India’s New Policy: The Immigration and Foreigners Bill, 2025
The Immigration and Foreigners Bill, introduced on 11 March 2025, represents a major step forward in transforming India’s immigration ecosystem. With the establishment of the National Immigration Authority (NIA) and powered by a tech-driven Integrated Immigration Management System, the bill aims to:
- Streamline immigration procedures
- Align with India’s economic and mobility priorities
- Strengthen compliance, security, and cross-border governance
By improving visa processing, introducing digital tracking, and enabling cross-departmental coordination, the bill strengthens India’s position as a secure and business-friendly destination and directly supports a travel risk management-enabled ecosystem.
What is Travel Risk Management?
Travel risk management secures and guarantees safe travel for employees on official assignments. It comprehensively identifies potential risks; analyse and assesses options; and thereafter recommends measures to mitigate risks. Travel Risk Management protects organizations’ key stakeholders from top executives to employees by reducing operational interruption and enhancing crisis management capabilities. For organisations, it reflects their duty of care and legal responsibility to safeguard employees, contractors, and partners during travel.
In the Indian context, this need has been amplified by growing foreign investments, outbound assignments, and the complexity of operating in diverse regulatory environments. Fortunately, India’s policy landscape is now aligning with this reality.
Key Reforms in the Bill Enhancing Travel Risk Management
Several forward-looking features of the bill bolster travel risk management practices:
- New visa categories such as Business Plus, Startup, Skilled Talent, Investor, Transit, and Digital Nomad offer predictability and legal clarity. These reforms enhance talent mobility while reducing operational friction.
- Centralised Foreign National Database makes it mandatory for foreigners staying beyond 180 days to register digitally through National Foreigner Registry (NFR). This aids institutional compliance and enhances travel data governance.
- Single-window clearance mechanisms streamline all immigration functions, expediting market entry and reducing delay risks for time-sensitive projects.
- Enhanced corporate oversight improves planning for mobility, security, and contingency response across Indian states.
Together, these provisions enable more resilient, transparent, and responsive travel risk management protocols for enterprises operating in or with India.
The Way Forward
India’s evolving regulatory environment, particularly through the Immigration and Foreigners Bill, 2025, has created a robust policy architecture to support secure mobility. For global enterprises, this means a stronger foundation for cross-border assignments, faster project ramp-up, and reduced legal exposure.
As risks continue to grow in complexity and speed, investing in agile, tech-enabled travel risk management strategies is not optional, it is mission-critical. Whether you’re managing a distributed workforce or planning executive travel, having the right systems and policy awareness in place is your first line of defence.
Partner with MitKat
MitKat Advisory stands at the forefront of enterprise risk intelligence, supporting organisations in developing resilient and compliant travel risk management strategies. Through tailored risk assessments, scenario planning, and the use of cutting-edge platforms like datasurfr, we help clients ensure seamless travel operations. Our expert team delivers timely, credible intelligence and curated response plans that keep your global workforce protected and informed.