India and Switzerland sign five pacts, including five-year visas

India and Switzerland signed five agreements on Monday at Hyderabad House, during the state visit of President Guy Parmelin, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the two sides had identified new work on defence production and nuclear energy. The Ministry of External Affairs said the five texts include memorandums and letters of intent. The one with an immediate effect on individuals is the migration and mobility partnership. It provides for multiple-entry visas of up to five years, with stays of up to six months on each visit, and for renewable one-year student permits.

Parmelin is in India for three days. The visit marks the first anniversary of the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement between India and the European Free Trade Association, which entered into force on 1 October 2025. EFTA is Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Parmelin attended the AI Impact Summit in India in February, so this is his second trip this year and his first as a state visit. The anniversary is the frame. The five texts are the product.

The migration memorandum, in the MEA's language, is meant to develop cooperation on equal-treatment principles and to prevent irregular migration, exploitation and trafficking under each country's law. The visa terms are the operational part. A five-year multiple-entry visa with a six-month stay is a different document from the short business visa many Indian professionals have used for Switzerland. The student permit is renewable at one year. A separate agreement on the exchange of young professionals covers temporary work in the other country, inside a person's field, with the stated aim of building professional and language skills. Modi said the two texts would open opportunities in Switzerland for Indian students, researchers, professionals and young workers.

On trade, Modi said decisions had been taken to expand Swiss market access for Indian exports and to make investment in both directions easier. He named agriculture, pharmaceuticals, textiles and engineering goods as the export lines that should gain. He named biotech, life sciences, banking, insurance, food processing and sustainability as the sectors where India wants new Swiss investment. He called TEPA an ambitious blueprint and repeated the targets attached to it: $100 billion of investment and one million direct jobs in India over 15 years. Those targets are the ones written into the political case for TEPA. Monday's agreements do not, by themselves, deliver either number. They are access and mobility texts sitting under that claim.

Defence and nuclear energy are the newer lines, and they are still at the level of identification. Modi said the two sides had identified opportunities in military exchanges and defence production, and had agreed to deepen cooperation in nuclear energy. He did not announce a contract, a joint venture, or a safeguards text. Switzerland is not a large arms exporter to India. A production conversation with Bern is a different file from one with Paris or Washington, and it will be read in Delhi against the existing fighter and submarine programmes rather than as a replacement for them. Nuclear cooperation, if it moves past a sentence in a press statement, will have to pass India's liability law and Switzerland's non-proliferation practice. Neither was amended on Monday.

A further text covers collaboration on transport technologies, mobility systems and infrastructure, which Business Standard described as a major deal in that cluster. The MEA did not, in the reports available, publish the project list. Swiss firms already sell rail and tunnelling equipment into Indian projects. The letter of intent is a channel for more of that, not a work order.

The visit runs three days. Monday was the Hyderabad House meeting and the five signatures. What is in force, as text, is the migration pact with its five-year visa and one-year student permit, the young-professionals exchange, and the market-access decisions Modi described. What is still a sentence is defence production and nuclear energy. The $100 billion and one million jobs remain the 15-year TEPA targets, not figures from this visit.