What does a ham radio licence cost in India?

Every fee, in one table

Checked against the Department of Telecommunications eServices ASOC page and the Amateur Radio Society of India’s fee schedule on 9 September 2026. Statutory fees change without much announcement, so confirm the figure on the DoT portal before you pay. If you find one of these out of date, tell me and I will correct it.

How long it takes

Longer than the fees suggest, and the honest answer is that it varies more than anyone would like. The paperwork is quick; the wait for a sitting is not. Plan for months rather than weeks, and treat a year as the realistic worst case rather than a horror story.

1. Apply on Saral Sanchar

   An evening

   The exam application and the certificate application used to be two separate submissions. They are one now. You need a photo ID and a citizenship document.

2. Wait for an exam date

   The long pole

   Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai run exams roughly monthly. Elsewhere it is every two months to quarterly, and there is no published national calendar - sittings happen when the monitoring station schedules one.

3. Sit the exam

   1 hour (Restricted)

   Fifty questions in an hour for Restricted. You need 40% in each section and 50% overall. No Morse. General is 100 questions in two hours at 50% and 55%, plus Morse at eight words per minute.

4. Result, then certificate and call sign

   Weeks to months

   The certificate is issued after the fee is paid, and the call sign is assigned with it. You may state a preference.

There is no national exam calendar to check, which is why no page can give you a reliable average. What is worth knowing is that the wait is a queue, not an assessment — nothing you do speeds it up, so it costs nothing to apply early and study while you wait.

What you get for it

An Amateur Station Operator Certificate, in one of two grades. Both cost the same, so the choice is about what you want to do rather than what you want to spend.

Restricted is where nearly everyone starts. Fifty questions, no Morse, and it puts you on VHF and UHF with access to repeaters and a slice of HF. General takes a harder paper and a Morse test at eight words per minute, and opens the rest of the HF bands and higher power.

You must be an Indian citizen and at least twelve years old. Everything is governed by the Telecommunications (Amateur Services) Rules, 2024, which were notified on 30 October 2024 and replaced the 1978 rules the older guides on the internet still describe.

What this does not cover

The licence is the cheap part. A first handheld and an antenna will cost several times the ₹1,100, and that is the number people actually get wrong — both by overpaying for a first radio and by buying a used one without knowing what it should fetch.

• What should I pay for used gear? — the landed cost of the same item brand new, so you can judge an asking price instead of guessing.
• Buying used safely — verifying a seller by call sign before any money moves.