses it to lift the Act’s requirements for citizens of Nepal and Bhutan crossing those borders, for Tibetans who entered on a Special Entry Permit issued at Kathmandu after 1959 and before 30 May 2003, for armed forces personnel on duty, and for named minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered by 31 December 2024.
Frequently asked questions
Does a private host in India have to report a foreign guest under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025?
Usually not. The proviso to Section 8(1) takes residential premises of a non-commercial nature outside the reporting duty, so a friend or relative hosting a foreigner at home ordinarily falls outside it. The exception is Section 8(3), under which the civil authority can direct that every occupier in a specified area must report. A homestay or short-term rental let commercially is not covered by the carve-out, and its keeper owes the Form III return within twenty-four hours.
What happens if a foreigner overstays a visa in India?
An overstay falls under Section 23(a), which carries up to three years, or a fine of up to three lakh rupees, or both. Because Section 23 is compoundable under Section 25, an overstay can be settled without prosecution, subject to the cap on the sum and the three-year bar on repeat offenders. Removal under Section 29 is a separate executive power and does not depend on a conviction.
Can an Immigration Officer’s refusal of entry be challenged?
Section 3 declares the Officer’s decision on admission and on departure final and binding, and the Act provides no appeal against it. Appeals do exist elsewhere, against a direction on premises under Section 14(3) and against carrier penalties under Sections 17(4) and 19(2), and a Section 15 nationality determination can be revised by the Central Government. The Act makes no attempt to oust the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts, and Section 34 states that its provisions are in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law in force.
Which laws did the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 replace?
Section 36(1) repeals four statutes: the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000. Section 36(2) saves anything done under them, rules, orders and penalties included, so far as it is not inconsistent with the new Act, and Section 36(3) preserves Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897.
References
Statutes
- The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025), Ministry of Home Affairs, assented 4 April 2025, in force 1 September 2025 (sections 2 to 6, 8 to 20, 21 to 29, 33 to 36 cited)
- India Code entry for the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025
- The Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 (34 of 1920), the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939 (16 of 1939), the Foreigners Act, 1946 (31 of 1946) and the Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act, 2000 (52 of 2000), all repealed by section 36(1)
- The Passports Act, 1967 (15 of 1967), section 3
- The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023), section 45; the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (46 of 2023), section 58; the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023; the General Clauses Act, 1897 (10 of 1897), section 6
Subordinate legislation
- The Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025, notified 1 September 2025 under section 30 (registration timing and the accommodation-reporting return in Form III)
- The Immigration and Foreigners (Amendment) Rules, 2026, gazette notification dated 1 June 2026, substituting in rule 12 the words “any time before the expiry of the said period of one hundred and eighty days” for the earlier “within fourteen days after the expiry of one hundred and eighty days”, restricting late registration to emergent circumstances, and routing appeals to the Commissioner, Bureau of Immigration within thirty days, to be concluded ordinarily within sixty days
- The Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025, made under section 33
Secondary sources
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified advocate before acting on any provision discussed here.