India to end boarding pass stamping at airports for international travellers from September 1

Starting September 1, 2026, Indian travelers departing from airports will no longer be required to present a physical boarding pass for immigration clearance. Instead, they will need to display an electronic boarding pass on their smartphones. This change comes after officials from the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) found that manually stamping physical boarding passes caused inconvenience and occasional errors.

While the BOI has officially communicated the decision to airport authorities, physical boarding passes will still be accepted for the time being, though they will not be stamped at immigration counters at international airports. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has also ceased stamping boarding passes during individual frisking procedures.

The BOI has initiated a pilot project to assess the feasibility of eliminating boarding pass stamping for Indian passport holders, with the intention of rolling out this measure across all Indian airports once the pilot is completed.