The short answer on india trip cost: for most first-time visitors, two weeks on the ground works out between roughly ₹80,000 and ₹500,000 per person, about USD 840 to 5,260, GBP 625 to 3,905, or EUR 730 to 4,545, before international flights. The band is wide because two people can take the same route in the same fortnight and one spends four times what the other does.
India is not one price, and where you land is mostly a set of choices you make. This guide prices the parts of a trip and gives a worked two-week budget you can adjust. Our first-timer's roadmap to planning a trip to India covers the route before the money.
In this guide: why India is cheap; the three styles; daily budgets; flights; visas; hotels; transport; food; guides and entries; a two-week budget three ways; cash and tipping; common mistakes; seasonal pricing; FAQs.
Why is India cheaper than it looks from home?
India is inexpensive for most Western visitors because your currency goes a long way against the rupee, especially for anything involving local labour. A meal cooked to order, an hour in a taxi or a night in a guesthouse costs a fraction of the European or North American equivalent.
Every figure here uses rates checked in mid-September 2026 on x-rates: about ₹95 to one US dollar, ₹128 to one pound and ₹110 to one euro. Rates move, so check them near your dates.
One term to learn: Indians count large sums in lakhs, one lakh being one hundred thousand, written 1,00,000. A hotel quoting "two lakh for the trip" means ₹200,000, roughly USD 2,105, GBP 1,565 or EUR 1,820.
What are the three main styles, and what does each buy?
There are three broad ways to travel India. Think in styles rather than star ratings.
Simple and independent. Homestays, guesthouses and the odd hostel, trains booked yourself, meals in local restaurants, auto-rickshaws to get around. An auto-rickshaw is a three-wheeled open taxi, known locally as an auto. Roughly ₹2,500 to ₹6,000 per person per day, about USD 26 to 63, GBP 20 to 47, or EUR 23 to 55. Best for confident, flexible travellers with time.
Comfortable and private. Boutique and heritage hotels, a private air-conditioned car with driver on the road days, the occasional specialist guide. Roughly ₹10,000 to ₹18,000 per person per day for two sharing, about USD 105 to 190, GBP 78 to 141, or EUR 91 to 164. The safe default for a first visit.
Luxury. Palace hotels, top private guides, flights rather than drives between regions. From ₹30,000 per person per day, about USD 316, GBP 235, or EUR 273, with no real ceiling. Best on a shorter trip where seamless service is the point.
How much should you budget per day on the ground?
Per person, excluding your international flight and visa, plan on roughly ₹3,000 to ₹4,000 a day at the simple end, about USD 32 to 42, GBP 23 to 31, or EUR 27 to 36. The middle sits around ₹10,000 to ₹16,000, about USD 105 to 168, GBP 78 to 125, or EUR 91 to 145. Luxury begins near ₹30,000, about USD 316.
But India does not spend evenly. A houseboat night or a palace room can cost more than the three days around it combined. Budget by the trip, not the day.
What do international flights cost to reach India?
Return economy flights are usually the largest single line, and sit outside the daily figures above. What you pay depends far more on your dates and how early you book than on which city you fly into. These are fare-aggregator averages checked in September 2026: the shape of the market, not a quotation.
- United Kingdom. London to Delhi return in economy typically runs GBP 400 to 750, roughly ₹51,000 to ₹96,000, averaging GBP 505 across the year, with deals from about GBP 325.
- Continental Europe. Frankfurt to Delhi return sits between EUR 590 and 785, about ₹65,000 to ₹86,000, averaging near EUR 670, cheapest around EUR 515. Gulf carriers routing via Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi are often the best value.
- North America. New York to Delhi return runs roughly USD 750 to 1,200, about ₹71,000 to ₹114,000, averaging USD 910 over the past year, with the lowest fares near USD 740.
- Australia and New Zealand. Fares are typically the steepest and vary widely by routing, so price them early.
December is consistently the dearest month, averaging about GBP 709 from London and USD 1,197 from New York, while September is cheapest. Demand peaks from December to February, so book three to five months ahead for that window. If your route crosses the country, an open-jaw ticket saves a day of backtracking for little more than a return.
What is the visa, and what are the other fixed costs before you fly?
The Indian electronic tourist visa is a small fixed cost, but the price depends on both its length and your nationality, and this is where most articles go wrong. On the fee schedule published on the Government of India's e-visa portal and dated 8 September 2026, the 30-day e-tourist visa costs USD 25 from July to March and USD 10 from April to June, about ₹2,375 and ₹950. The one-year visa is USD 40, about ₹3,800, for every nationality listed.
The five-year visa is the one to watch, because it is priced by reciprocity: USD 160 for United States citizens, about ₹15,200; USD 200 for Irish, French, Dutch, German, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand citizens, about ₹19,000; and USD 484 for British citizens, about ₹46,000. A bank charge of roughly 3 per cent is added. These figures changed in mid-2026, so confirm the schedule for your own passport on the official portal, and see our India tourist visa walkthrough for the process.
The other pre-departure costs are modest but real. Buy travel insurance properly rather than by price alone. Vaccination and anti-malarial advice varies by nationality, region and season and should come from a travel clinic, not an article. On data, a local Indian prepaid SIM is cheaper at roughly ₹350 to ₹600, about USD 4 to 6, but needs your passport and a local address and can take 12 to 48 hours to activate; a travel eSIM bought before you fly costs more per gigabyte, commonly USD 2.50 to 8.50 for one to three gigabytes, but works the moment you land. Together these add a few hundred that first-timers forget.
Travellers walking past small shops on an Indian street.
What do hotels cost across the range?
Accommodation is the biggest lever in the budget. These are indicative rates for a double room per night, which move sharply with season and demand.
- Simple: roughly ₹1,000 to ₹3,000, about USD 10 to 32, GBP 8 to 23, or EUR 9 to 27, for a clean guesthouse, homestay or hostel private room.
- Comfortable: roughly ₹6,000 to ₹20,000, about USD 63 to 210, GBP 47 to 156, or EUR 55 to 182, for a boutique hotel or heritage haveli. A haveli is a traditional mansion built around a courtyard, many now small hotels.
- Luxury: roughly ₹25,000 upward, about USD 263, GBP 195 or EUR 227 and well beyond, for palace hotels and top international names.
National averages sit far below these, because they include the domestic market: a three-star room across India averages ₹2,400, about USD 25. The bands above reflect what visitors pay in Jaipur, Udaipur, Kochi and similar cities.
One note on tax. Following the 56th GST Council meeting, and as confirmed by the Government of India's press bureau, rooms at ₹7,500 a night or below, about USD 79, carry 5 per cent GST, India's goods and services tax, and rooms above that 18 per cent, effective 22 September 2025. Check whether a quoted rate includes tax, because on a comfortable room the difference is not trivial.
How do you get around, and what does it cost?
Most first trips mix a private car with driver, the occasional train, and a domestic flight or two for the long hops.
Private car and driver
This is the normal way visitors cover distance in India, and not a luxury in the chauffeur sense. It is an air-conditioned sedan or small SUV with a professional driver who handles the traffic, waits while you are inside a fort, and knows where to stop for lunch.
Published touring tariffs work on a minimum of about 250 kilometres, roughly 155 miles, a day. On that basis a sedan runs about ₹2,750 to ₹4,000 a day, around USD 29 to 42, GBP 21 to 31, or EUR 25 to 36, an SUV such as a Toyota Innova about ₹4,400 to ₹5,900, around USD 46 to 62, and a premium SUV about ₹6,500 to ₹8,250, around USD 68 to 87, shared across the car. Tolls, parking and 18 per cent GST sit on top, and peak season from October to March commonly adds 20 to 30 per cent, so ask for an all-in figure in writing.
Trains
Indian trains are excellent value and often the nicest way to travel a leg. The classes worth knowing are AC chair car, a seated air-conditioned carriage for daytime runs, and AC 2-tier and AC 3-tier, curtained or open air-conditioned sleeping berths.
On a typical tourist leg such as Delhi to Udaipur, about 716 kilometres or 445 miles in twelve to fifteen hours, AC 3-tier costs around ₹1,075 and AC 2-tier around ₹1,600, about USD 11 to 17. Delhi to Varanasi prices similarly, with the Vande Bharat chair car at ₹1,835, around USD 19, for an eight-hour daytime run, while Mumbai to Delhi in AC 2-tier reaches ₹3,500, about USD 37. Budget ₹1,000 to ₹3,500 per long leg, about USD 11 to 37, GBP 8 to 27, or EUR 9 to 32. Popular trains sell out weeks ahead, so book early through the official Indian Railways reservation system.
Domestic flights
For the big jumps, a flight saves a day or more. Short and medium routes such as Mumbai to Goa or Delhi to Udaipur start at ₹3,500 to ₹7,500 one way, about USD 37 to 79. Long north to south hops such as Delhi to Kochi average ₹10,000 to ₹11,000, about USD 105 to 116. Fares are cheaper booked ahead with hand baggage only.
Local transport
Within towns you will use auto-rickshaws or app-based cabs. A short auto ride is often ₹50 to ₹300, about USD 0.50 to 3. Metered taxis start around ₹90, about USD 1, then run about ₹25 a kilometre. Agree the fare first if the meter is off.
What does food cost, and can you eat well cheaply?
Food is where India is most generous with your money, and the cheap end is frequently the delicious end. A South Indian breakfast, or a plate at a dhaba, a roadside eatery serving simple cooked food to drivers, might run ₹100 to ₹250, about USD 1 to 3. A thali, a round platter of rice, breads, several vegetable dishes, dal and pickle that amounts to a whole regional meal on one plate, often costs ₹150 to ₹400, about USD 2 to 4.
A three-course dinner for two at a mid-range restaurant averages about ₹1,000 nationally, per Numbeo's September 2026 figures for India, ranging from ₹650 to ₹3,000. In practice a good sit-down dinner in a tourist city lands around ₹500 to ₹1,500 a head, about USD 5 to 16, GBP 4 to 12, or EUR 5 to 14, and a tasting menu in a top hotel dining room reaches ₹3,000 or more, about USD 32. Bottled or filtered water only, and eat where there is turnover.
What do guides, entries and experiences add?
Experiences are the part of the budget most worth spending on, and still modest by home standards.
A licensed city guide commonly costs about ₹1,500 for a half day and ₹2,500 for a full day, about USD 16 and USD 26, for a small party rather than per person. A specialist experience such as a food walk or cooking class typically runs ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 per person, about USD 21 to 53, GBP 16 to 39, or EUR 18 to 45. In my experience this is the difference between seeing a place and understanding it.
Monument entry fees for foreign visitors are set by the Archaeological Survey of India and are lower than most people expect. Ordinary ticketed monuments cost about ₹300, around USD 3, and UNESCO World Heritage sites such as Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri ₹600 to ₹650, around USD 6 to 7. The Taj Mahal is the outlier at ₹1,100, about USD 12, plus ₹200 for the main mausoleum, taking it to ₹1,300, about USD 14. Those rates are on the official Taj Mahal ticketing page, which also notes the Taj closes on Fridays and under-15s enter free.
A private overnight houseboat in Kerala for two, all meals included, runs about ₹10,000 to ₹12,500 deluxe and up to ₹25,000 luxury off-season, about USD 105 to 263. Weekends, festivals and the 20 December to 5 January fortnight can roughly double that. Our two-week South India itinerary shows where a houseboat night earns its place.
What does a two-week India trip cost, three ways?
The same fortnight three ways, per person, excluding international flights, two sharing a room.
- Simple and independent. Guesthouses, trains and shared cars, eating local, the odd guide. Roughly ₹45,000 to ₹85,000 per person, about USD 475 to 895, GBP 350 to 665, or EUR 410 to 775.
- Comfortable and private. Boutique and heritage hotels, a private car and driver, a houseboat night, several guides. Roughly ₹150,000 to ₹250,000 per person, about USD 1,580 to 2,630, GBP 1,170 to 1,955, or EUR 1,365 to 2,275. The band most first-time visitors settle into.
- Luxury. Palace hotels, top guides, flights between regions, fine dining throughout. Roughly ₹400,000 upward per person, about USD 4,210, GBP 3,125 or EUR 3,635.
Add your international flight on top. The largest variable is not the country, it is where you choose to sleep. The temples, the backwaters and the mountains are identical whichever room you return to at night.
Where does the money actually go?
On a comfortable private trip, accommodation is usually the largest slice, often close to half the on-the-ground cost, then transport, then experiences and guiding, with food a surprisingly small share.
So to spend less without the trip feeling thinner, trade down on rooms rather than on time or guiding. Swapping two palace nights for two heritage havelis saves more than cutting a guide who would have brought a city to life.
People walking between buildings in an Indian city lane.
How much cash should you carry, and how does tipping work?
Cards and mobile payments work smoothly in hotels, restaurants and city shops, but still carry rupee cash for drivers, temples, markets, autos and rural stops.
Be strategic rather than frequent about withdrawals. Indian ATMs typically cap foreign cards at ₹10,000 to ₹20,000 per transaction, about USD 105 to 210, and each withdrawal carries a flat charge of ₹150 to ₹300, about USD 2 to 3, on top of your bank's foreign transaction and conversion fees of 1 to 3 per cent. Taking the maximum a few times beats small amounts often. Use ATMs attached to bank branches.
Tipping is customary rather than compulsory, and published guidance varies, so treat these as starting points. A driver who has looked after you well might receive ₹300 to ₹1,000 per day, about USD 3 to 11, for the car rather than per passenger. A licensed guide for a full day is often thanked with ₹500 to ₹1,000, about USD 5 to 11. Porters usually get ₹50 to ₹100 a bag, about USD 0.50 to 1, and housekeeping a similar amount per room per night. In restaurants, 5 to 10 per cent is normal where no service charge is on the bill, and a service charge is not the same as government tax, so read the bill first.
What do first-time visitors get wrong about budgeting?
- Pricing India off backpacker figures, then being surprised when a private, comfortable trip costs several times that. Both numbers are true; they describe different trips.
- Forgetting the fixed extras: insurance, a travel-clinic visit, the visa, data and airport transfers. Individually small, together a few hundred in your currency.
- Assuming the five-year visa costs the same for everyone. For a British passport it is USD 484, three times what an American pays for the same document.
- Underestimating the international flight, often the biggest single cost and the one most sensitive to how early you book.
- Overpacking the route to feel efficient, which quietly raises cost through extra hotels and longer drives while making the trip more tiring.
When does India cost more, and when less?
Timing moves the price noticeably. The peak season of roughly December to March brings the best weather and the highest room rates, car tariffs and flight fares; car hire alone commonly rises 20 to 30 per cent from October to March. The shoulder months of October, November and early April cost less and still travel well. Our month-by-month guide to the best time to visit India sets weather against price.
The monsoon and high summer, broadly June to September, are cheapest, particularly in Kerala. Kerala Tourism notes that Karkidakam, the last month of the Malayalam calendar, falling in July or August, is "considered most ideal for undergoing Ayurveda based body rejuvenation therapies", because the body is held to be most receptive to treatment in the rains. The trade is heat and rain that suits some regions far better than others. If budget matters more than perfect weather, travelling off-season is the largest saving after your choice of hotel.
Is a tailored trip more expensive than doing it yourself?
Not necessarily, and often less than people expect. A well-arranged private trip is not a fixed package with a markup; it is your route, your pace and your choice of rooms, with the logistics, drivers, guides and bookings handled. You pay for coordination and access, not a tour bus. Our comparison of a custom India trip against a fixed package lays the trade-offs out side by side.
It earns its cost in what is hard to price from abroad: a driver who is genuinely good, a guide who opens a place up, and a plan that puts you in the right city on the right morning.
Frequently asked questions
Is India an expensive country to travel in?
No. India is one of the better-value long-haul destinations for most Western visitors. Your international flight is often the largest single cost, and after that your choice of accommodation sets the level.
How much money do I need for two weeks in India?
For a comfortable private trip in boutique and heritage hotels, budget roughly ₹150,000 to ₹250,000 per person on the ground, about USD 1,580 to 2,630, GBP 1,170 to 1,955, or EUR 1,365 to 2,275, plus your flight. Travelling simply cuts that to a third; luxury multiplies it. Planning ranges, not quotations.
How much does an Indian tourist visa cost?
On the official fee schedule dated 8 September 2026, the 30-day e-tourist visa is USD 25 from July to March and USD 10 from April to June, and the one-year visa USD 40. The five-year visa is priced by nationality: USD 160 for Americans, USD 200 for most European, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports, and USD 484 for British ones, plus about 3 per cent bank charge. Confirm the figure for your passport on the official portal.
How much cash should I bring to India?
Bring little foreign cash and withdraw rupees from bank ATMs as you go. Take ₹10,000 to ₹20,000 at a time, about USD 105 to 210, rather than small amounts often, because each withdrawal carries a flat fee of roughly ₹150 to ₹300 plus your bank's charges. Cards cover hotels, restaurants and shops.
Are flights or the trip itself the bigger cost?
For an independent or simple trip, the flight is usually the biggest single line by some margin. For a comfortable or luxury trip, the on-the-ground cost overtakes it. Either way, book the flight early: it is the cost most sensitive to timing.
Do I need to tip in India, and how much?
Tipping is customary rather than required, and guidance varies. As a starting point: ₹300 to ₹1,000 a day for a good driver, about USD 3 to 11, for the car not per passenger; ₹500 to ₹1,000 for a full-day guide; ₹50 to ₹100 a bag for porters; 5 to 10 per cent in restaurants where no service charge is included.
What is the cheapest time of year to visit India?
The monsoon and summer months, broadly June to September, with lower room rates, car tariffs and flight fares. September is typically the cheapest month for flights from both London and New York, and Kerala travels well in the rains. The trade-off is heat and humidity, so pair the timing with the right part of the country.
Planning a trip that is worth what you spend
A good india trip cost is not about spending as little as possible. It is about putting the money where it changes the trip. Get the visa right for your passport, book the flight early, be honest about which style you want, then spend the difference on guiding rather than thread count.
I design private, personalised India journeys for visitors who want depth rather than a checklist. If you would like your trip shaped and priced around your dates, pace and budget, Plan my India trip.