01 · THE TOP TEN
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. Bangladesh came a close second, then faced visa curbs from August 2024. Indians living abroad arrived 106.2 lakh times that same year.
Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Compendium 2025 · accessed September 2026
02 · THE NUMBER YOU READ
Fewer than half were foreign
You think
Twenty million foreigners visited India in 2025. That is what the arrivals headline sounds like.
Actually
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.
Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Portal · accessed September 2026
03 · SIX PRINTED YEARS
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.
- 2008
The rule. The UN tells countries to count their own nationals living abroad separately, because they stay with family, not hotels.
- 2014
Foreigners still lead. 13.11 million arrivals, of which 5.43 million were Indians. That is 41 in every 100.
- 2019
The pre-pandemic peak. 17.91 million arrivals, of which 6.98 million were Indians. That is 39 in every 100.
- 2021
The floor. The foreign half bottoms out at 1.52 million.
- 2024
The halves swap. Indians 10.62 million against foreign tourists 9.95 million. The Indian half is now the bigger one. Indians abroad overtake foreign tourists.
- 2025
The gap widens. Indians 11.07 million, up 4.26%. Foreign tourists 9.15 million, down 8.07%. The foreign count is now below its pre-pandemic peak.
Between 2019 and 2024 the Indian half of India's arrivals grew from 6.98 million to 10.62 million.
Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Portal · accessed September 2026
04 · THREE MINISTRY WORDS
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
05 · A HUNDRED ARRIVALS
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. Each square is one arrival in every hundred.
34 in every 100 of these arrivals said leisure. 33 said Indian diaspora. Medical is printed as 7.5 and drawn as 7 so the squares reach 100.
Source · Ministry of Tourism, Quarterly Tourism Snapshot, Jul-Sep 2025
06 · THE MONEY
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.
07 · WHERE THEY COME FROM
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.
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%. Darker means a larger share of India's foreign tourists in 2024, from about 2% at the palest to 18.1% at the darkest.
Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Compendium 2025 · accessed September 2026
08 · THE OTHER SCALE
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.
India logged 4,287 million domestic tourist visits in 2025 and 9.15 million foreign tourist arrivals. Indians travelling abroad outnumbered foreign tourists more than three to one.
Source · Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Data Portal · accessed September 2026
09 · THE MINISTRY'S OWN WORDS
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.
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