Nepal — Department of Immigration Residential Visa Application

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice.

Current claim

• status: draft
• verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
• verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-15

Why this schema and why now (GOV-3237, scouted from GOV-3235)

Nepal stood at 3/6 verticals (Passport, Business Formation, National ID) going into this cycle. GOV-3078 had already confirmed Nepal's DMV (applydlnew.dotm.gov.np, quota-gated online portal, no static form) and Taxes (taxpayerportal.ird.gov.np, pure online e-form, no manual) as dead ends. Visa was the one remaining unscreened vertical, per CATALOG.md's own most recent Nepal entry (GOV-3217): "Nepal's Visa vertical remains unscreened, open backlog for a future cycle." This issue screens and opens it.

Sources screened

Dead ends / not used

• nepaliport.immigration.gov.np (Department of Immigration's Online Visa Application system) — a login/session-gated wizard (/onlinevisa-mission/application), no field-by-field static fallback. Excluded per the issue brief's own instruction not to use login-gated wizards.
• immigration.gov.np's two general "Download" PDFs (linked from the site's Visa/Rules/Download pages, HTTP 200, no gate):
  • "आगमन प्रस्थान विवरण फाराम" (Arrival/Departure Detail Form, get-file/downloads/Downloads-202605081615396407.pdf) — a short letter template addressed to the Director General requesting one's own arrival/departure record, 6 blank lines total (passport no., contact no., purpose, name, signature). Not a visa application.
  • "स्वघोषणा फारम (भिजिट भिसामा बिदेश जाने प्रयोजन)" (Self-Declaration Form, for the purpose of going abroad on a visit visa, get-file/downloads/Downloads-202605081620562536.pdf) — a genuine scanned (raster, no text layer) declaration filed by outbound Nepali citizens travelling abroad on a visit visa, not an application for a visa to Nepal. Confirmed via pdfjs-dist (getTextContent() returns zero items on its one page) and a node-canvas 3×-scale render.
• Department of Consular Services (nepalconsular.gov.np, MOFA's consular channel named in the issue brief) — scoped to document attestation/authentication and citizenship/legal services; no visa application form.
• Embassy of Nepal, New Delhi (in.nepalembassy.gov.np/pages/Visa-1/, a genuine .gov.np diplomatic-mission domain) — HTTP 200, but its Visa page and Download category list only Citizenship Verification and Medical Treatment application forms; the page itself directs applicants to the same nepaliport.immigration.gov.np online portal for visa applications, no static form of its own.
• Immigration Rules 2051, Schedule-6 (अनुसूची-६, relating to Rule 16(1)), "विदेशीहरुका लागि आगमन फाराम" (Arrival Form for Foreigners) — found in the same source PDF as the schema used below (pages 41–42). A genuine, richly-structured 18-item form, but it is an arrival/entry-control record completed at the port of entry (its own fields 6(क)/6(ख) assume an entry-visa number and validity date already exist), not a "निवेदन फाराम" (application form) requesting a visa — considered and set aside in favour of Schedule-4's explicit application form, consistent with this registry's convention (established by tz/immigration/visa-application, vn/bca/to-khai-de-nghi-cap-thi-thuc-viet-nam, il/mfa/entry-visa-application) that the Visa vertical models an application for a visa, not an arrival/exit card. Left as disclosed backlog for a future companion-schema cycle, alongside the Schedule-6-companion Nepali-citizen departure/arrival forms on the same pages (अनुसूची-६क/६ग, ७, ७क).

Source used

Immigration Rules, 2051 (1994), as amended — Schedule-4 (अनुसूची-४, relating to Rule 11(4)), "आवासीय भिसाका लागि निवेदन फाराम" (Application Form for Residential Visa), pages 36–37.

• Content page: https://immigration.gov.np/detail/136 ("अध्यागमन नियमावली-२०५१", reachable from the site's own /rule navigation page) — HTTP 200, no login/CAPTCHA/WAF.
• Direct PDF: https://immigration.gov.np/doi-notice-file/Notices-202605082109391297.pdf
• Retrieved: 2026-07-15, HTTP 200, application/pdf, 1,054,626 bytes.
• sha256: 56481cf965bfd9b9f26d4a9471ec7d65bb736debd69c5a0d7cd643801d1e1875 — independently derived via two separate curl fetches in this session, byte-identical both times.
• Fetched directly over TLS (curl -k; the certificate chain did not verify cleanly through this sandbox's trust store, the same class of issue disclosed on th/mfa's authority.url in GOV-3228 — the file itself downloads correctly and its content is unaffected).
• pdfjs-dist (legacy/build/pdf.js, pinned 3.11.174) confirms a genuine 68-page PDF with a real text layer, zero AcroForm widgets on any page (getAnnotations() returns an empty array throughout) — every blank line and the photo box on pages 36–37 are static page content, not fillable form fields.

Extraction method: page render, not text extraction

Direct text extraction via pdfjs-dist returns positioned but visually mis-ordered Devanagari glyph sequences for this document (a TT: undefined function: 21 warning is logged while decoding the embedded font), the same class of gap this registry has already documented for np/donidcr/national-identity-card-application. The full field list, section numbering, and the presence or absence of any required-field convention were instead confirmed visually: a node-canvas 4×-scale render of pages 36–37, followed by a further 6×-scale targeted crop of Section 10 (items क–घ) specifically to rule out small printed checkboxes or asterisks that a lower-resolution render might miss. The Nepali label text quoted in fields[].sourceRef was transcribed directly from these renders.

No required/optional convention on this source at all

A full-page 4×-scale render of both pages, plus the 6×-scale crop of Section 10, found not one printed asterisk, bold marker, or other required-field convention anywhere on this two-page form — consistent with np/donidcr/national-identity-card-application and unlike np/dop/mrp-offline-application-form's explicit asterisk convention.

Requiredness is therefore a disclosed judgment call, anchored to the form's own structure rather than any printed marker:

• Required: the applicant's core identity and passport particulars that every applicant, regardless of filing channel or declared basis, must supply to be identifiable at all — fullName, nationality, placeOfBirth, permanentAddress, occupation, passportNumber, passportIssueDate.
• Optional: addressInNepal — an applicant filing from abroad via a diplomatic mission, before ever entering Nepal, has none to give (see the dual Ambassador/Director-General addressee choice printed at the top of the form).
• Optional: lastVisaValidityDate, priorNepalResidenceDuration, priorNepalEngagementSector (items 8, 9(क), 9(ख)) — item 8 carries the source's own inline qualifier "(नेपाल प्रवेश गरिसकेको भए)" / "if already entered Nepal"; items 9(क)/9(ख) are the natural continuation of the same precondition. The form provides no separate yes/no checkbox for prior entry to bind a requiredWhen condition to, so these are modelled as plain optional fields rather than fabricating a boolean gate the source does not print.
• Optional: areaOfEminence, intendedContributionSector, investedOverUsd1MillionOnce, otherBasisForVisa (Section 10, items क–घ) — four alternative declared bases for the residential-visa request; an applicant ordinarily completes whichever applies to their own circumstances, not all four, but the source imposes no mutual-exclusivity marker (no radio-button/single-select convention, no "choose one of the following" instruction), so none is fabricated as an exclusivityGroups constraint here.
• Optional: numberOfFamilyMembers, additionalRemarks, attachedDocumentsDescription, photo — open-ended disclosure items with no textual signal of mandatoriness.

Field-modelling notes

• fullName: the form prints "नाम, थर" (Name, Surname) as a single line label over one blank line — unlike this registry's other Nepal schemas (e.g. np/donidcr's separate First/Middle/Last boxes), there is only one blank here, so it is modelled as one field rather than a fabricated split.
• investedOverUsd1MillionOnce: item 10(ग) is printed as a completed declarative statement ending in a full stop ("।"), not a colon-terminated fill-in blank like its sibling items 10(क)/10(ख)/10(घ), and carries no checkbox glyph (confirmed at 6×-scale crop) — modelled as boolean since the underlying fact (did the applicant make a single investment exceeding USD 1 million) is inherently yes/no, unlike the open-ended "which area" questions in 10(क)/10(ख).
• otherBasisForVisa: item 10(घ) ("अन्य" / Other) is followed on the next page by three blank continuation lines bulleted with the Devanagari vowel letters (अ)(आ)(इ) — these are generic continuation-line markers, not three distinct sub-questions with their own labels, so they are modelled as one multi-line text field.
• attachedDocumentsDescription: item 13 ("संलग्न कागजातहरू" / Attached Documents) gives three blank lines (क)(ख)(ग) for the applicant to name whatever papers accompany the application. Unlike np/donidcr/national-identity-card-application's own printed required-documents checklist (which that schema correctly excludes as informational, not applicant-entered data), this source names no fixed document list of its own — the three lines are the applicant's own free-form input, so they are modelled as one data field rather than excluded.
• photo: a photo box (फोटो) is printed top-right, not backed by an AcroForm widget, consistent with every other item on this form carrying no fillable-widget backing.
• Excluded — recipient salutation line: "श्री महामहिम राजदूतज्यू/श्री महावाणिज्यदूतज्यू, श्री वाणिज्यदूतज्यू/श्री महानिर्देशकज्यू" (His Excellency the Ambassador/Consul General, Consul/Director General) is a fixed printed choice of addressee reflecting where the application is filed (a diplomatic mission abroad, or the Department directly in Nepal), not applicant-supplied data — excluded as form letterhead, consistent with this registry's treatment of salutation/addressee lines.
• Excluded — applicant's signature: "निवेदकको हस्ताक्षर" is a handwritten wet-ink mark, excluded consistent with this registry's established treatment of physical signature lines on print-and-fill government forms (np/dop/mrp-offline-application-form, np/donidcr/national-identity-card-application, do/mirex/passport-application). Review-gate correction: the original draft of this document claimed this form's signature line "carries no adjacent date field of its own to retain" and modelled no such field. Independent re-derivation during review (a 6x-scale targeted crop of the bottom of page 37) found this claim was factually wrong — a plain blank line labelled "मिति :" (Date:) sits directly beside/above the signature line, the same footer pattern this registry already retains elsewhere as its own field even though the signature itself is excluded (np/dop/mrp-offline-application-form's applicantSignatureDate, np/donidcr/national-identity-card-application's declarationDate). Corrected: added applicantSignatureDate (type: string, required: false — no digit-box structure or A.D./B.S. calendar label, and outside this document's own disclosed required-field criteria of core identity/ passport particulars only), populated in valid-full-application.json, and the top-level schema description and field count (19→20) updated accordingly.

process.language

Set to ne (Nepali), diverging from this registry's other three Nepal schemas (np/dop, np/ocr, np/donidcr), which are all set to en despite being substantially or entirely Devanagari-language sources. This form's two pages contain zero English-language tokens anywhere (confirmed via both the page renders and the raw extracted, if mis-mapped, text stream) — a BCP-47 language tag of ne is the more spec-accurate reading of "language tag of the source form" (per the spec's own field description) for this specific document. Not a change to the other three schemas, which are out of scope for this issue.

Validation run

• node tools/validate.mjs and node tools/validate-ajv.mjs (ajv 2020-12 against spec/v0.3) both pass on the full registry after adding this document.
• npm run build-index re-run in tools/govschema-client/ to regenerate registry-index.json.
• An ephemeral, from-scratch conformance checker (deriving required/type rules directly from this schema's own fields[], discarded after use, not committed) ran the fixtures in this version's conformance/ directory.