I get this email about twice a week, usually from someone who has just booked their flights to Bagdogra and has suddenly read the word "permit" on a forum. The panic is predictable. Do they need one? Which one? Can they get it at the airport? Is the Aadhaar card enough? Here is the plain, up-to-date version — the one I wish every traveller had before they landed in Sikkim.
Sikkim has three different permit regimes, each for a different reason, each with its own paperwork. They exist because large chunks of the state border China and Bhutan, and because the Centre still classifies parts of the north as a Protected Area. None of this is new. The rules have softened a lot since 2012 when we started, but they have not disappeared.
The three permits you actually need
Here is the short version before we go deeper. Indian citizens do not need any permit to enter Sikkim or to visit Gangtok, Pelling, Ravangla, Namchi or Lachung. You drive in, you show your ID at Rangpo check post, you keep driving. Foreigners, including NRIs holding a foreign passport, need a Restricted Area Permit from the moment they cross Rangpo. Everyone — Indian or foreign — needs an additional permit to go to Tsomgo Lake, Nathu La, Gurudongmar, Yumthang or Zero Point.
Restricted Area Permit (RAP) — foreigners only
The RAP is a two-week permit that allows foreign passport-holders to be in Sikkim at all. It is issued free of cost, which surprises people, and you can get it in four places: the FRRO in Delhi, the Sikkim House offices in Kolkata and Siliguri, the Rangpo check post itself, or Bagdogra airport on arrival. Our guests almost always get it at Rangpo because the queue is shorter and the officer there is used to processing twenty a day.
You need: two passport-size photos, a photocopy of the passport photo page, a photocopy of the valid Indian visa, and the completed form. The form itself is a single sheet. If you are travelling with us we fill it out for you and have it ready in the car before you reach Rangpo. The whole stop usually takes fifteen minutes.
Protected Area Permit (PAP) — North Sikkim
The PAP is the one that trips up almost every traveller. Anyone — Indian or foreign — who wants to go north of Chungthang must have it. That means Lachung, Lachen, Yumthang Valley, Zero Point, Gurudongmar Lake, Cholamu, Tsopta Valley, everything beyond. It is issued only to travellers who are on a booked itinerary with a registered Sikkim tour operator, driving in a Sikkim-registered tourist vehicle, and accompanied by a driver who holds the North Sikkim beat permit.
Foreigners need to apply in groups of at least two and cannot be solo. The PAP itself is issued at the Tourism Department office in Gangtok, takes one working day, and needs the same papers as the RAP plus the full itinerary and vehicle details. For Indians the list is simpler: two photos, a government photo ID, a photocopy. We process 150 to 200 of these every peak season and I can tell you that the single most common reason for rejection is a smudged ID photocopy.
Nathu La Permit — Indians only
Nathu La, the 4,310-metre border pass on the old Lhasa route, is open to Indian passport-holders only and only on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Foreigners cannot visit at all, no exceptions. Indian travellers need a separate one-day permit, issued the afternoon before by the Tourism Department against the same ID + photos. You also need a medical fitness declaration because the altitude knocks people down flat, and the army at the pass will occasionally turn you back if the weather is bad or the road has iced over.
The permit fee itself is nominal — around 200 rupees a head — but the vehicle permit and mandatory local driver push the real cost up to roughly 6,500 to 8,000 rupees per car for the Tsomgo-Baba Mandir-Nathu La day trip in 2025. That is for the whole car, not per person. We usually bundle it into the package price so there are no surprises at the ticket counter.
The permit myth: Aadhaar is not accepted for PAP
I want to put this one in bold because it still burns people every month. For the North Sikkim PAP, Aadhaar is not accepted as primary ID. The Tourism Department wants a Voter ID, a Passport, or a Driving Licence. That is the current rule as of January 2025 and there is no sign of it changing. I have seen families arrive at the Chungthang check post, Aadhaar in hand, and be turned around at four in the afternoon with a six-hour drive back to Gangtok ahead of them. It is grim and it is avoidable.
“An Aadhaar card will get you through airport security, into a five-star hotel, and onto a domestic flight. It will not get you past the Chungthang check post. Treat those two facts as unrelated.”
What we actually do for our guests
Here is the workflow, start to finish, so you know what you are paying for when a tour operator says "permits included".
- Seven days before arrival we collect scans of your ID and two photos by WhatsApp or email.
- Four days before arrival our office runner takes the file to the Tourism Department in Deorali, Gangtok.
- The PAP is usually issued by the next working day. The RAP, if needed, is processed at Rangpo as you cross.
- The physical permit stays with the driver. He shows it at every check post — Chungthang, Thangu, the army barrier before Gurudongmar.
- If the weather closes the Gurudongmar road, the same permit is valid for Yumthang and Zero Point on a rescheduled day.
- On the way back, the driver hands the permit in at the final check post. You keep your ID.
The cost we absorb for all this, assuming two adults on a standard 6-day North Sikkim circuit, is roughly 3,800 to 4,500 rupees in 2025 — permit fees, office runner, driver beat permit, photocopies, postage when we need to send things to Siliguri. We do not itemise it on the invoice because nobody wants to see "photocopies: 120 rupees" in a 90,000-rupee trip, but that is where the money goes.
A few practical notes that did not fit anywhere else. Permits are season-blind — the paperwork is the same in April and December — but the North Sikkim PAP is routinely suspended after heavy snow in January and after landslides in July-August. During those closures no operator can get you through, not us, not the ones promising otherwise on Instagram. If someone offers a Gurudongmar trip in mid-August, call them back twice. Second, the Tsomgo-Baba-Nathu La permit covers the three spots together as one loop; you cannot split the day. Third, children under five travel free on all three permits but still need to be named on the form.
FAQs about Sikkim permits
The questions below come up almost word-for-word in our enquiries. Answers are current as of January 2025 and I will update this post whenever the rules shift.
