No country comes close
Ten countries sent India the most foreign tourists in 2024. The dashed line is Indians coming home.
In 2024 the United States sent 18.0 lakh foreign tourists. Indians living abroad arrived 106.2 lakh times that same year.
In plain terms One bar per country, longest first. The dashed line is not a country.Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Compendium 2025 · accessed September 2026
Fewer than half were foreign
You think
Twenty million foreigners visited India in 2025. That is what the arrivals headline sounds like.
Actually
55in every 100
Of every 100 arrivals India counted, 55 carried an Indian passport and were flying home.
Of India's 20.22 million international arrivals in 2025, 11.07 million were Indians living abroad.
In plain terms Two panels: on the left what most people assume, on the right what the numbers show, with the one figure that settles it.Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Portal · accessed September 2026
The year the halves swapped
Foreign tourists were the clear majority in 2014 and 2019. Then they were not. These are the six years the ministry printed both halves.
Between 2019 and 2024 the Indian half of India's arrivals grew from 6.98 million to 10.62 million.
In plain terms Six years down a spine, each carrying that year's foreign count and Indian count.Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Portal · accessed September 2026
Arrival, tourist, Indian
Those two counts have names, and the names look alike.
- FTA (foreign tourist arrivals)
- Arrivals of people holding a foreign passport. The ministry's count of foreigners visiting India.
- NRI arrival (Non-Resident Indian)
- An Indian passport holder who lives abroad, counted on arriving in India.
- ITA (international tourist arrivals)
- The headline figure. The two counts above, added together.
Source · Ministry of Tourism · UN Statistics Division
Why they said they came
At the counter every arrival states a purpose, and the ministry published three months of answers for 2025. But it never says whether it counted foreign tourists only, or everyone.
How to read this — Each square is one arrival in every hundred, and the blocks run in order of size. Pick a purpose to light up only its squares.
How to read this — Each square is one arrival in every hundred, and the blocks run in order of size. Pick a purpose to light up only its squares.
34 of 100 arrivals, Jul-Sep 2025 — Leisure or holiday. The other 66 did not.
- Leisure or holiday · 34 of 100
- The tourist you picture
- Indian diaspora · 33 of 100
- Here to see family
- Business · 13 of 100
- —
- Medical · 7 of 100
- Printed as 7.5, drawn as 7
- Others · 13 of 100
- Education, conferences, transit
34 in every 100 of these arrivals said leisure and 33 said Indian diaspora. Medical is printed as 7.5 and drawn as 7 so the squares reach 100.
In plain terms A hundred squares, one arrival each, grouped by the reason the arrival gave at the counter.Source · Ministry of Tourism, Quarterly Tourism Snapshot, Jul-Sep 2025
Arrivals barely moved. Earnings fell.
Total arrivals slipped 1.71% in 2025, which sounds like a flat year. The money did not agree. Foreign exchange earnings, meaning the foreign money visitors spend inside India, fell 5.53% in rupees. That means the same crowd came and left less behind.
₹2,93,033 crore became ₹2,76,831 crore, about five and a half rupees gone from every hundred. The portal leads with 9.51%, but that is the fall in dollars, so the 5.53% in rupees is the one to remember.
The UN's statistics manual said why in 2008. Nationals living abroad, it wrote, "mainly stay with family and friends" instead of visiting tourist sites. A foreign tourist stays eighteen days and pays for somewhere to sleep, but a cousin's spare room bills nobody.
Against that, India budgeted ₹3.5 crore to promote itself overseas this financial year. Divide it by 9.15 million foreign tourists, which means about ₹3.83 each.
Arrivals fell 1.71% in 2025. Tourism earnings fell 5.53% in rupees, because the half that is growing stays with relatives and the half that is shrinking books hotels.
Two countries, then a long tail
In 2024 the ministry published its last complete country table, so this is where the foreign half comes from. Two countries sent more than a third of it.
How to read this — Darker means a larger share of India's foreign tourists in 2024. The scale runs from about 2% at the palest to 18.1% at the darkest, the United States.
- Bangladesh 466,012 in 2025
The United States sent 18.13% of India's foreign tourists in 2024 and Bangladesh 17.59%. Bangladesh fell 73.37% in 2025 after India restricted visas, and without it the foreign half grew 4.25%.
In plain terms Countries shaded by how many of India's foreign tourists they sent in 2024. The tenth, Singapore, is too small to shade.Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Compendium 2025 · accessed September 2026
468 to one
Those nine countries are most of the foreign half. Now set it against domestic tourist visits, which means trips Indians make inside India.
Domestic visits per foreign tourist
468to 1
-
4,287 million domestic tourist visits in 2025. Against 9.15 million foreign tourists
-
In the other direction: 32.83 million Indians left the country as travellers that year. Three departures for every foreign arrival
India logged 4,287 million domestic tourist visits in 2025 and 9.15 million foreign tourist arrivals.
In plain terms One number, large, and beside it the everyday things it equals, so the size can be felt rather than read.Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Portal · accessed September 2026
At our own peril
The official who runs India's inbound strategy was warning his own ministry.
“It's very easy to fall into smugness and think that our domestic market is strong, we do not need international. But that is something that we will do at our own peril.”
— Suman Billa, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Tourism, 14 September 2026
Domestic visits are up 45.6%. But the foreign half is still 16.29% below 2019, six years on from that peak.
Source · Skift, 14 September 2026