Walk-ins stopped at Indian Consulate in Dubai; new booking portal launched

Getting a passport, visa or attestation done has turned into a moving target for the UAE's 4.5 million-strong Indian expat community, and for other UAE residents hoping to travel to India, with frequent changes in rules as the Indian missions navigate a legal deadlock over who should be running these services — albeit at less cost, for now, than the outsourced system it replaced. Since July 1, 2026, the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Indian Consulate in Dubai have been running these services directly from their own premises for the first time in 17 years, after their outsourcing partners’ contracts ended and court cases in India held up the new single-window system of Indian Consular Application Centre that was meant to replace them. The result has been tents in courtyards, token systems, cash-only counters, a brand-new booking portal and a public warning against agents cashing in on the confusion. Here is a Q&A breaking down everything Indian expats in the UAE need to know right now. Why now Q: Why is this happening at all? A: For 17 years, Indian passport, visa and attestation services in the UAE were run by outsourced agencies — Empost from 2009, then BLS International for passport and visa work from 2011, and SGIVS Global (formerly IVS Global) for attestation from 2013. Their contracts expired on June 30, 2026. A new operator, Alhind Tours and Travels LLC, had been chosen to run a unified system of Indian Consular Application Centres (ICACs) from July 1, but its launch was delayed by legal challenges in India. With no outsourced partner in place, the Embassy and Consulate stepped in to run services themselves. Q: How long has this stopgap been running? A: BLS and SGIVS stopped accepting new applications after June 25, and it has now been over two weeks since the outsourced system that handled collection, dispatch and attestation processing came to a halt.