OCI and Indian citizenship: common questions

No. India doesn’t allow dual citizenship, and an OCI card isn’t citizenship or a passport. You travel on your foreign passport and show your OCI card with it. In August 2025 the government told Parliament it had no proposal to allow dual citizenship.

It’s a lifelong visa for any purpose, so you can live in India for as long as you like. You can’t normally hold a government job. Research, missionary or journalistic work, and mountaineering need special permission first.

No, however long you stay. But if your permanent address or your job changes, you email the local Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO).

Yes, on the same terms as non-resident Indians, except farmland, farmhouses and plantations.

No. OCI cardholders can’t vote, stand for election or hold offices such as judge or president.

It depends on their citizenship, not where they were born. OCI is closed if you, or any parent, grandparent or great-grandparent, has ever been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh. If your family moved to India and became Indian citizens, and none of them ever held Pakistani or Bangladeshi citizenship, you may qualify.

A surrender certificate, which you get by surrendering your Indian passport through VFS Global. Since July 1, 2026 it costs US$40, plus US$3 and VFS’s US$19 charge. If you gave up the passport by May 31, 2010, a copy of it stamped as canceled is usually enough.

Yes, if they’re married to an Indian citizen or OCI cardholder, the marriage is registered, and it has lasted at least two years. There’s a security check first.

Only if their birth is registered at an Indian consulate and they don’t hold another country’s passport. Even then, they must give up their other citizenship within six months of turning 18. Children born in the US are American from birth, so most families apply for an OCI card instead.

Usually not. India’s US consulates and VFS Global say serving or retired members of a foreign military can’t get an OCI card.

You need your valid passport and your OCI, which can now be the digital e-OCI card on your phone. You can download it free from the OCI portal. Printed cards stay valid, and you no longer need the old passport with the “U” visa sticker.

No. Since June 30, 2026 you just update your passport details online, free within 3 months. That includes your first passport after turning 20. See OCI renewal and updates.

No. Person of Indian Origin (PIO) cards are no longer valid for travel. The Chicago consulate says converting them to OCI ended on December 31, 2025, so you’d apply for a new OCI card.

Yes. India can cancel it if it was obtained by fraud, or for showing disaffection to the Constitution, for example. Since August 2025 it can also be canceled if you’re jailed for two years or more, or charged with an offense carrying seven years or more.

Yes, after holding the card for 5 years and spending the whole year before you apply living in India. You’d have to give up your other citizenship.

The rules are the same everywhere. You still use the online OCI portal, but you send your application through the Indian mission’s service provider where you live, and pay in local currency.