Registered Hajj and Umrah Operators in India: How to Verify Yours

Checked: 25 July 2026 against official government portals · This page teaches verification at the source; it is not a directory of operators

Two governments, two lists, one habit that keeps you safe

Hajj and Umrah are booked through different systems, and the authority that authorises your operator sits in a different country for each. For Hajj, the authority is Indian. For Umrah, the real, checkable authorisation is Saudi. The one habit that protects you across both is the same: get the operator's exact name, then read that name on an official government list yourself before any money changes hands. Everything below is how to do that, and what the aggregate numbers do and do not mean.

A word on what this page refuses to be. It names no company and quotes no package price. A company name here would read as a recommendation we have no business making, and a price would be stale within a season and unverifiable the day you read it. The official portals are the live record. Our job is to point you at them and show you how to read them.

What is a Haj Group Organiser (HGO)?

An HGO, or Haj Group Organiser, is a private operator that is registered each Hajj season by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Haj Division, to take pilgrims for Hajj under India's private channel. The role used to be called a Private Tour Operator, or PTO, and older documents still use that term; HGO is the current name. India routes Hajj through only two official channels: the Haj Committee of India, which is the government channel, and these registered HGOs, which make up the private channel. There is no legitimate third route.

The registration is re-issued every Hajj season under a fresh HGO Policy, so an operator that was registered last year is not automatically registered this year. This is why the checking habit matters: you are not confirming that a firm was ever registered, you are confirming that it holds a place on the current season's list. Registration is a government record of eligibility to operate, and nothing more. It is not a rating, not a review, and not a promise that the service will match the brochure.

How do I check if a Hajj operator is registered?

Do it in three steps, and do it yourself rather than trusting a screenshot the operator sends you.

1. Ask for the exact registered name and the Haj year. The name on the list is precise; a near-match is not a match.
2. Find that name on the official List of Registered HGOs. It lives on the Portal for Haj Group Organisers at pto.haj.gov.in, and the same roster is published on minorityaffairs.gov.in. Make sure you are on the current Hajj season's list.
3. Cross-check the packages by departure state at packages.haj.gov.in, where registered HGO packages are searchable by the state you fly from.

If the operator is not on the official list, it is not an authorised HGO, whatever its office looks like and whatever certificates hang on the wall. One more reading aid: each HGO carries an ID whose first two letters encode the state and whose last two digits encode the Haj year. An ID that starts with "KL" and ends in "25", for example, reads as Kerala, Haj 2025. If the year digits on the ID do not match the season you are booking, ask why.

For the government channel, applications are made only through the Haj Committee of India at hajcommittee.gov.in or the official Haj Suvidha mobile app. Selection for the Haj Committee quota is by Qurrah, a computer-generated random draw, so no agent can guarantee that you will be picked. Anyone who promises a Haj Committee seat is describing something that does not exist.

How many registered Hajj operators are there in India?

For Haj 2025 there were exactly 842 registered HGOs. Read that number with its label attached. It is the last fully verified season count, because the Haj 2026 roster was not publicly downloadable when we checked on 25 July 2026. So 842 is the Haj 2025 figure, not a promise about the current season, and the only way to know this year's count is to open the current list on the official portal.

There is a separate number that is easy to confuse with this one, and the confusion is worth clearing up. India's total Haj quota is 1,75,025 pilgrim places, split roughly 70:30 between the Haj Committee channel and the private HGO channel. The private channel held 52,507 pilgrim seats. That 52,507 is a count of pilgrims, not a count of operators. The 842 figure counts operators; the 52,507 figure counts the seats those operators shared between them. Mixing the two produces nonsense, so keep them apart.

Category breakdown of the 842 (Haj 2025)

The 842 registered HGOs were sorted into categories, each carrying a fixed per-operator pilgrim quota. The counts below sum to 842.

Source: List of Registered HGOs, Haj 2025, on pto.haj.gov.in and minorityaffairs.gov.in. Checked 25 July 2026. This is the Haj 2025 roster, not the Haj 2026 or 2027 list.

Where the 842 operators were registered (Haj 2025)

The roster is heavily concentrated in a few states. The distribution below is for Haj 2025.

Source: List of Registered HGOs, Haj 2025, on pto.haj.gov.in and minorityaffairs.gov.in. Checked 25 July 2026. The state named on the list matches the first two letters of each HGO ID.

How do I verify an Umrah company on Nusuk?

Umrah works differently from Hajj, and the difference decides where you look. India has no separate government licence for Umrah operators; the Indian side of Umrah is largely deregulated. That means the real, checkable authorisation is on the Saudi side, not the Indian one. Umrah companies must be licensed by the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah.

There is an official public directory of licensed Saudi Umrah companies at umrah.nusuk.sa/ServiceProviders, and each company profile shows its Ministry License No. To verify a company, search its exact name in that directory and read the licence number on the official profile. Pilgrims book Umrah permits, hotels, transport and Rawdah slots inside the official Nusuk platform and app at umrah.nusuk.sa. Confirm the current Umrah visa rules on the official Nusuk platform itself rather than taking any operator's word for what is or is not allowed.

Two safety points sit on top of this. First, only official domains are trustworthy: nusuk.sa, gov.sa and other .sa addresses. Scammers run lookalike sites built to resemble Nusuk, so check the address bar, not just the logo. Second, a licence number in the directory tells you the company is licensed by the Ministry; it does not, by itself, tell you the service will be good. The same rule applies as on the Hajj side. Licensing is the floor, not a review.

Can I do Hajj on a tourist visa?

No. Hajj requires a dedicated Hajj visa, so any offer to perform Hajj on a tourist visa is a red flag, not a shortcut. Around that headline claim sit a cluster of pitches that should make you stop. A "guaranteed" selection in the Haj Committee quota is impossible, because places are drawn by Qurrah, a random computer draw. A "VIP quota" is being sold on something that no longer exists: the discretionary 500-seat VIP Haj quota was abolished in January 2023. Prices far below the season's normal range, heavy pressure for a large cash-only advance, and a firm name suspiciously close to a well-known operator round out the pattern.

Fraud in this space, where it happens, tends to follow known shapes: advances collected and the agent no longer reachable, promises of seats that were never the agent's to give, paperwork that never arrives. We describe these as reported patterns rather than attaching numbers to them, because inventing a victim count or naming a firm would be exactly the kind of unverifiable claim this page exists to avoid. What protects you is not a statistic. It is refusing to pay before the name is confirmed on the official list, and refusing to pay in cash without numbered receipts.

Before you hand over anything, demand a written agreement that states the inclusions, the accommodation category and its distance from the Haram, the flight details and the total cost. Demand official numbered receipts for every payment, and avoid cash-only arrangements. A legitimate operator can produce all of this without friction. Reluctance to put the deal in writing is itself information.

How do I report a Hajj or Umrah fraud?

If you have been defrauded, or you are watching a scheme unfold, there are official channels for it. File an FIR at your local police station. Complain to the Haj Committee of India and to the Ministry of Minority Affairs, both of which oversee the official channels the fraudster is pretending to represent. If the problem arises after you have reached Saudi Arabia, contact the Consulate General of India in Jeddah, which handles pilgrim issues on the ground. Keep every document: the written agreement if you got one, the receipts, the messages, the transfer records. They are the difference between a report that can be acted on and one that cannot.

Your questions, answered

Official sources to verify at

• Portal for Haj Group Organisers (pto.haj.gov.in), the List of Registered HGOs
• Ministry of Minority Affairs (minorityaffairs.gov.in), where the same HGO roster is published
• packages.haj.gov.in, registered HGO packages searchable by departure state
• Haj Committee of India (hajcommittee.gov.in), the government channel and Haj Suvidha app
• Nusuk service providers (umrah.nusuk.sa/ServiceProviders), the directory of licensed Saudi Umrah companies
• Nusuk platform (umrah.nusuk.sa), where Umrah permits, hotels, transport and Rawdah slots are booked

Figures on this page are labelled by Hajj season and were checked on 25 July 2026. The Haj 2025 roster of 842 operators is not the Haj 2026 or Haj 2027 list. Only official domains (gov.in, nusuk.sa, gov.sa and other .sa addresses) are trustworthy for verification; beware lookalike sites. Confirm every specific operator on the official portal itself, not on any SafarCheck copy.

SafarCheck-verified operators

Each operator below was checked by SafarCheck against the official government portal on the date shown. This confirms only that the operator appeared on the official registered-HGO list (Hajj) or the Nusuk licensed-company directory (Umrah) on that date. It is not a recommendation, a ranking, or a guarantee of service quality, and it does not protect against fraud. Always reconfirm at the official source before you pay.

Related pages

Compiled by SafarCheck and checked 25 July 2026 against official government portals. This page is a verification guide, not a directory: it names no operator and lists no price, because a name would read as a recommendation we do not make and a price would be stale and unverifiable. Registration or licensing is a government record only and does not guarantee service quality or protect against fraud; always confirm a specific operator at the official source before you pay. SafarCheck is not affiliated with any operator, the Haj Committee of India, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, or Nusuk.