Starting a Homestay in Haryana

01 / Executive finding

The practical starting point

• Haryana’s current published state instrument located for homestays is The Haryana Home Stay (Amendment) Scheme, 2024, Tourism Department Notification No. 4/11/2024-6Pro-1, issued 16 August 2024 and published in the Haryana Government Gazette on 27 August 2024. It states that it applies from its date of issuance. [S1, Gazette p. 520, Scheme cls. 1–2]
• The scheme does not cover the whole State without qualification: it expressly excludes areas falling within the boundaries of Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Municipal Committees. Exact local-body boundary verification is therefore a first-stage eligibility test. [S1, p. 520, Scheme cl. 3]
• The published applicant is a home owner/family owner. The registered accommodation/rooms must be fully owned, in one house and at one location. A company, LLP, partnership, trust, society, long-term lessee or management company is not expressly identified as an eligible registration holder. [S1, p. 520, Eligibility cl. 1; Annexure I, fields 2 and 10]
• Owner/family residence is substantive, not cosmetic. The home owner/family owner must physically reside in the unit, and at least one family member must be physically present in the house when a guest stays. Accommodation where the promoter/owner and family do not reside at the property is expressly excluded. [S1, pp. 520–521, Eligibility cls. 2–3; Terms cl. 4]
• The current inspection checklist states one guest room minimum and five maximum, while Eligibility permits registration of a maximum of five rooms. No maximum number of beds or guests was located. There is, however, an internal drafting problem: Scheme cl. 4 refers to a *house/home having up to five rooms*, whereas Annexure I separately asks for total existing rooms and rooms offered, capped at five. A house containing more than five total rooms therefore requires written clarification. [S1, pp. 520, 523–524]
• The district-level inspection committee comprises the Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC), SDM, BDPO and Principal of the nearby IHM. The ADC chairs the committee and is expressly stated to be competent to approve cases, after which the approved list is transmitted to the Director Tourism. [S1, p. 520, Inspection]
• The current application/registration fee shown in Annexure I is ₹200. Registration is to be renewed after every five years. A separate inspection fee, classification fee, renewal fee, renewal filing window or refund rule was Not stated in the current official material reviewed. [S1, pp. 522–523, Renewal; Annexure I field 16]
• There is no tiered Gold/Silver or similar classification regime in the 2024 instrument. Instead, Annexure II is expressly a mandatory approval checklist covering host presence, hygiene, room furnishing, bathrooms, common areas, kitchen, water, waste and other facilities. [S1, p. 524, Annexure II]
• A registered property may be eligible for a scheduled-commercial-bank loan for refurbishment/renovation of homestay rooms, with Tourism Department reimbursement of 100% of interest actually paid for up to three years, subject to no instalment default; the stated loan ceiling is ₹3 lakh per room and ₹15 lakh per unit. A loan taken before homestay registration is stated to be ineligible for this subsidy. This is not evidence of automatic bank sanction or automatic subsidy payment. [S1, p. 520, Incentive/Exemptions]
• Registered rural homestays are stated to receive exemption from “local taxes” and domestic electricity and water rates. The 2024 scheme does not define “rural,” identify the taxes covered, or provide the implementing electricity/water/local-body orders; those benefits should not be financially modelled until verified property-by-property. [S1, p. 520, Incentive/Exemptions]
• The tourism scheme requires a guest register with identity details, display of the registration certificate, billing/receipt records, a complaint/suggestion book, guest safety and hygiene, and notification of the local police station for foreign tourists. [S1, pp. 521–522]
• Separately, the Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025 apply to accommodation including homestays. Rule 17 requires foreigner/OCI accommodation records to be retained electronically for at least one year and Form III—formerly Form C—arrival and departure information to be transmitted electronically within 24 hours. Haryana’s local-police requirement should therefore not be treated as a substitute for central reporting. [S12, Rule 17; Form III]
• A complete live homestay e-application workflow could not be verified. The Gazette says online applications are acceptable, but a dedicated current account-creation page, authenticated form, upload limits, payment gateway, refund conditions and processing SLA were Not stated in the current official material reviewed. [S1, p. 521, Terms cl. 1; S6, current Tourism scheme page]
• Material source-alignment problems remain: the old official 2021 material uses a ₹1,000 fee and narrower municipal exclusion; it also contains additional forms not reproduced in the 2024 Gazette. Separately, Haryana Tourism’s publicly available 2026 homestay list showed five entries while a Haryana Government release dated 2 September 2026 states that 11 homestays have been registered. [S2; S4; S5]
• There is enough primary evidence to explain the central resident-owner, geographic, room-limit, inspection and operating model, but not enough to publish a definitive end-to-end application guide without written confirmation of the five-room interpretation, non-individual/lease/operator structures, surviving 2021 documentation, current submission/payment workflow and subsidy implementation. [S1–S6]

02 / Document chronology

Use the current rules and implementation

Legacy to current

2020 — legacy archive material. A Haryana Home Stay Scheme 2020 copy remains in a government policy archive and contains a four-room model. The located copy contains placeholder effective-date wording, so its notified status cannot safely be established from that copy. It is Background source only, not the current basis for publication. [S3] 29 September 2021 / 11 March 2022 — Haryana Home Stay Scheme, 2021. The official Tourism PDF states applicability from 29 September 2021, although the hosted notification/document is dated 11 March 2022. It formerly used a ₹1,000 fee, excluded Municipal Corporations rather than all three municipal categories now named, and contained a larger annexure set. [S2] 8 April 2022 — Haryana Fire and Emergency Services Act, 2022. This is an adjacent statewide building/fire framework rather than the tourism registration scheme. Section 18 imposes fire/life-safety duties under the applicable building framework and identifies classes of buildings requiring approval of a fire-fighting scheme. [S11, s.18] 16 August / 27 August 2024 — Haryana Home Stay (Amendment) Scheme, 2024. Notification No. 4/11/2024-6Pro-1 was issued 16 August and published 27 August. It changes consequential provisions including fee, geography, forms and eligibility text. [S1, pp. 519–525] 16/27 August 2024 — Farm Tourism Scheme Haryana (Amended), 2024. A separate adjacent tourism category was amended contemporaneously. [S8] 1 September 2025 — Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025. These replaced specified predecessor foreigner/passport/registration rules with savings and establish current accommodation reporting through Rule 17/Form III. [S12] March/April 2026 — FSSAI reform. FSSAI revised turnover thresholds and introduced perpetual validity for food registrations/licences, effective 1 April 2026. [S14–S15] 2026 — current Haryana implementation evidence. The Tourism public homestay directory located in 2026 contains five entries, while the Haryana Government’s 2 September 2026 release states that 11 homestays have been registered. [S4–S5]

Supersession assessment

The 2024 Gazette is newer, is published in the Haryana Gazette and directly contradicts some 2021 provisions. The newer provisions therefore govern the direct conflicts identified below. However, the 2024 document is expressly styled an “Amendment Scheme” and the located text does not contain a general clause saying that every un-reproduced 2021 requirement is rescinded. This matters particularly for the old annexures. They must not be silently imported into the 2024 application, but an applicant should obtain written confirmation that they are no longer required. No later Haryana homestay Gazette notification replacing the 2024 instrument was located in the current official publication routes reviewed as of 05 September 2026.

03 / Category definitions

Choose the right accommodation category

04 / Eligibility decision tree

Check whether the applicant and property qualify

This is a research classification, not an approval decision.

Step 1 — exact property address and local-body category

Is the property inside the boundary of a Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council or Municipal Committee?

• Yes → does not appear to fit the published homestay definition. The 2024 Home Stay Scheme excludes those areas. Investigate another accommodation category. [S1, p. 520, cl. 3]
• No → continue.
• Nagar Panchayat/cantonment/ambiguous boundary → Confirm this in writing with the authority.

Step 2 — property ownership or lease position

Is the proposed applicant the owner/family owner of the house and able to establish ownership of the property/rooms?

• Yes → continue.
• Only a leasehold operating right, without ownership → Confirm this in writing with the authority.
• Company/LLP/firm owns the property → Confirm this in writing with the authority.
• No property selected yet → Not established in the published material for registration before property selection. [S1, p. 520; Annexure I field 10]

Step 3 — applicant identity and residency

Will the home owner/family owner physically reside in the proposed unit?

• Yes → continue.
• No, and only employees/caretaker/operator live there → does not appear to fit the published homestay definition.
• Titled owner lives elsewhere but another family member resides there → Confirm this in writing with the authority on whether the resident family member must also be a “family owner.”

Step 4 — who will live at the property when guests are present

Will at least one family member physically remain in the house whenever a guest/tourist stays?

• Yes → continue.
• No → does not appear to fit the published homestay definition. [S1, p. 520, Eligibility cls. 2–3]

Step 5 — who will operate it

• Owner/family operates directly → This appears to fit the published route, subject to the remaining checks, subject to every other requirement.
• Professional company assists with booking, cleaning, sales or management while qualifying family remains resident → Confirm this in writing with the authority regarding the permissible scope of third-party operation.
• Company/caretaker completely replaces the resident host → does not appear to fit the published homestay definition as a non-resident-host model.

Step 6 — room and bed plan

• 1–5 rooms offered to guests → continue.
• More than 5 rooms offered → does not appear to fit the published homestay definition.
• House contains more than five rooms in total but only five or fewer are offered → Confirm this in writing with the authority because Scheme cl. 4 and Annexure I are not textually aligned.
• Proposed bed/guest capacity → Not established in the published material; no numeric bed or occupancy cap was found. [S1, pp. 520, 523–524]

Step 7 — property stage

• Existing house, ready rooms, qualifying resident owner/family → This appears to fit the published route, subject to the remaining checks, subject to inspection and adjacent approvals.
• Existing running homestay with valid certificate → examine certificate validity and current compliance → This appears to fit the published route, subject to the remaining checks if current conditions are met.
• Proposed major renovation → tourism fit may be possible, but building/use approvals must be checked → Confirm this in writing with the authority where physical changes affect approvals.
• Vacant land/new construction → no provisional greenfield homestay-registration route was located → Not established in the published material.
• Pure capital with no property/owner-host structure → Not established in the published material.

05 / Applicant and operating structures

Set the ownership and operating structure

06 / Property and classification standards

Prepare the property for inspection

The Haryana Fire and Emergency Services Act separately requires owners/occupiers to comply with applicable fire/life-safety law. Section 18 identifies high-rise buildings and specified “special buildings,” including certain hotel occupancies over 500 m² on one or more floors, for fire-fighting-scheme approval. The tourism scheme does not state that every homestay is a “hotel” for this purpose; building/fire classification must therefore be independently determined. [S11, s.18]

07 / Documents and declarations

Assemble the application file

A particularly important drafting problem is Terms cl. 1, which says applications must be complete with the form, fee, “certificates, amongst others,” while Annexure I field 17 leaves the enclosed-document table blank. The current Gazette therefore does not provide a reproducible exhaustive certificate list. [S1, pp. 521 and 523]

Download the Haryana property and application checklist ↓

08 / Application and inspection process

Follow the application and inspection process

The statutory/published material contains no processing-period guarantee for an initial homestay registration.

09 / Fees, timelines, validity and renewal

Confirm fees, timing and certificate validity

The current public list also contains certificates expressed as five-year periods, supporting the operational use of the five-year scheme cycle. [S4] Legacy certificates should be examined against their individual validity dates. Annexure I expressly asks a previously approved applicant to attach the earlier Haryana Tourism registration certificate. [S1, p.523, field 15]

10 / Operating duties after registration

Run the registered homestay correctly

The central Rule 17 obligation now applies expressly to keepers of accommodation and covers foreigners including OCI cardholders. Arrival and departure particulars must be transmitted electronically within 24 hours, while the accommodation record is retained electronically for at least one year. [S12, Rule 17(1), (5)–(6)]

11 / Adjacent approvals and dependencies

Close the approvals outside Tourism

Haryana’s urban building-plan process illustrates why these approvals must remain separate: its official workflow can require ownership documents, plans, CLU where applicable and location-specific NOCs such as highway access, pollution, fire, airport or monument approvals. Those ULB documents should not, however, be imported wholesale into a rural homestay application. [S10]

Food-business dependency

For food businesses, FSSAI’s 13 March 2026 order establishes, effective 1 April 2026:

• registration: turnover up to ₹1.5 crore;
• State licence: above ₹1.5 crore and up to ₹50 crore;
• Central licence: above ₹50 crore. The order expressly supersedes earlier turnover thresholds/criteria for categorisation. [S14, paras 3–5] FSSAI’s 27 March 2026 FAQs further state that registrations/licences issued under the amended system have perpetual validity unless suspended, cancelled or surrendered; ordinary renewal is removed, though continuing compliance remains necessary. [S15, Q4]

GST dependency

GST must be analysed from the actual supplier, turnover, service bundle, place of supply, OTA arrangements and applicable notifications. State tourism registration does not itself decide GST classification. CBIC’s statutory material specifically recognises accommodation supplied by a hotel, inn, guest house, home stay, club or campsite when addressing the place of supply of immovable-property-related accommodation services. [S16]

12 / Incentives, subsidy and funding

Evaluate incentives without assuming sanction

14.1 Haryana homestay interest reimbursement

Source: [S1, p.520, Incentive/Exemptions] Practical conclusion: the scheme creates a stated benefit framework, not a bank-credit entitlement or evidence that Tourism will automatically release subsidy after registration. Loan sanction and subsidy reimbursement must be treated as separate approval events.

14.2 Rural tax/electricity/water treatment

The scheme states that registered rural homestays will receive:

• exemption from “local taxes”;
• domestic electricity rates; and
• domestic water rates. [S1, p.520] However:
• definition of “rural” — Not stated in the material reviewed;
• list of exempt local taxes — Not stated in the material reviewed;
• electricity implementing order — Not stated in the material reviewed;
• water implementing order — Not stated in the material reviewed;
• application form/claim route — Not stated in the material reviewed;
• retrospective effect — Not stated in the material reviewed. These benefits should therefore be excluded from a base-case commercial model until the property obtains the implementing confirmation.

14.3 MUDRA

S1 states only that Tourism will facilitate the owner in obtaining a bank loan under MUDRA. It does not establish:

• MUDRA loan approval;
• a specific MUDRA product;
• interest rate;
• collateral treatment;
• repayment tenure; or
• automatic coupling of MUDRA with Haryana’s interest reimbursement. These should be separately verified with the lending bank at the time of application.

14.4 Other tourism incentives

No additional current Haryana programme was verified in this research as automatically applicable specifically to a Haryana Home Stay registered under S1. Older/general Tourism Policy incentives applicable to hotels or other tourism projects must not be imported into homestays without an express eligibility provision.

13 / Business implications

Translate the rules into a workable project

Before selecting or acquiring a property

The property assessment should establish, in this order:

1. exact address and local-body boundary;
2. whether it is outside the three excluded municipal categories;
3. title and co-ownership status;
4. who can truthfully be the homeowner/family owner;
5. who will physically live in the property;
6. whether family presence can be maintained whenever guests stay;
7. total rooms in the building;
8. rooms proposed for guests;
9. current lawful land/building use;
10. access and infrastructure;
11. protected/environmental constraints; and
12. whether the intended commercial structure requires a non-owner operator. A low purchase price, attractive building or strong tourism location does not cure failure of the resident-host definition.

Before construction or renovation

the project team should separately establish:

• planning jurisdiction;
• land-use/CLU position;
• sanctioned-building-plan requirements;
• completion/occupation status;
• whether renovation affects structural/building approval;
• fire classification;
• sewage/water/waste solutions;
• food-use implications; and
• whether the eventual physical design can pass Annexure II. The tourism interest-reimbursement provision also makes sequencing material: the scheme says a loan taken before registration is ineligible for subsidy. That makes financing design particularly sensitive because a property may need work to become inspection-ready while premature borrowing can affect the stated benefit. Written Tourism/bank guidance is required before relying on the subsidy.

Registration holder versus operating entity

The current scheme does not establish that the registration holder and operating entity may be different legal persons. A management agreement therefore cannot itself establish that:

• an LLP may become the registration holder;
• a company may replace the homeowner;
• a lessee qualifies as owner;
• a caretaker satisfies the family-presence test; or
• a professional operator can exercise every regulated function. A management structure may be commercially possible while the resident homeowner remains the registered host, but the permissible boundary requires written Haryana Tourism confirmation before contractual commitments are made.

Property-development scope

Architecture, construction, renovation and change-of-use work remain subordinate to the competent planning/building authority. The tourism scheme is not a development permission.

Commercial-planning inputs

Every project model should separately identify:

• property/title holder;
• tourism applicant;
• resident host;
• management/operator;
• employer;
• guest contracting party;
• food-business operator;
• GST supplier;
• bank borrower;
• subsidy claimant; and
• recipient of OTA payments. Do not assume that these roles can all be shifted into one LLP/company simply through contract.

Questions to answer before proposing business terms

No business terms should be fixed until at least the following are known:

• local-body eligibility;
• title/co-owner position;
• permitted applicant;
• resident-host plan;
• five-room interpretation;
• operating-entity treatment;
• existing lawful building status;
• required capital works;
• food model;
• foreign-guest readiness;
• tax structure;
• financing sequence;
• subsidy eligibility; and
• verified approval dependencies. No fixed ownership percentage, investment contribution, revenue share, occupancy assumption or return should be inferred from the scheme.

14 / Official-source conflicts

Resolve conflicting official instructions

Conflict 1 — ₹1,000 versus ₹200 application/registration fee

Source A: 2021 Haryana Home Stay Scheme — ₹1,000. [S2] Source B: 2024 Gazette Annexure I field 16 — ₹200. [S1] Hierarchy/date assessment: S1 is the later Gazette amendment and directly states the new fee. Result: RESOLVED BY LATER OFFICIAL INSTRUMENT — current published fee ₹200. Affected properties: all new/current applicants.

Conflict 2 — excluded geography

Source A: 2021 material excluded areas within Municipal Corporations. [S2] Source B: 2024 Scheme cl.3 excludes Municipal Corporations, Councils and Committees. [S1, p.520] Result: RESOLVED BY LATER OFFICIAL INSTRUMENT. Applicants in Municipal Council and Municipal Committee areas should not rely on the older geographic wording.

Conflict 3 — current annexures versus old 2021 forms

Source A: 2021 official scheme contained a larger annexure set including additional declarations/undertakings/cancellation-related material. [S2] Source B: 2024 Gazette contains Annexures I–III only, with Annexure III being the police-verification proforma. [S1, pp.523–525] The 2024 text does not expressly state whether every omitted old annexure has been abolished. Status: `The official sources are not aligned`. Practical effect: a truthful applicant cannot reliably know from the current Gazette alone whether Tourism/ADC will still request any legacy affidavit/undertaking administratively. Authority to resolve: concerned district ADC and Director Tourism, preferably in writing.

Conflict 4 — five rooms in the whole house versus five rooms offered

Source A: Scheme cl.4: house/home “having up to five rooms.” [S1, p.520] Source B: Annexure I asks separately for “No. of Rooms on existing” and rooms offered, with only offered rooms expressly capped at five; Annexure II likewise gives 1–5 guest rooms. [S1, pp.523–524] Status: `The official sources are not aligned` within the same instrument. Affected properties: any house containing more than five total rooms but proposing to let five or fewer. Authority to resolve: concerned ADC plus Director Tourism.

Conflict 5 — five units in public directory versus 11 registered units

Source A: Haryana Tourism’s 2026 public Home Stay list located during research contains five entries. [S4] Source B: Haryana Government PRMS release dated 2 September 2026 states that 11 homestays have been registered. [S5] The newer government statement strongly indicates that the downloadable directory is not complete/current, but it does not identify the missing units. Status: `The official sources are not aligned` as to the completeness of the public directory. This does not change eligibility rules, but it prevents the public list from being represented as a complete current registry.

Conflict 6 — stale FSSAI threshold material versus March 2026 order

Some generic FSSAI informational material has historically reflected earlier thresholds. The 13 March 2026 specific FSSAI order expressly says it supersedes earlier turnover thresholds/criteria and becomes effective on 1 April 2026. [S14] Result: RESOLVED BY EXPRESS LATER CENTRAL ORDER.

15 / Unresolved questions for the authority

Take the remaining questions to the authority

These questions should be sent to the concerned district ADC, copied where appropriate to the Director Tourism, Haryana. Questions involving policy interpretation should be escalated to the Heritage & Tourism Department if needed.

1. Five-room wording: Under Scheme cl.4, is a house with six or more total rooms ineligible even where no more than five rooms are offered and registered, given Annexure I’s separate fields for existing rooms and rooms offered?
2. 2021 annexures: Following the 2024 Amendment Scheme, which, if any, declarations, affidavits, undertakings or cancellation forms from the 2021 Scheme remain mandatory?
3. Complete document list: What documents are currently included within the expression “certificates, amongst others” in Terms cl.1?
4. Ownership evidence: Which ownership documents are accepted—registered sale deed, inheritance/mutation record, family settlement, allotment/conveyance, etc.?
5. Joint ownership: Are all co-owners required to sign or provide NOCs?
6. Inherited property: What documents must an heir provide before mutation/title records have been fully updated?
7. Company ownership: Can a company owning the house be the Home Stay registration holder?
8. LLP/partnership/trust/society: Can any of these legal persons hold registration?
9. Lessee: Can a long-term lessee register a homestay where the owner consents?
10. Resident family: If the titled homeowner lives elsewhere but a close family member permanently occupies the property, does this satisfy Eligibility cls.2–3? Must that family member also have ownership?
11. Professional manager: May a registered homeowner appoint a professional management company for marketing, booking, housekeeping, staff and guest administration while the homeowner/family continues to reside there?
12. Guest contracting party: May guest invoices/OTA contracts be issued by a management company rather than the registered homeowner?
13. Application channel: What is the current official submission URL or physical office/counter for a new application?
14. Online filing: What account-creation conditions, file formats and upload-size limits apply?
15. Payment: How is the ₹200 fee paid, and is any fee refundable if the application is rejected before inspection?
16. Processing SLA: Is there a notified or administrative time limit for scrutiny, inspection and decision?
17. Deficiency cure: Is an applicant allowed to cure a missing document before an incomplete application is summarily rejected?
18. Police verification: Which police authority completes Annexure III, and how long is verification treated as current?
19. Building documents: Does Tourism presently require a sanctioned plan, completion/occupation certificate, structural certificate, land-use certificate or local-body NOC for every application?
20. AC/Heater/Geyser: Does Annexure II require all three facilities, or whichever is climatically/applicably necessary?
21. Training: Is the IHM training mandatory before approval or merely post-selection capacity building, and what is the current prescribed fee?
22. Renewal: What form, documents, fee, inspection and filing window apply to five-year renewal?
23. Room changes: How should an owner add/remove registered guest rooms within the five-room limit?
24. Ownership changes: What is the process after sale, inheritance, gift or family partition?
25. Operator changes: Must Tourism approve a change in management/operator?
26. ADC cancellation appeal: What appeal lies against cancellation ordered solely by an ADC, given that Disclaimer cl.2 expressly refers to a D.G. Tourism decision?
27. Interest subsidy: What is the current claim form, sanctioning authority, reimbursement cycle, required bank documents and available budget?
28. Financing sequence: How can an owner finance pre-inspection refurbishment when the scheme makes loans taken before registration ineligible for subsidy?
29. Rural definition: What legal/administrative definition determines whether a registered property receives rural benefits?
30. “Local taxes”: Which exact taxes/levies are exempt, and which authority implements the exemption?
31. Electricity/water: Which implementing tariff orders allow domestic treatment and what application procedure applies?
32. Tourism statistics: Is any monthly, quarterly or annual occupancy/guest return currently required outside the 2024 Gazette?
33. Public registry: Can Tourism provide the complete current list corresponding to the Government’s 2 September 2026 statement that 11 homestays are registered?
34. Nagar Panchayat: How is a property within a Nagar Panchayat treated for Scheme cl.3?
35. Cantonment: Is a property within cantonment limits eligible if it does not fall within a Municipal Corporation/Council/Committee?