How to start a homestay business in India

The Ministry of Tourism's NIDHI register calls a homestay a room for rent in a house or flat where the owner lives, with meals, and a bed and breakfast a place that gives a room and breakfast. Its scheme for classifying them draws the line by who lives there:

• An Incredible India Homestay Establishment: the owner and family live in the house and let between 1 and 6 rooms, 12 beds at most.
• An Incredible India Bed & Breakfast Establishment: the owner doesn't live there, but an agent or operator chosen by the owner does, to look after the guests. Again 1 to 6 rooms, 12 beds at most.

Both run on a bed and breakfast basis: you say which breakfast you serve, show what you charge, and tell guests in advance.

States draw the lines their own way. Himachal Pradesh's Home Stay Rules, 2025 don't require the owner to live in the house. Kerala's scheme requires it and doesn't consider leased or rented houses. Goa's policy covers 2 to 6 rooms.

The Ministry of Tourism classifies homestays only in states and union territories that have no scheme of their own. Where your state has one, its rules decide, and in some states registering is the law, not a choice:

• Himachal Pradesh: no one may run a homestay unless it is registered under the state's Home Stay Rules, 2025.
• Kerala: the Department of Tourism says classification of homestays is mandatory, and anyone who wants to start one has to apply online.
• Uttarakhand: homestays and bed and breakfasts register with the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board on its homestay portal.
• Goa: homestays and bed and breakfasts register with the Department of Tourism under the Goa Registration of Tourist Trade Act, 1982.
• Delhi: the Department of Tourism runs a Bed and Breakfast scheme under its own act and rules.

If your state isn't here, look on its tourism department's website for a homestay or bed and breakfast scheme before anything else. The steps for each of these states, and for the Ministry's scheme, are in the guide on registering a homestay in India.

The Ministry's checklist has two levels, Silver and Gold. Among what both must have:

• Clean, airy rooms free of pests and damp, each with an outside window or ventilation.
• Rooms of at least 120 square feet in the plains and 100 in the hills for Silver, and 200 and 120 for Gold.
• An attached private bathroom for every room, of at least 30 square feet for Silver and 40 for Gold, with toiletries, a seat and lid on the WC, and hot and cold running water around the clock.
• A clean kitchen, a dining area serving fresh Continental or traditional Indian breakfast, and good cutlery and crockery.
• Air-conditioning and heating as the climate needs, to keep the room between 20 and 25 degrees.
• Comfortable beds with good linen, a wardrobe with at least 4 hangers, shelves or drawers, a chair and a table, and free drinking water from an RO, aquaguard or mineral water.
• Doctors' names and numbers, energy-saving lights, garbage disposal as the municipality's rules require, and a register of guests' check-in and check-out, with passport details for foreign guests.

Gold adds parking, internet, water-saving taps, a telephone in the room, laundry, a fridge in the room, a lounge, safekeeping in the room, a security guard and fire extinguishers. The committee also prefers homes that give guests an Indian experience, in their decor and their cooking.

Himachal Pradesh sets its own sizes: 120 square feet for a double room, 100 for a single and 30 for the bathroom, or 100, 80 and 25 in houses already built. It allows up to 3 family suites of 4 beds within the 12-bed limit, and in rural areas a separate toilet for each room where an attached one isn't possible.

What the Ministry and the states ask for is broadly the same set of papers:

• Proof that you own the house: the sale deed, revenue papers or a tax receipt, and an affidavit or NOC from any co-owners.
• Proof of identity, such as Aadhaar, PAN, a passport or a driving licence.
• Police clearance: the Ministry's form asks whether the police have cleared the owner's antecedents and the activity, and Kerala asks for a police clearance certificate from the local station house officer.
• Photographs of the house, inside and out.
• The number of rooms, their sizes and bathrooms, and a signed undertaking to follow the rules.
• A fee, which differs by state and category.

Kerala's list adds a residence certificate and an ownership certificate from the panchayat, municipality or corporation, an up-to-date land tax receipt, the building's plan and elevation, and food safety registration. The full steps, state by state, are in the guide on registering a homestay in India.

Separately from your state, you can put your homestay on the Ministry of Tourism's NIDHI register. It is voluntary, and its own page says it doesn't replace any registration your state asks for.

Food: FSSAI's regulations let a small food business register rather than take a licence. Kerala's homestay scheme asks for that registration from the Office of the Food Safety Commissioner and says no licence is needed. Goa's policy says a bed and breakfast must have a Food and Drug Administration licence, while a homestay serving home-cooked food may ask to be exempted.

GST: you register once your turnover passes the limit for services, or earlier if you choose. Some states ask for it whatever your turnover: Himachal Pradesh requires a GST number for its Diamond and Gold homestays, and exempts Silver ones.

Power and water: Himachal Pradesh charges commercial rates to Diamond and Gold homestays, and domestic rates to Silver ones. The Ministry's draft strategy for rural homestays suggests states treat rural homestays as homes for power and water, but that is a suggestion to the states, so ask your electricity board what applies to you.

The Bureau of Immigration names home stays, paying guest houses, tents and rented rooms among the places whose keeper must:

• Have every foreign guest, including Overseas Citizen of India cardholders, give their particulars and sign on arrival, and give the date and time of leaving and where they are going when they leave.
• Keep those records electronically for at least a year, open to the registration officer, the district magistrate or the police on demand.
• Send Form III, earlier called Form C, to the registration officer within 24 hours of the guest's arrival, and the departure details within 24 hours of their leaving, through the online portal at indianfrro.gov.in or its mobile app.

Sign up on the Form C portal before your first foreign guest arrives, so the 24 hours don't run out while you are still registering. States add their own rules: Himachal Pradesh asks for a guest register and a bill book verified by the tourism officer, online payments, basic fire equipment and CCTV in common areas.

Some states set your category by what you charge. Himachal Pradesh's three categories, and its yearly fees, go by the room rate:

Elsewhere you set your own prices. Himachal Pradesh's rules ask that they match the standard of the house, its location and view, food and service, in season and out, and not be exorbitant. Look at what the homestays and small hotels near you charge for the same kind of room through the year before you set yours (see the guide on pricing rooms against competitors).

• Training: the Ministry of Tourism runs a 150-hour homestay course under its Capacity Building for Service Providers scheme, for homestay owners and young people who want to run one.
• Loans: banks lend to small units under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (see the guide on writing a hotel business plan).
• Rural homestays: the Ministry's strategy asks that eligible rural homestays be considered under self-employment schemes such as PMEGP; ask the agency in your district.
• State schemes: Uttarakhand's tourism website links to its homestay schemes, the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grah Aawas Vikas Yojna and the Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali scheme, and to where to apply for them.

• Put the homestay on Google Maps with a Business Profile and photos of every room and bathroom (see the guide on Google Business Profile for hotels).
• List it on one or two booking sites or on Airbnb, knowing what each keeps (see the guide on booking site commission).
• Use your state's own channels: Uttarakhand's homestay portal links to a booking site for homestays, and the Ministry of Tourism says it publicises the homestays it approves and prepares a directory of them.
• Answer the questions guests ask before booking: parking, food, how to reach you, the nearest hospital, and who lives in the house (see the guide on the questions guests ask before booking).
• Ask every guest for a review, and reply to each one (see the guides on asking guests for reviews and replying to hotel reviews).