Hotel star rating: how India classifies hotels, and how booking sites show stars

The Ministry of Tourism classifies hotels that are already open in six categories: one star, two star, three star, four star and five star, the last two with or without alcohol service, and five-star deluxe. The scheme is voluntary: a hotel can open and sell its rooms without it.

Hotels apply online through the Ministry's NIDHI+ portal, and the HRACC inspects them in two stages: first whether each facility on its checklist is there, then the quality of the facilities and the service.

• For four star, five star and five-star deluxe, the inspecting committee is chaired by the Ministry's Additional Director General (Tourism) or a nominee, with members from the hotel and travel trade associations (FHRAI, HAI, IATO and TAAI), an Institute of Hotel Management and the regional India Tourism office.
• For one star to three star, it is chaired by the state's tourism secretary or a senior state tourism officer, or by India Tourism's Regional Director.
• The committee may give a lower category than the one applied for, never a higher one.
• What it finds lacking must be put right within the time it sets, at most three months, or the application is rejected.
• A hotel unhappy with the decision can appeal to the Secretary (Tourism) within 30 days.
• A classification is valid for five years. Apply to be reclassified at least six months before it ends; later than that, it is treated as a fresh application.

The Ministry also used to approve hotel projects while they were being built. Its NIDHI website says that scheme was discontinued from 16 March 2026, and that applications pending that day were closed. Classifying hotels already open is a separate scheme.

The checklist runs to many pages. These are among the points that decide which category a hotel can reach, as the Ministry's guidelines set them:

• At least 10 lettable rooms, each with an outside window or ventilation.
• Bedrooms, without the bathroom, of at least 120 square feet at one star and two stars, 130 at three, 140 at four and 200 at five star and five-star deluxe, with bathrooms of 30, 30, 36, 36 and 45 square feet.
• Air-conditioning in a quarter of the rooms at one and two stars, half at three, and all of them from four stars, depending on the climate.
• From four stars, a mini bar, a safe in the room, and tea and coffee making on a complimentary basis. The higher categories also need at least one suite.
• At three stars, a multi-cuisine restaurant open from 7 in the morning to 11 at night, and room service round the clock.
• In every category, at least one room for guests with disabilities, its door and its bathroom's at least 90 centimetres wide.
• A bar licence for four star or five star with alcohol service, and for five-star deluxe.
• Facilities to take digital payments, and once classified, a report of occupancy and digital payments by the 20th of every month.
• Licences and no objection certificates, among them the trade licence, the fire and police NOCs, the health clearance and the pollution control board's consent to operate.

Hotels of one to four stars that take a subsidy or tax benefit from the central or a state government are locked in to their category for eight years, so that they stay budget hotels.

Booking.com says it doesn't assign star ratings: they come from the property itself or from an independent third party, depending on local rules, and show as one to five yellow stars beside the name. If it learns a rating is inaccurate, it asks the property to prove it or change it. It lets a star rating be set only for hotel-type properties, such as hotels, resorts and hostels.

Its quality rating, one to five yellow squares, is something else: worked out by Booking.com from more than 400 features of a listing, for homes, apartments, guest houses, B&Bs and a few other kinds of property, and only those with no star rating in the extranet.

Google says it shows the official class rating from local authorities where one exists. Where there isn't one, it gives a class of its own, from partners, its own research, hoteliers' feedback and a model that weighs price, location, room size and amenities.

• Guests on Booking.com can sort by property rating, and Booking.com says properties with more stars and higher quality ratings come higher in that sort. Its page on how it works doesn't list stars among what orders its usual list.
• Stars a hotel gives itself raise what guests expect. A three-star claim with two-star rooms shows up in the reviews.
• Your review score sits beside your stars on every listing, and unlike them, it changes with every stay.

1. 1Read the Ministry's guidelines and checklist on its NIDHI website for the category you want, and walk the hotel with them: room and bathroom sizes, air-conditioning, the restaurant's hours, the room for guests with disabilities.
2. 2Gather the licences and no objection certificates, current and valid, with the approved building plans and the occupancy certificate.
3. 3Register the hotel on NIDHI+ and apply online for the category, paying the fee digitally.
4. 4Be ready for inspection from the day you apply: the guidelines say no request to put it off is accepted, and that the committee may ask to stay overnight to see the service.
5. 5Put right what the committee points out within the time it gives, and upload the documents it asks for.
6. 6Once classified, show the same category on every booking site, on Google and on your own website, and note the date six months before it ends.

The guidelines aim for an inspection within 40 working days of a chairperson being named for it, and for every case to be decided within three months of a complete application.

• They set what a guest expects before arrival: a guest who books three stars judges the room by three stars.
• Ask the companies and travel agents you sell to whether their travel rules name a star category.
• Inspection against a checklist is useful in itself: it finds what guests would otherwise find first.