The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is a diplomatic service and a central civil service of the Government of the Republic of India under the Ministry of External Affairs. The Foreign Secretary is the head of the service. Vikram Misri is the 35th and the current Foreign Secretary.

The service, consisting of civil servants is entrusted with handling the foreign relations of India and providing consular services, and to mark India's presence in international organizations. It is the body of career diplomats serving in more than 160 Indian diplomatic missions and international organizations around the world. In addition, they serve at the President's Secretariat, the Prime Minister's Office and at the headquarters of MEA in New Delhi. They also head Regional Passport Offices throughout the country and hold positions in several ministries on deputation.

Indian Foreign Service officers have been 8 times Presidents of the UN Security Council, several Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, 3 National Security Advisors, and have been elected to offices of President, Vice President, Governors of States, Speaker of Lok Sabha, and Cabinet ministers.

On 13 September 1783, the board of directors of the East India Company passed a resolution at Fort William, Calcutta (now Kolkata), to create a department, which could help "relieve the pressure" on the Warren Hastings administration in conducting its "secret and political business." Although established by the Company, the Indian Foreign Department conducted business with foreign European powers. From the very beginning, a distinction was maintained between the foreign and political functions of the Foreign Department; relations with all "Asiatic powers" (including native princely states) were treated as political, while relations with European powers were treated as foreign.

In 1843, the Governor-General of India, Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough carried out administrative reforms, organizing the Secretariat of the Government into four departments: Foreign, Home, Finance, and Military. Each was headed by a secretary-level officer. The Foreign Department Secretary was entrusted with the "conduct of all correspondence belonging to the external and internal diplomatic relations of the government."

The Government of India Act 1935 attempted to delineate more clearly functions of the foreign and political wings of the Foreign Department, it was soon realized that it was administratively imperative to completely bifurcate the department. Consequently, the External Affairs Department was set up separately under the direct charge of the Governor-General.

The idea of establishing a separate diplomatic service to handle the external activities of the Government of India originated from a note dated 30 September 1944, recorded by Lieutenant-General T. J. Hutton, the Secretary of the Planning and Development Department. When this note was referred to the Department of External Affairs for comments, Olaf Caroe, the Foreign Secretary, recorded his comments in an exhaustive note detailing the scope, composition and functions of the proposed service. Caroe pointed out that as India emerged as autonomous, it was imperative to build up a system of representation abroad that would be in complete harmony with the objectives of the future government.

On 9 October 1946, the Indian government established the Indian Foreign Service for India's diplomatic, consular and commercial representation overseas. With independence, there was a near-complete transition of the Foreign and Political Department into what then became the new Ministry of External Affairs.