By VisaRelay · Reviewed
The quick answer
Applications made in India are decided by the New Delhi Visa Office, which publishes its decisions as a spreadsheet on the Embassy website. Search it with your 8-digit AVATS application number. VisaRelay offers a free search of the New Delhi decisions it has recorded. Confirm any result on the official Embassy source.
Check my decision for freeWhich office decides an application made in India?
Applications made in India are handled by the New Delhi Visa Office, and its published decisions list is the source VisaRelay searches. The office states that it processes student applications from people resident in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or the Maldives, so the same list answers all five. What matters is where you were resident when you applied, not which passport you hold.
Some categories are processed in Dublin instead, and the Embassy's processing-times page carries a Dublin-based processing section explaining which. Check your application correspondence if you are not certain which office holds your application. VisaRelay covers published New Delhi decisions only. It does not search Dublin, London, Abu Dhabi or Beijing decisions, so a number decided elsewhere will never appear.
Find the right application number
Use the 8-digit AVATS application number printed on your visa application summary. Copy all eight digits, including any leading zero. If an agency or consultancy applied on your behalf, ask them to point out that number on the summary.
A passport number, a VFS appointment reference or a courier tracking code is a different number and will not match. You do not need to upload a passport or give your date of birth to run a free check.
Check the published decision in three steps
Open the free checker
Go to the VisaRelay homepage and confirm that New Delhi is the office handling your application.
Enter your AVATS number
Type the eight digits and choose Check my decision. A free check needs no account, email address or payment.
Read the answer and its source
If a decision is found, read the result and follow the official Embassy link to confirm it. Note the list date shown beside the checker.
Why a decision can take longer than the stated time
The Embassy publishes processing times as usual timeframes rather than guarantees, and counts them in working days from the date an application is received. It asks applicants not to contact the office for status updates.
For applications made in India, the Embassy states that biometric clearance is required before a decision can be made, and that delays in biometric clearance are outside its control. That is one reason an application can sit past the published time with nothing visible happening.
What if your application number is not found?
It means the source searched has no published match for that number. It does not establish an approval, a refusal, or the stage your application has reached inside the visa office. Check the number, the responsible office and the date of the list before drawing any conclusion.
You can return to the official list later or set up an optional VisaRelay email alert. The free check stays available either way. An alert watches for publication. It cannot make the Embassy decide sooner.
A decision and passport return are separate updates
A published decision does not tell you where your passport is or when it will come back. Follow the return instructions from the office or service that received your documents, and use VFS tracking for the document leg if you applied through a VFS centre.
Sources and scope
This guide explains how to read published information. VisaRelay is independent of the Embassy, Irish Immigration Service and VFS Global. Official instructions and your decision correspondence take precedence. Source guidance was checked on the review date above.