Indian Student Visa from Sri Lanka

Every month, we get a lot of questions from Sri Lankan students that are interested in studying in India and we have managed to guide many of them through the student visa application process.Many students are interested in various fields of studies and universities such as the medical schools in Delhi and engineering colleges in Bangalore. But the most important step before packing your bag is getting your India student visa from Sri Lanka.

Whether you're enrolling in a degree program or a short-term course, the visa process has specific steps, timelines, and common mistakes to watch out for.Throughout many years we helped many students through this process and have also broken down the India visa process from Sri Lanka to help you incase if you are looking for more common travel options like tourist visa.

However,in this guide our focus is entirely on Sri Lankan students that want to go to India for studies and here we have given all the details you need with tips from real cases we have handled so far along with insights on what worked and what went wrong.

Yes, a valid Indian student visa is definitely required if you are a Sri Lankan that is planning to have education in India. You may ask ‘What is a student visa?’ A student visa is not just another travel visa but with a longer duration.It is a specific visa type that is issued for full time academic programs like undergraduate, postgraduate or PhDs.

We have seen many students that are confused at first as they assume that Sri Lanka doesn’t require a visa to travel to India as it is a SAARC country.But the truth is you definitely need a student visa.

The visa application must be supported by a proper admission letter given from a recognized Indian university or education institution.When we recently helped a student from Colombo who was enrolling in a Delhi medical college surprisingly the visa was approved in just 2 working days but that was only after we corrected errors in this original university recommendation letter. So yes, a student visa is mandatory but most importantly your documents must be perfect.

The Indian government usually issues the Student Visa for academic courses. Based on our experience here are the common categories that students usually fall into,

• Full Time University Courses – Bachelors, Masters and PhDs.
• Short Term Courses – Language diplomas and IT certifications.
• Provisional Admission – If you are someone awaiting final university acceptance.

Even If you are someone that is going for a simple 6 month yoga or Ayurveda course, you will still need the student visa but the required documents can be slightly different. We recently assisted a group of 4 Sri Lankan students that were going to India for a 3 month course in Pune and they needed a special letter of recommendation from the institution. An important note to take is that the student visa is only valid for the duration of your you course. For example, if you are doing a 3 year degree then your visa duration will be 3 years but if you need to stay longer then you can get a visa extension.

we offer more than just being a standard agent who just forwards your documents we assist you through the actual steps ,

• Admission letter check is where we verify if your offer is from a recognized university or an educational institution. Because of this important step we take last month we saved a student from applying with a fake admission letter.
• Indian student visa applications are done using an online form and we help you to fill it out properly with you over a Zoom call to avoid any unwated mistakes.
• Visa appointment booking is something that we do to help you to get a appointment with the Indian High Commission in Colombo.
• Once your documents and application is submitted our office tracks your application on a daily basis.

When Sahan who is a student from Kandy faced a delay because of a missing financial sponsor letter, we managed to get on a call with the university’s admin office to revise and send a new version of the letter and it saved his application from being rejected.

Below are some valauable information that we have put toghther to help you based on the last 50 cases we handle,

• Visa Fee usually ranges from LKR 5,500 to LKR 9,000 depending on the duration of the course.
• Processing Time is usually between 5 to 15 working days but if applying with Arabiers it just takes 24 to 48 hours. However,delays can happen during admission season which is between June and August.
• Below are some of the reasons why your visa application can be delayed,Incomplete admission letter
  Poor quality passport photos
  Missing financial documents

According to data we collected from 2024 to 2025, 63% of student visas were delayed due to errors in documents and 22% were delayed because students have uploaded wrong file formats. To avoid this from happening to our clients we have made sure to provide you with a final checklist that is given before you submit the appluication and this has helped us reduce rejections in our office by 70%.

Below are some feedback we got from few students we helped to reach India for their studies,

“I almost submitted a scanned image instead of the original passport so applying through your team saved me so much time and stress. thank you!”
– Anjali who is studying in Bangalore

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“The checklist and Zoom form filling helped me to avoid many silly mistakes and my visa came in just 2 days.”
– Tharindu, doing MBA in Pune

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“I got nervous when my application was under review and the daily updates I got from you guys reduced my stress a lot’
– Dinara, at Delhi University

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Also, we had many students that also told us that it isn’t very easy after arriving in India due to below factors,

• Delhi hostels gets overbooked in July so it is best to book early.
• Some universities delay giving the final bonafide letter that is important to get the visa extension.
• It is important to avoid certain agents who offer fake admission letters and we have reported many such cases in the past to save clients from getting banned.

"Always carry atleast 10 passport size photos with you every institution just asks for them randomly during the process of enrollment."
-A tip from our India guide Arjun who is based in Chennai