How Much Does It Cost to Start a Travel Agency in India?

The cost of starting a travel agency in India varies enormously with the model you pick — from a few thousand rupees to several lakhs. Here's a realistic breakdown for 2026.

Traditional agency: ₹3–10 lakh+

A physical agency carries office rent, staff salaries, a GDS/consolidator deposit, software, and working capital. Expect ₹3–10 lakh or more before your first sale, plus ongoing monthly costs. It's viable, but it's slow and capital-heavy.

Building your own booking website: ₹5–15 lakh + months

If you try to build the technology yourself, you're paying for airline API integration, a booking engine, ticketing, payment integration, and ongoing maintenance. This is the most expensive and time-consuming path, and it rarely makes sense for a new agency.

White-label online travel business: a one-time setup fee

The lowest-investment route is a white-label platform. You get a ready-made, branded flight-booking website plus live fares and instant ticketing for a one-time setup fee — with no monthly subscription and no per-booking commission. You then fund a prepaid wallet to issue tickets, and you keep 100% of the markup you set. This is why most new founders in 2026 start here: your upfront cost is a fraction of the alternatives, and you can be live in days.

What else to budget for

• GST registration + current account — nominal, mostly your time.
• Payment gateway — typically a small percentage per transaction, no big upfront cost.
• Working capital / wallet float — the money you keep in your ticketing wallet to issue bookings.
• Marketing — start free (social, community, referrals) and scale into ads as margins grow.

Bottom line

You don't need lakhs to start. With realtimefare, the technology, airline inventory and ticketing come bundled for a one-time fee, so your main ongoing cost is the wallet float you use to book. See the full breakdown on our white-label pricing page, or apply to get started.