Issued by the SDM, Dharchula
Inner Line Permit for Adi Kailash and Om Parvat
What the permit is, who actually issues it, what you must bring — and, just as usefully, the things about it we could not verify and will not invent.
- Local Kumaon routes
- Clear trip guidance
- Driver-led travel
Quick answer
Indian citizens need an Inner Line Permit, issued by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate at Dharchula — not by the ITBP, the Ministry of Home Affairs or any tour operator. Since 2024 the District Magistrate’s office at Pithoragarh has issued them too. Bring photo ID, a photograph, a medical fitness certificate from an MBBS doctor, police verification and two mobile numbers. We could not verify a fee from any source, so we publish none — and do not claim it is free. Foreign nationals cannot use an ILP here.
Inner Line Permits were suspended on 2 July 2026 and we have not confirmed that they have resumed.
Pithoragarh district administration stopped issuing Inner Line Permits on 2 July 2026 because of continuous rainfall. On 18 August 2026 the Tawaghat-Gunji road was closed by boulder falls at Malghat and Kulagad, cutting off the Vyas Valley. District officials have indicated permits may restart in September, but we have not seen that confirmed. Do not book non-refundable travel for this route until you have spoken to the SDM Dharchula office.
Last verified by us on 22 August 2026. Full route status, the dated 2026 timeline, and the numbers to ring so you can check it yourself.
Why a permit is needed at all
This is worth getting right, because the legal basis explains everything else about how the permit behaves.
The Ministry of Home Affairs states it plainly: “The part of Uttarakhand falling between the ‘Inner-Line’ and the International Border has been declared a Protected Area.” That single sentence, in MHA Annexure VII, is the strongest document on this page and the one we would point any official at.
Gunji, Kalapani, Nabhidhang, Kuti and Jolingkong all sit beyond that line. The Vyas Valley is adjacent to a live, disputed India–China–Nepal trijunction. That is why the ITBP and SSB are stationed there, why permits are checked more than once, and why the rules change at short notice in a way they never would for a tourist town.
Who issues the permit
- Issuing authority
- The Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Dharchula — the civil district administration.
- Second counter
- The District Magistrate’s office, Pithoragarh. The dual-counter arrangement was confirmed by the then District Magistrate in February 2025 and had been running since 2024.
- Who does not issue it
- The ITBP, the SSB, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, KMVN, or any travel agent. The ITBP and SSB check permits at posts on the route; they do not issue them.
- Officeholders
- We deliberately do not print the current SDM’s or DM’s name. Both offices have changed hands more than once in the last two seasons, and a name on a web page ages badly. Ask for “the SDM’s office, Dharchula”.
If a website or an agent tells you they will “get your permit” without you producing documents in person, be sceptical. The permit attaches to you, on your identity documents.
Documents you need
The list below is what a mainstream daily reported, quoting the SDM directly at the start of the 2025 permit season. It has been consistent across seasons.
- Valid photo identity document — Aadhaar is the one named most often; voter ID or passport are also cited.
- Passport-size colour photograph.
- Medical fitness certificate from a government hospital doctor or a private MBBS doctor. Get this at home before you travel.
- Police verification — via passport, or a clearance from your local police station.
- Two mobile numbers — yours and a family member’s.
Two things some operators list that we cannot confirm. A number of tour operator pages also require a notarised affidavit or indemnity bond on stamp paper, and address proof. We could not find either requirement in any government source or mainstream news report. We are not saying they are wrong — an operator may be adding their own conditions, or the counter may ask for them in a given season. We are saying that as far as we can establish, this is reported by some operators, not confirmed. Ask the SDM Dharchula office before you pay a notary.
The fee: we could not verify one, so we will not invent one
We could not find an Inner Line Permit fee for this route from any government source, any mainstream news report, or any operator page we checked.
So we are not going to publish a figure. And we are equally not going to tell you the permit is free, because that is just as unverified and would be just as misleading. Both would be guesses dressed up as information.
Ask the SDM Dharchula office directly, or the DM’s office at Pithoragarh, and ask them at the same time whether there is any separate charge on the online system. If a site or an agent quotes you a permit fee with confidence, ask them where the figure comes from — we would genuinely like to know.
The same caution applies to processing time. Operator sources say one to three days; the district has described issuance as a same-day, single-window counter process in season. We rate both as low to medium confidence and volatile. Do not build a tight itinerary around either.
Applying online: two portal addresses, one we can corroborate
This is where we can be more useful than almost anyone else writing about this permit, because the honest answer is messy.
pass.pithoragarh.online — the one we can corroborate
Amar Ujala printed this address in its report on the opening of the 2025 permit counter,
alongside the then SDM’s name. Zee News named the same address for the 2026 season, with
the SDM Dharchula as the offline route. The site is live, and its page title reads
“Innerline Pass — District Administration Pithoragarh Uttarakhand”,
with a terms page at /tnc. We rate it medium to high confidence
that this is the district’s real portal.
But use your head before you upload anything. It sits on a
.online domain, not .gov.in or .nic.in. That is not
unprecedented — Chamoli district’s ILP portal is pass.chamoli.org, and
that one is confirmed by government news — but a non-government domain that handles
Aadhaar numbers, photographs and medical certificates is exactly the profile a phishing clone
would imitate.
So: navigate to it from the district administration’s own site, or confirm the address with the SDM’s office by phone, before you enter a single document. Do not click a link in a WhatsApp forward, and do not click ours blindly either. We have listed it in the sources at the foot of this page rather than as a big friendly button, on purpose.
Note also that a related domain, www.pithoragarh.online, served us pure travel
marketing — a promotional travel book, traveller stories and photo galleries —
under an “Inner Line Pass Portal” header, with no forms, no fees and no authority
details. That mixture of official-looking branding and commercial content is itself a reason
for care.
ilppithoragarh.uk.gov.in — cited, but we could not load it
ETV Bharat named this address as the online portal in its 2026 season preview.
It would not resolve for us on repeated attempts. It may be a newer official
portal that is seasonally offline, or it may be a reporting error. We are not presenting it as
a working link, and you should not assume it is one. If it does come up during the season it
ought to displace the .online address, because it is a genuine government
domain.
And the gap that explains the whole mess
pithoragarh.nic.in, the district’s actual official website, carries no Inner Line Permit page at all — no permit section, no Adi Kailash permit page, no e-service link that we could find. The district moved ILP issuance online around February 2025, and the official site still does not document it.
That gap is precisely why unofficial “permit help” sites rank for this query, and why a traveller trying to do the right thing ends up on a page with a WhatsApp button and no sources. We would much rather the district filled it in and made this page redundant.
Foreign nationals, OCI cardholders and PIOs
Read this carefully, because the answer is not the one most travel pages give.
Adi Kailash and Om Parvat lie inside a Protected Area under the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order, 1958. Indian citizens obtain an Inner Line Permit from SDM Dharchula. Foreign nationals cannot use that route — they require a Protected Area Permit, which is granted centrally and, in practice, is very rarely issued for this valley.
- Foreign tourists must generally travel in organised groups of four or more, sponsored by a recognised travel agency in India, with a pre-drawn itinerary.
- Citizens of Afghanistan, China and Pakistan shall not be issued a special permit without the prior approval of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
- Applications for individual foreign travellers require prior MHA clearance.
- The MHA annexure names Nanda Devi Sanctuary, Niti Ghati, Kalindi Khal and the Milam Glacier area as places foreign groups may visit. It does not name Gunji, Nabhidhang, Kalapani or Jolingkong as open to foreign tourists.
OCI cardholders and PIOs: we found no source either way, and we are telling you that rather than guessing.
Our position is that OCI cardholders and Persons of Indian Origin should assume they are treated as foreign nationals for this area unless the district administration says otherwise. But we want to be straight with you: we searched for a ruling on OCI status for the Vyas Valley specifically and found nothing in either direction. It is an open question, not a settled one. Write to the District Magistrate, Pithoragarh, and get the answer in writing before you commit to anything.
And whoever you are: do not book travel on the assumption that a Protected Area Permit will be granted. We will not take a booking on that assumption either.
The two documents to read are MHA Annexure VII and the MHA FAQs on Protected Area and Restricted Area Permits. We have not seen any claim that foreigners are “banned outright” supported by a government document, so we do not make it — the accurate statement is that a different and much heavier permit applies, and it is rarely granted here.
Rules at the counter — these are 2025 figures and they move
The following were documented for the 2025 season. We are labelling them by year deliberately, because this is the category of rule that changes without announcement. Do not treat any of it as a guarantee for your season.
| Rule, 2025 season | What it meant | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Cap of 500 permits per day | Issuance was rate-limited at the counter. | High confidence for 2025. Unknown for 2026 — verify. |
| 4:00 PM cut-off | No traveller was permitted onward into the Vyas Valley after 4 PM. In practice this decides what time you must leave Dharchula. | High confidence for 2025. Volatile. |
| Timed traffic schedule, Dharchula to Tawaghat | Vehicle movement on that stretch was controlled by a timed schedule, in force from 1 May 2025. This is the real, documented traffic restriction — not the “private vehicles banned” claim that circulates. | High confidence for 2025. Reissued each season. |
| Single-window issuance | Permits described as issued through a single window. | Medium confidence. Volatile. |
Where your permit gets checked
Gunji and Kalapani are the two points consistently named as permit-check locations. Gunji hosts year-round posts of the SSB, the ITBP and GREF/BRO. Kalapani has been under ITBP control since 1979.
We could not find an official list naming every checkpost on this route, so we are not publishing an itemised list as fact. What we will tell you is what travellers consistently report: expect permit checks at multiple points, keep the permit and your photo ID accessible rather than buried in a bag, and carry more than one copy. Being asked twice is normal here, not a sign that something is wrong.
What is stable and what is not
If you take one thing from this page, take this table. It is the difference between a rule you can plan around and a rule you must re-check the week you travel.
| Rule | Stability |
|---|---|
| An ILP is required to enter the Vyas Valley | Stable |
| SDM Dharchula is the issuing authority | Stable |
| The area is a Protected Area under the 1958 Order; foreigners need a PAP | Stable — statutory |
| Medical fitness certificate from an MBBS doctor | Stable across every season observed |
| Aadhaar or photo ID, plus photograph | Stable |
| Police verification requirement | Mostly stable |
| ITBP and SSB presence at Gunji and Kalapani | Stable |
| Daily permit cap (500 per day in 2025) | Volatile — changes yearly |
| 4 PM onward-travel cut-off | Volatile |
| Dharchula to Tawaghat timed traffic schedule | Volatile — reissued each season |
| Season opening and closing dates | Volatile — changes every year |
| Whether ILPs are being issued at all right now | Highly volatile — see our route status page |
| The online portal address | Volatile and contested — verify before every use |
| Names of the SDM and DM | Volatile — we do not print them |
| The ILP fee | Unknown — we never publish a number |
Practical advice we would give a friend
- Get the medical certificate at home, weeks ahead. It is the item most likely to derail a permit application on the day.
- Carry physical photocopies of everything, plus the originals. Mobile signal is unreliable from Dharchula upward and absent for long stretches, so a document that lives only in your phone’s cloud storage is a document you may not have.
- Reach Dharchula the night before you need the permit, not the same morning, and account for the 4 PM onward cut-off in your day plan.
- Ask the counter directly about the fee, the daily cap and the cut-off for your season, and about any separate online charge. Then, if you would, tell us what they said — we will publish it with a date and credit the correction.
- If any of your group are over 65, or have a heart, lung or blood-pressure condition, settle that with your own doctor first. See the guide to travelling with elders. We are a taxi operator and we do not give medical advice.
Once the permit question is settled, the rest is logistics: the drive from Kathgodam, the vehicle for the section beyond Dharchula, when to go, and what to take. If you would rather hand the whole thing to the state corporation, our KMVN comparison sets out where that is the better choice.
Ask us what the counter is asking for this season
We are on this road and we make these calls anyway. Tell us your dates and we will tell you what we last heard from Dharchula, what documents to prepare, and what we could not confirm. We will not obtain the permit for you, and nobody honest will.
Common questions
Who issues the Inner Line Permit for Adi Kailash?
The Sub-Divisional Magistrate at Dharchula. Since 2024 the District Magistrate’s office at Pithoragarh has also issued them, so there are two counters. Not the ITBP, not the MHA, not the Ministry of Defence and not a travel agent — for Indian citizens this is a civil district administration decision.
What documents are needed for the Adi Kailash permit?
Valid photo ID (Aadhaar is named most often, also voter ID or passport), a passport-size colour photograph, a medical fitness certificate from a government hospital doctor or private MBBS doctor, police verification, and two mobile numbers — yours and a family member’s.
How much does the Adi Kailash Inner Line Permit cost?
We could not verify a fee from any government source, any mainstream news report, or any operator page we checked, so we do not publish a figure. We also do not claim the permit is free, because that is equally unverified. Ask the SDM Dharchula office directly.
Is there an official website to apply for the Adi Kailash ILP?
pass.pithoragarh.online is corroborated by Amar Ujala and Zee News and is live, but it sits on a .online domain rather than a government one, so navigate to it from the district site or confirm it by phone first. A second address cited by ETV Bharat, ilppithoragarh.uk.gov.in, would not resolve for us. The district’s own site, pithoragarh.nic.in, carries no ILP page at all.
Can foreigners visit Adi Kailash and Om Parvat?
Not on an Inner Line Permit. The area is a Protected Area under the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order, 1958, so a foreign national needs a Protected Area Permit, granted centrally and in practice very rarely issued for this valley. Groups of four or more, sponsored by a recognised Indian agency, are the general rule; individuals need prior MHA clearance.
Do OCI cardholders need an ILP or a PAP for Adi Kailash?
We found no source either way, and we would rather say so than guess. Our advice is that OCI cardholders and PIOs should assume they are treated as foreign nationals unless the district administration says otherwise, and should write to the District Magistrate at Pithoragarh for an answer in writing before booking anything.
Is there a limit on how many permits are issued each day?
In 2025 there was a cap of 500 permits per day, along with a 4 PM cut-off after which no traveller was permitted onward into the Vyas Valley. Both are volatile season to season and we have not confirmed them for the current season. Re-check at the counter.
Where is the permit checked on the route?
Gunji and Kalapani are the points consistently named. Gunji hosts year-round SSB, ITBP and GREF/BRO posts, and Kalapani has been under ITBP control since 1979. We could not find an official list of every checkpost, so expect checks at multiple points and carry spare copies.
Can a tour operator get the permit for me?
No. The permit is issued to you personally on your own identity documents. An operator can tell you what to bring and where to go, and a good one will. Treat any claim to obtain it on your behalf without your documents as a warning sign.
Sources and further reading
Where this page states a fact about roads, permits or public information, these are the sources it relies on. Anything we could not verify, we have said so.
- Ministry of Home Affairs - Protected and Restricted Areas, Annexure VII (the Uttarakhand Protected Area declaration)
- Ministry of Home Affairs - FAQs on Protected Area and Restricted Area Permits
- Amar Ujala - Inner Line Permits for Adi Kailash from today, 29 April 2025 (documents, 500-a-day cap, 4 PM cut-off, portal address)
- Northern Gazette - Inner Line Permits to be issued from Pithoragarh also, 20 February 2025
- newsonair.gov.in - Inner Line Permit process goes digital in Chamoli (the pass.chamoli.org precedent)
- Innerline Pass portal, District Administration Pithoragarh - verify before entering documents
- Pithoragarh district administration
- Gunji, Uttarakhand - Wikipedia (SSB, ITBP and GREF posts)
- Kalapani territory - Wikipedia (ITBP control since 1979)