Maldives Visa Fees for Indians: The Visa Is Free, the Trip Is Not

A Maldives tourist visa costs an Indian passport holder nothing. Maldives Immigration publishes no fee for it, because there is no application to charge for — the visa is granted at the immigration desk, and the only mandatory form, the IMUGA Traveller Declaration, is explicitly free of charge. What is not free is everything the Maldivian government charges once you are inside it. A couple on a seven-night resort stay pays roughly $368 in green tax and departure charges on top of a $0 visa, and the 17 per cent tourism GST sits inside the hotel bill on top of that. There is also a genuine ambiguity about how long an Indian may stay: Immigration grants 30 days on arrival, while the India–Maldives bilateral agreement provides for 90. All figures below are read from Maldives Immigration, the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority, the High Commission of India in Malé and the RBI on 30 August 2026.

How much does a Maldives visa cost for Indians?#

Nothing. There is no Maldives visa fee for an Indian passport holder, because there is nothing to apply for. Maldives Immigration states the mechanism rather than a price:

"Tourist visa is granted on arrival to the Maldives. Foreigners traveling to Maldives as tourists do not require pre-approval for the visa. However, visitors must satisfy the basic entry requirements to get immigration clearance upon arrival."

The Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the same thing about every nationality: "Tourist visa is granted for all nationalities on arrival to the Maldives. As such, a foreigner travelling to Maldives as a tourist does not require pre-approval for the visa."

Neither ministry publishes a fee schedule for the tourist visa, and the only charge named anywhere in the arrival process is named in order to say it is zero: the IMUGA Traveller Declaration, where "submission of the form is free of charge."

So the honest headline for an Indian traveller is not that the Maldives is cheap. It is that the visa line on your budget is ₹0, and every other government charge in this article arrives after that line — which is why so many "Maldives visa fees for Indians" pages have nothing to say after the first sentence.

Is the free Maldives visa for Indians 30 days or 90 days?#

Both numbers are official, and they come from two different instruments that do not obviously agree. This is the single most misreported fact about Maldives entry for Indians, and it is worth setting out precisely.

What Immigration grants. Maldives Immigration's own tourist visa page carries a one-line rule with no nationality carve-outs: "Tourists receive a 30-day visa on arrival."

What the bilateral agreement provides. The High Commission of India in Malé — an Indian government source, on the Indian side of the same agreement — states:

"A bilateral agreement on facilitation of visa arrangements between India and Maldives was signed in Dec 2018 and came into effect on March 11, 2019. This grants visa-free entry for tourism, medical and business purposes bilaterally, for a period not exceeding 90 days in preceding six months."

Read together, the safe reading is this: the 30 days is what the immigration officer grants at Velana on landing; the 90 days is the outer limit the treaty permits an Indian to reach, and reaching it means applying for an extension rather than being stamped for 90 on arrival. Maldives Immigration publishes no India-specific rule granting 90 days at the counter, and we did not find one on any Maldivian government site.

Two further details that follow from the treaty wording and matter for repeat visitors:

• The 90 days is cumulative across a six-month window, not per trip. Two 30-day visits inside six months eat 60 of the 90.
• The same 90-day allowance covers tourism, medical and business purposes, not tourism alone.

Plan on 30 days. If your trip is longer, plan on an extension application inside the Maldives — covered below — rather than on an assumption about what will be stamped.

What does the IMUGA Traveller Declaration cost for an Indian traveller?#

Nothing, and it is mandatory in both directions. Maldives Immigration:

"All foreigners arriving in the Maldives must complete and submit the 'Traveller Declaration' form. The form can be completed up to 96 hours (4 days) before your arrival in Maldives. Submission of the form is free of charge and must be filled electronically via the IMUGA portal."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states the outbound half that Immigration's page leaves implicit: the declaration "must be filled in and submitted by all travelers travelling to and from Maldives, within 96 hours to the flight time." An Indian traveller therefore files it twice per trip — once before flying to Malé, once before flying home.

The steps Immigration publishes are short: visit imuga.immigration.gov.mv, complete and submit the declaration within the 96-hour window, fill in personal details, travel information and accommodation details, submit electronically, and present the completed declaration at immigration on arrival.

Two practical points. First, the 96-hour window is a ceiling, not a target — you cannot file a fortnight ahead and forget it, which is exactly the failure mode Indian travellers hit with Thailand's TDAC and Malaysia's MDAC. Second, because the form is free, any site charging an Indian traveller a "Maldives IMUGA fee" or a "Maldives visa processing fee" is charging for a government form that costs nothing.

What do Indians actually pay the Maldivian government on a Maldives trip?#

About $368 for two adults on a seven-night resort stay — none of it a visa fee. The visa is the only free part of the Maldivian government's bill, and it is the part every competitor page leads with.

Here is the whole set of charges, each with its own authority and its own effective date:

Worked for two Indian adults, seven nights, economy class:

• Resort stay: green tax 2 × 7 × $12 = $168; departure charges 2 × ($50 + $50) = $200. Total $368, about ₹35,166 at the RBI reference rate of ₹95.5614 to the dollar on 30 August 2026.
• Guesthouse on an inhabited island, 50 rooms or fewer: green tax 2 × 7 × $6 = $84; departure charges $200. Total $284, about ₹27,138.

The 17 per cent tourism GST is not in either total because it is charged on the value of what you buy rather than per head, and it is levied inside the hotel and resort bill rather than at a government counter.

Two things fall out of this table. The Maldives is a destination where the accommodation category, not the visa, is the government-cost decision — the guesthouse choice saves an Indian couple $84 a week in tax alone. And the departure charges are fixed per person regardless of trip length, so they bite hardest on a short trip: on a three-night resort break for two, the $200 in departure charges is larger than the $144 of green tax.

How much is the Maldives green tax for Indian tourists?#

$12 per person per day at a resort and $6 at a small guesthouse on an inhabited island, since 1 January 2025 — double the previous rates. The Maldives Inland Revenue Authority sets it, and it is charged by the property, not at the border.

MIRA's published schedule from 1 January 2025 onwards:

Three details that change the number an Indian family pays:

• The 2025 doubling. From 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024 the same resort rate was $6 and the small-guesthouse rate $3. Every rupee figure published before 2025 is half the current one.
• Children under two are exempt, "effective from 1 January 2025". Older children pay the adult rate.
• It is billed in dollars. MIRA states "green tax must be paid in United States Dollar", so an Indian traveller's rupee cost depends on the card rate on the day, not on any published conversion.

At ₹95.5614 to the dollar — the RBI reference rate on 30 August 2026 — resort green tax works out at roughly ₹1,147 per person per night, and the guesthouse rate at about ₹573. For a family of four on seven nights at a resort that is $336, about ₹32,109, in a tax line that does not appear on any "Maldives visa fees" page.

MIRA also publishes a consumer protection worth knowing: if a property charges more green tax than the Act allows, or charges it to somebody exempt, "the amount charged must be refunded to the passenger" before the property's next return is due. Check the tax line on your folio before you check out.

How much is the Maldives departure tax and airport development fee for Indians?#

$100 for an economy-class Indian passenger — $50 Departure Tax plus $50 Airport Development Fee, both raised on 1 December 2024 and both collected inside your ticket.

These are two separate levies that happen to carry identical rates, and MIRA publishes them separately:

Before 1 December 2024 the foreign economy rate was $30 for each, so an Indian traveller's departure cost rose from $60 to $100 — a two-thirds increase that predates most of the rupee figures circulating on Indian travel sites.

The mechanics, and the exemptions, differ slightly between the two:

• Who collects. "For scheduled flights, the airlines are responsible for collection of ADF and departure tax from their passengers." You do not queue anywhere to pay this; it is in the fare an Indian traveller books from Kochi, Bengaluru, Delhi or Mumbai.
• Where ADF applies. The Airport Development Fee is levied on passengers "departing from the Maldives via Velana International Airport" specifically. The Departure Tax applies to departures from any airport in the Maldives.
• Children. "Passengers with diplomatic immunity, transit passengers and children below the age of 2 years are exempt from Departure tax." The ADF exemption list is narrower — "passengers with diplomatic immunity and transit passengers on 'direct transit'" — and does not name under-2s.

That asymmetry is real and easy to miss: an Indian couple travelling with an infant is exempt from the $50 departure tax for the baby but, on the published wording, not from the $50 ADF.

Does the 17 per cent tourism GST apply to Indian tourists in the Maldives?#

Yes, and it has been 17 per cent since 1 July 2025 — up from 16 per cent, and from 12 per cent before 2023. MIRA charges it on tourism goods and services, which means it is inside the resort room rate, the seaplane transfer, the excursion and the restaurant bill an Indian traveller pays.

MIRA's rate history is short and steep:

The tourism rate applies to establishments "authorized by the Ministry of Tourism" — integrated tourist resorts, tourist resorts, tourist hotels, resort hotels, hotels, tourist guesthouses, tourist vessels, picnic islands, private islands and yacht marinas. Buy a coffee in Malé outside a tourist establishment and you are in the 8 per cent general band instead.

For an Indian traveller comparing a quoted package price against a resort's own website, this is where the gap usually sits. A rate quoted "plus taxes" on a Maldivian resort now means plus 17 per cent GST, plus $12 per person per night green tax, plus whatever service charge the property levies — not plus a visa fee, which remains zero.

What does it cost an Indian to extend a Maldives tourist visa?#

Maldives Immigration does not publish the extension fee on any page we could read, which is an unusual gap and one we will not fill with a number from a reseller. What it does publish is the process, and the process changed recently.

Since 23 April 2026, under what Immigration calls the Maldives 2.0 Initiative, extensions are applied for through the IMUGA portal rather than in person, and the turnaround has been cut: "Processing times have been significantly reduced, with visa extension applications now expected to be completed within 48 hours."

The application, per Immigration's own announcement:

• Log in to IMUGA and enter your passport number, or upload the passport biodata page; the system retrieves your existing details automatically.
• Upload a passport-size photograph taken within the last 12 months.
• Re-upload the biodata page only "in specific cases, such as when a passport has been renewed or when the provided details do not match existing records".
• Update your hotel details in the application if you have changed accommodation during the stay.

On money, Immigration's general FAQ says only where and when, not how much: "Fees are paid within the IMUGA portal at submission or when prompted at approval. Unpaid applications will not be processed", and "fees are generally non-refundable once processing begins."

Three practical rules for an Indian traveller who may need more than 30 days. Apply through IMUGA before the current permission expires — an overstay is a separate problem with its own penalty, and Immigration warns that fines "must be settled before departure or further processing." Budget for an unpublished fee rather than assuming zero. And do not treat the treaty's 90 days as automatic: it is a ceiling on what may be granted, not a guarantee that it will be.

What documents does an Indian need for the Maldives visa on arrival?#

A machine-readable passport with a month of validity, a confirmed return ticket, prepaid accommodation or proof of funds, and a filed IMUGA declaration. Maldives Immigration lists the entry requirements in full:

• "A passport or travel document with Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) with at least 1 month validity. (Passengers with extended validity in their passports are not allowed to enter.)"
• "A complete travel itinerary, including confirmed return journey tickets, prepaid confirmed booking at a registered facility, and sufficient funds to cover the stay in the Maldives, or a pre-approved sponsorship visa from Maldives Immigration"
• "Entry requirements to their onward destinations; for example, the visa and passport validity"
• The IMUGA Traveller Declaration, filed within 96 hours of the flight
• "Yellow Fever Vaccination Certificate, if applicable. Children under 1 year of age are exempt"
• "Children/minors must have their own passport to enter the Maldives"

Two of those deserve emphasis for an Indian passport specifically.

The one-month validity rule is real, and it is not the six-month rule you are used to. Almost every other destination an Indian traveller books demands six months beyond the date of entry. The Maldives asks for one. But the parenthesis is a trap in the other direction: a passport whose validity was hand-extended by an Indian mission is refused outright, regardless of the date it now shows.

The accommodation-or-funds clause is an "or", but resorts make it moot. The wording allows prepaid confirmed booking at a registered facility or sufficient funds. In practice an Indian traveller arriving on a resort package already satisfies the first limb, and one arriving to island-hop should carry the guesthouse confirmations anyway — because the entry decision is discretionary, as the next section sets out.

Can an Indian be refused entry to the Maldives despite the free visa?#

Yes, and Maldives Immigration says so explicitly. This is the structural risk of any visa-on-arrival route, and it is the reason a free visa is not the same as a guaranteed one:

"A complete travel itinerary does not guarantee entry to Maldives. Entry will be granted at the port of entry after determination of admissibility by Immigration officers, as per Section 7 and 8 of The Maldives Immigration Act 2007."

Because the decision happens at Velana rather than in Delhi or Mumbai, an Indian traveller carries the full sunk cost of a refusal: the international fare, the seaplane or speedboat transfer, and a prepaid resort night that no longer has a guest. That risk profile is the opposite of a pre-approved e-visa, where the refusal arrives before you spend on flights.

One nationality-level bar is worth recording, because it shows this is not a formality: since 15 April 2025, "entry to the Maldives will not be granted on Israeli passports". Maldives Immigration publishes that as a standing notice on the same tourist visa page. No comparable restriction applies to an Indian passport.

The practical defence is documentary and cheap: carry the IMUGA confirmation, the return ticket and the accommodation confirmation in a form you can show on a phone at the desk, and make sure the accommodation dates cover the whole stay you are asking for.

Do Indians need a visa for a business trip to the Maldives?#

Not for the first 90 days. The Maldives extended the bilateral visa-free treatment to Indian business travel on 1 February 2022, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it in terms:

"Effective from 1 February 2022, the Government of Maldives has initiated the process of granting Indian Nationals visa free entry for business purposes, for a period not exceeding the visa free period of 90 days, stipulated in the Agreement on the Facilitation of Visa Arrangements between the Government of Maldives and the Government of India signed on 17 December 2018."

Beyond the free 90 days there is a paid, formal route, and the announcement sets out its shape: "a multiple entry, non-resident, business visa shall be granted for Indian Nationals for a period of 90 days within 6 months. Any Indian National with an approved business visa is eligible to renew their visa up to 180 days within a calendar year. This is in addition to the visa free period of 90 days stipulated in the bilateral agreement."

Three procedural points that catch Indian business travellers out:

• The application does not go to Immigration. It is "lodged with the Ministry of Economic Development through business.egov.mv", not through IMUGA.
• Timing. It must be lodged "prior to expiry of visa free entry period", and renewals "prior to expiry of an existing approval". There is no retroactive fix.
• The 180-day ceiling is a hard line. "An employment approval shall be obtained by any Indian National holding a business visa whose allowable business visa stay exceeds 180 days within a calendar year." Past that, you are in work-permit territory, not business-visit territory.

Maldives Immigration's own business visa page states the grant range plainly: "Granted for 30 to 90 days at a time."

How does the Maldives compare with other visa-free destinations for Indians?#

On the visa line it is one of the very few genuine zeros; on the total government bill it is one of the more expensive. That combination is unusual enough to be worth stating, because "visa-free" is doing a lot of work in most Indian travel content.

An Indian passport reaches the Maldives with nothing filed, nothing paid and nothing approved in advance beyond a free declaration — the same standard Nepal and Bhutan meet, and a standard that visa-on-arrival destinations charging a fee do not. Where the Maldives diverges is after entry: $12 a night in green tax and $100 in departure charges are levies most other short-haul destinations from India do not impose at anything like that scale.

The two questions an Indian traveller should therefore keep separate:

• "Do I need a visa?" — No, for stays inside the treaty's 90-day, six-month window, for tourism, medical or business purposes.
• "What will the government take?" — $284 to $368 for a couple on a week, depending on where you sleep, plus 17 per cent GST inside every tourism bill.

For where the Maldives sits against the full list of destinations an Indian passport reaches without a visa — and the counting rules that decide what "visa-free" actually means — see visa-free countries for Indian passport holders.

What could not be confirmed about Maldives visa fees for Indians?#

Four gaps, named rather than estimated.

• The tourist visa extension fee. Maldives Immigration publishes the extension process, the 48-hour turnaround and the fact that fees are paid inside the IMUGA portal, but no amount. Figures between MVR 750 and MVR 1,125 circulate on commercial visa sites; none of them appears on a Maldivian government page we could read, so we do not repeat one.
• Whether an Indian is ever stamped for more than 30 days on arrival. Maldives Immigration states 30 days for tourists with no nationality exceptions; the High Commission of India in Malé describes a 90-day bilateral entitlement. Whether the treaty is delivered as a longer stamp at Velana for Indian passports, or only as an entitlement to extend, is not stated on either government's site.
• How the 90-day, six-month count is administered. The Indian High Commission's wording is "not exceeding 90 days in preceding six months", but no Maldivian source we found explains how prior stays are counted, from which date, or what an Indian traveller sees if the allowance is already spent.
• Whether children under two pay the Airport Development Fee. MIRA exempts them from the Departure Tax by name and does not name them in the ADF exemption list, which covers only diplomatic immunity and direct transit. We report the asymmetry as published rather than assuming it is a drafting oversight.

VisaGyan is an independent journal and is not affiliated with Maldives Immigration, the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority, the IMUGA portal, the High Commission of India in Malé or the Reserve Bank of India; we file nothing and process nothing. The free tourist visa on arrival, the 30-day grant, the entry requirements, the IMUGA declaration and its 96-hour window, the Israeli passport restriction and the 23 April 2026 extension changes are quoted from Maldives Immigration and the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The green tax rates from 1 January 2025, the Departure Tax and Airport Development Fee rates from 1 December 2024, their exemptions, and the 17 per cent tourism GST from 1 July 2025 are from the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority. The India–Maldives visa facilitation agreement of December 2018, in force from 11 March 2019, and its 90-day tourism, medical and business allowance are quoted from the High Commission of India in Malé; the February 2022 business visa-free arrangement from the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Rupee equivalents use the Reserve Bank of India reference rate of ₹95.5614 to the US dollar on 30 August 2026 and are indicative only — every Maldivian charge above is levied in US dollars. All read on 30 August 2026. Rates and rules change without notice; verify on immigration.gov.mv and mira.gov.mv before you book.

Sources cited only — expert review pending. For individualized advice, consult a licensed professional.