OCI card from the Netherlands (2026): naturalisation, surrender, the Embassy in The Hague, documents, fees and the e-OCI

India does not allow dual citizenship, and for most newcomers neither does the Netherlands. The day you receive the bekendmaking at your naturalisation ceremony you become Dutch and, under section 9 of India's Citizenship Act, you stop being Indian — automatically, without filing anything. The Overseas Citizen of India card is the arrangement that keeps the door open: a lifelong, multiple-entry, multi-purpose visa for India, exemption from reporting to the police however long you stay, and parity with Non-Resident Indians in economic, financial and educational matters, except the purchase of agricultural or plantation property. It matters to a growing number of readers: of the 51,760 naturalisation applications the IND received in 2025, Indians were the second-largest nationality, behind Syrians. Every amount on this page is in euros, as the Embassy of India in The Hague charges them.

What it gives you

• Entry to India for life, for any purpose — family visits, study, work, retirement — as often and for as long as you like, on the Dutch passport the card is linked to.
• No police or FRRO registration, whatever the length of stay.
• Parity with NRIs in buying residential and commercial property, investing, banking and sitting the all-India entrance tests, and the right to practise as a doctor, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, advocate, architect or chartered accountant under the relevant Indian Acts. The Embassy's FAQ adds that state governments are to treat the OCI as identification for their services.
• Indian rates on domestic airfares and at national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, NRI rates at monuments and museums, and inter-country adoption on the NRI footing.
• A road back. Under section 5(1)(g) a person registered as an OCI for five years who has lived in India for one of them can apply for Indian citizenship — and would then give up the Dutch one, because the rule cuts both ways.

What it does not give you

No vote, no seat in Parliament or a state assembly, no constitutional office, no government job unless a ministry opens the post, and no purchase of agricultural land, plantation property or a farmhouse. Research work needs the Ministry of Home Affairs' prior approval, and a protected or restricted area needs the usual permit. It is not a citizenship: the Embassy's FAQ says plainly that registering as an OCI does not cost you your present nationality, and Indian civil and criminal law applies to you while you are in India. In India the Dutch embassy in New Delhi, not an Indian office, is your consulate.

Who this page is for

Four kinds of reader. The knowledge migrant who has just become Dutch, or is about to, with an Indian passport in a drawer. The Dutch-born child of Indian parents, who may be Indian, Dutch, or neither yet. The Dutch partner of an Indian citizen or OCI holder. And — uniquely Dutch — the Surinamese-Hindustani family whose ancestors were taken to Suriname as indentured labourers, for whom The Hague accepts a Surinamese certificate of Indian origin going back six generations. All four now go to the same place: the Embassy's own consular counters in The Hague, because VFS Global stopped taking Indian applications in the Netherlands on 1 June 2025 and nobody has replaced it. And all four receive the same thing: since 8 July 2026 no booklet is printed, and the card is an e-OCI downloaded from the portal. The Indians in the Netherlands guide covers the permits, tax and housing; this page covers the card, and the Dutch paperwork that comes before it.

Eligibility is section 7A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, and it reaches further back than most people expect.

You can register as an OCI cardholder if you are a foreign national who

1. was a citizen of India on or after 26 January 1950, or was eligible to become one on that day — which, the Embassy's FAQ explains, covers anyone living abroad who, or whose parents or grandparents, were born in India as the Government of India Act, 1935 defined it — or belonged to a territory that became part of India after 15 August 1947: Dadra and Nagar Haveli (11 August 1961), Goa, Daman and Diu (20 December 1961), Pondicherry (16 August 1962) and Sikkim (26 April 1975);
2. is a child or grandchild of such a person, or — under the Act — a great-grandchild;
3. is a minor child of such a person, or a minor whose parents are both, or one of whom is, an Indian citizen;
4. is the spouse of foreign origin of an Indian citizen or an OCI cardholder, where the marriage is registered and has lasted at least two continuous years before the application.

In practice: an Indian who has become Dutch qualifies under the first head; a Dutch-born child of Indian parents under the second or third; a Dutch partner under the fourth. The Embassy's FAQ also confirms that a person who already holds more than one nationality can apply.

The Surinamese-Hindustani route

The Hague's checklist has a line of its own for Suriname. An applicant originating from Suriname whose Indian ancestors were taken abroad as indentured labourers qualifies up to the sixth generation, with three documents: an apostilled certificate from Suriname's Ministry of Home Affairs on the Indian origin of the ancestors, an attested English translation of it, and an apostilled BRP extract (uittreksel) under six months old showing both parents' names. The extension from the fourth to the sixth generation was announced for Suriname by President Murmu during her state visit of 4–6 June 2023, and Prime Minister Modi announced it for the Surinamese-Hindustani community in the Netherlands at The Hague on 16 May 2026. A Hindustani family that has been travelling to India on tourist visas for decades can now apply on the strength of that certificate.

Who cannot

• Anyone who is or was a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh, or whose parent, grandparent or great-grandparent is or was — the Embassy's checklist prints the four generations in full. There is no discretion, and an application that hides it is refused and, if granted, cancelled.
• Foreign military personnel, serving or retired. The Hague's checklist and FAQ say it in those words, and the FAQ adds civilian employees of a defence ministry such as IT engineers and contractors. For a Dutch reader that means service in Defensie — the Koninklijke Marechaussee is part of the armed forces — and the MHA's own wording, as the Consulate in Houston prints it, adds foreign police personnel, with a duty to hand the card in if you join later.
• A spouse whose marriage is under two years old on the day, unregistered, or dissolved.
• A minor who still holds an Indian passport: under the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026 a child cannot keep an Indian passport alongside a foreign one, so the Indian passport is surrendered first.
• A holder of a non-Dutch passport who has lived in the Netherlands for less than a year: The Hague's checklist requires a BRP extract showing at least one year's registration, so an American or British citizen of Indian origin who has just arrived applies to the Indian mission in their own country, or waits.

PIO cards

The Person of Indian Origin card was merged into the OCI in 2015. The Embassy's notice of January 2024 recorded the last extension of the PIO card as a travel document, to 31 December 2024, so in 2026 a PIO holder needs an OCI or a visa. The conversion is the "OCI in lieu of PIO" service on the portal, with its own checklist at The Hague; the PIO card is handed in once the OCI is ready.

Most Indians in the Netherlands meet the OCI through Dutch naturalisation, so the Dutch side comes first.

Naturalisation in 2026

The IND's page, updated 8 October 2026, sets the conditions: you are 18 or over; you have lived in the Kingdom for five consecutive years with a valid permit (three years of marriage or cohabitation with a Dutch partner can shorten that); your permit is permanent or for a non-temporary purpose, and stays valid until the ceremony; you have passed the civic-integration exam at A2 at least; you are no danger to public order; you make the declaration of solidarity at the ceremony; and you renounce your present nationality unless an exemption applies. You apply at your municipality, pay there — €1,139 alone, €1,454 with a partner, €168 for each child included (IND fees, 2026) — and the IND has twelve months to decide. If the answer is yes, the King signs the Royal Decree (Koninklijk Besluit), the municipality invites you to a ceremony, and you must attend within a year; you become Dutch only there, when you make the declaration and receive the bekendmaking. The coalition agreement published in January 2026 kept the bar on dual nationality for naturalising newcomers and dropped the previous cabinet's plan to raise the residence period to ten years, while signalling a move to B1; the IND's page still says five years and A2.

The afstandsverplichting, in general

When you apply you sign a bereidheidsverklaring — a declaration that you will give up your other nationality once Dutch — or claim an exemption, which must be claimed then and cannot be claimed after the ceremony. The exemptions include being married to, or the registered partner of, a Dutch citizen on the day the Royal Decree is signed, having been born in the Kingdom and living here, holding an asylum permit, and a few others. For the nationalities that must be renounced, the IND writes after the ceremony — sometimes months later — and you then have three months to send proof that you have asked your country to end your nationality, followed by a copy of the document confirming it. Fail to, and the IND can revoke your Dutch nationality.

What it means for an Indian

None of that applies to you. The IND's country list for India, updated 8 June 2026, says that you lose Indian nationality automatically when you take another, that you therefore do not ask India to end it, and that you send the IND no documents about it, because the IND already knows. There is no IND deadline and no Indian certificate the IND waits for. Dutch exemptions make no difference on the Indian side either: an Indian married to a Dutch citizen is exempt from the Dutch requirement but still stops being Indian on becoming Dutch, because section 9 is Indian law. The same is true of the option procedure, which often lets other nationalities keep their passport: it does not let an Indian keep an Indian one.

What the IND's silence does not do is excuse you from India's rules. The Passports Act requires the Indian passport to be surrendered after you become a foreign national, travelling on it after a three-month grace period attracts penalties, and the OCI file is not accepted without the surrender certificate. That is the next section; what follows is the order in which a Dutch-naturalising Indian does things.

The order of events

1. Before applying, decide with your eyes open: you keep the right to own your flat in Pune and to inherit anything, but you lose the vote and the right to buy farmland. The IND advises checking the consequences before you sign.
2. Apply at the municipality, sign the bereidheidsverklaring (India: automatic loss), include children under 18 if you want them Dutch too.
3. Wait up to twelve months; the Royal Decree is signed; the invitation arrives.
4. The ceremony. The date of the bekendmaking is the date you became Dutch and stopped being Indian, and the date from which the Embassy counts the three-month travel grace and the three years before a retention penalty.
5. A week later, the Dutch passport — the IND says you can apply at the municipality one week after the ceremony, and you hand in your residence card there or at the IND. The maximum fee in 2026 is €88.65.
6. Surrender the Indian passport at the Embassy with the Dutch passport in hand: the Embassy says it cannot accept a surrender without a copy and number of the Dutch passport.
7. Apply for the OCI with the surrender certificate. For any trip in between, take an e-Visa on the Dutch passport.

The Netherlands has no birthright citizenship, and that surprises many Indian parents. A child born here is Dutch at birth only if a parent is Dutch at that moment — the mother, or a Dutch father married to the mother, her registered partner, or who acknowledged the child before birth — or in the rare "third generation" case where the child and a parent live in the Kingdom and a grandparent was already living here when that parent was born. A child of two Indian knowledge migrants born in Amstelveen or Eindhoven is therefore not Dutch, and is Indian only once the birth is registered with the Embassy.

Making the child Indian: registering the birth

The Embassy's passport checklist (February 2026) treats a newborn's first passport as two steps in one appointment: registration of birth of a minor child at an Indian consulate under section 4(1), applied for on indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in, and the fresh passport on Passport Seva. You bring the full Dutch birth certificate from the municipality, a BRP extract with the child's Dutch address, both parents' passports and Dutch residence permits, the marriage certificate (apostilled if it was issued outside India), proof of an Indian address and a no-objection form signed by both parents. Registration costs €40 and the newborn's passport €73 in the July 2026 fee chart. Do it in the first year: after a year, or where one parent holds Dutch nationality, the Embassy also wants a letter from the municipality confirming the child has not acquired Dutch nationality, and an explanation of the delay.

Making the child Dutch

• Co-naturalisation (mee-naturalisatie). You include the child in your own application: a child under 16 must live here on a permanent or non-temporary permit, a child of 12 or over tells the official what they think, and a child of 16 or 17 must have lived here three consecutive years and agree. It costs €168 per child in 2026, and if only one parent applies, the other must come to the municipality to consent.
• Post-naturalisation (nanaturalisatie). A child left out can follow after you are Dutch, once they have three consecutive years here on a non-temporary permit. A child born during your procedure is included free if you apply within a year of becoming Dutch.
• Option at 18. A young adult born in the Kingdom who has always lived here can opt for Dutch nationality, usually without having to renounce under Dutch law.

What each route does to the Indian side

The IND does not ask a minor to renounce, but India does not care what the IND asks: a child who becomes Dutch stops being Indian, and The Hague's surrender checklist covers "adults and minors who obtained a foreign nationality". So a co-naturalised child's Indian passport is surrendered — signed by both parents, €38 — and only then does the child apply for the OCI; the 2026 rules no longer let a minor hold both passports. A child who is not included stays Indian: the Embassy notes that a parent's surrender does not touch the children's Indian nationality while one parent is still Indian, so a family can naturalise in stages. Beware the other route, though: if a parent renounces under section 8 — open only to someone who is still an Indian citizen — every minor child loses Indian citizenship with them, with a right to resume it by declaration within a year of turning eighteen.

A child born after you became Dutch

A child born to a Dutch mother, or a Dutch father who is married to the mother, is Dutch from birth, needs no Dutch application at all, and cannot be registered as Indian without that municipal letter saying the child is not Dutch. In practice such a child gets a Dutch passport and an OCI as the child of a former Indian citizen — the "basis of parents" documents in the checklist below — and the OCI simply follows the passport, renewed every five years until the child turns 18.

The family that is half and half

A common Dutch pattern: one parent naturalises, the other keeps the Indian passport, and the children stay Indian until the family decides. That is legal and stable. The Indian parent and the Indian children keep renewing their Indian passports at the same Embassy, the Dutch parent holds an OCI, and nobody has to choose until each child is old enough to decide.

A former Indian citizen's OCI file must contain a copy of the last Indian passport and a surrender certificate, a renunciation certificate or a deemed surrender certificate. The Embassy will not accept the OCI without it, and the surrender is a separate appointment, so it comes first.

What The Hague does now: one service, surrender

The Embassy's position is simple: when you became Dutch, section 9 ended your Indian citizenship, so there is nothing left to renounce — you surrender the passport. The checklist revised on 14 July 2026 asks for: 1. the online application on the Passport Seva portal, printed, signed on the first and last pages, with photo, signature and documents uploaded (two or more documents may be combined into one PDF); 2. two photographs, 35 × 45 mm, to Indian specifications — the Embassy has no photo or photocopy service; 3. a self-attested copy of the Dutch passport; 4. the original latest Indian passport, for cancellation — if it is lost, a police report and a photocopy; 5. a self-attested copy of its first and last pages (the first four pages for a passport from the 1980s or 1990s); 6. a copy of the bekendmaking, with the date you became Dutch entered on the form exactly as it reads; 7. a prepaid DHL Express return waybill, generated through the Embassy's own link, with an A4 self-addressed envelope.

You attend in person for a fifteen-minute slot. The fee from 1 July 2026 is €35 + €2 ICWF + €1 bank charge = €38, and the Embassy quotes a minimum of 12–14 working days. The passport comes back cancelled with the certificate; keep both for life — the Embassy says that before November 2020 it kept a record of surrendered passports but not copies of the certificates.

The old two-tier system, and why you may still see it

An older page on the Embassy's site still prints the scheme many missions used: if you became a foreign citizen on or before 31 May 2010, a surrender certificate for €20 + €3 ICWF; on or after 1 June 2010, a "renunciation declaration" for €185 + €3. The Hague's current documents — the surrender checklist and FAQ, and the fee chart of 1 July 2026, which has one line for surrender and none for renunciation — no longer split it, and the Embassy's own document list of December 2024 says the section 8 renunciation is "not applicable" to anyone who already holds a foreign naturalisation certificate or passport. The Government's fee revision of 1 July 2026 put the surrender on the police-clearance rate — US$40, which The Hague charges as €35, the same as its police clearance certificate. The section 8 renunciation, filed on the MHA's citizenship portal and taking 60–90 days, is for someone who is still an Indian citizen and also holds another nationality; a newly Dutch Indian is not that person. If an agent tells you to pay €185 for a renunciation, check the current checklist first.

No passport, or an old one

• Deemed surrender: if you became foreign more than ten years ago and the Indian passport also expired more than ten years ago, and you no longer have it, the Embassy can issue a deemed surrender certificate on a copy of the passport or a letter from the IND giving its details, with proof of the date you acquired the foreign nationality.
• Lost after 1 June 2010: a renunciation declaration is issued against a copy of the passport, a notarised affidavit and a police report.

The penalties

Keeping or using an Indian passport after becoming Dutch is an offence under section 12(1A) of the Passports Act. The Embassy's rules: a three-month grace for travel, counted from the date of the bekendmaking, not of the Dutch passport; penalties if the last passport expired on or after 1 January 2005 and you kept it beyond three years, travelled on it after the grace period, or renewed it after naturalising; none if you became foreign before 1 January 2005 and the passport also expired before then; and no retention penalty if you obtained an Indian visa or OCI on your first Dutch passport straight away. Penalties cannot be waived or reduced. The Hague does not print the amounts; the Government's graded scale, as the Embassy in Bern publishes it, is charged in euros at the mission's rate. The Hague's rule also penalises a passport kept beyond three years even if it was never used; the Bern scale prints no separate figure for that case, so ask at the counter:

The Embassy's surrender FAQ puts the practical deadline at three years from becoming Dutch; the cheap and simple course is to surrender within weeks of receiving the Dutch passport. Family members who stay Indian renew their passports at the same Embassy — the passport renewal guide covers that side.

The application is online first, then in person at the Embassy. There is no outsourcing centre, no post-in route and no walk-in: the Embassy's how-to sheet and checklists of 6 August 2026 are the procedure.

1. Register on ociservices.gov.in and start a new registration (or "miscellaneous" for an existing card, or "in lieu of PIO"). Fill in the form exactly as your documents read — the Dutch passport for your present details, the old Indian passport for any previous name — and complete Part B. Print it in colour, portrait, one page per sheet, and sign or thumb-print the first and last pages. The checklist's warning in capitals: errors on the printed form cannot be corrected by hand at the counter.
2. Upload the photo and signature. The Hague's specification is a square photo between 200 × 200 and 3,500 × 3,500 pixels and a signature image in a 1:3 ratio, between 200 × 67 and 3,500 × 2,500 pixels, each under 1 MB; the checklist warns that a poor upload can get the application rejected. For the counter you need four printed photographs, 5 × 5 cm, and the Embassy has no photo or photocopy service.
3. Upload every supporting document under its category; where there is no category, combine two or more into one PDF. The checklist says documents must be uploaded before the appointment, not brought instead.
4. Book the appointment at appointment.indianembassynetherland.com — "Regular Embassy Appointment", or "Consular Camp Appointment" when a camp is announced. Choose the venue — Buitenrustweg 2 or Oranjestraat 12 — and go to the one on your letter. Under the Embassy's appointment notice, slots for the following month are released on the first of each month at 09:00 CET and weekly slots every Sunday at 09:00 CET; one appointment covers one application, so a family of four books four; and appointment requests by email are not answered except in emergencies such as a death.
5. Attend. No entry without the appointment letter, no late entry, and no mobile phone in the consular waiting area. Each slot is fifteen minutes, so bring the printed checklist on top, every box ticked, the documents in its order, originals for verification and copies to hand in. You pay the €266 at the counter; ocihelp.nl, a paid helper, advised in August 2025 bringing both a bank card and cash.
6. Wait. The how-to sheet's "usual processing time" is three months, with a request not to enquire during it; the portal's status enquiry shows the file moving to "granted" when the MHA registers you.
7. Download the e-OCI. The checklist now says no DHL label is needed for an OCI application, because nothing is posted back: once the status reads granted, log in with the email on the record, generate the e-OCI, and keep it on your phone and on paper with the Dutch passport it names.

The consular camps

Twice in 2026 the Embassy took its counter on the road under the banner "Indian Embassy @ Your Doorstep": Almere on 24 August, at the municipality's offices on Stadhuisplein 1, and Rotterdam on 28 September, at De Nieuwe Gaffel, Gaffelstraat 63A, each from 10:00 to 15:00, organised with local associations. Both took OCI, passport, surrender and affidavit applications, booked through the same appointment site. Watch the Embassy's news page for the next one if The Hague is a long trip for you.

Who does the paperwork

You can, and you should keep control of it. Since VFS left, paid helpers have filled the gap: ocihelp.nl, for one, sells document guidance from €39 and offers to book appointments. The Embassy's appointment notice is blunt that it has not outsourced consular services to any private agency and that misuse of the appointment system by an agency can lead to services being refused to the agency and the applicant. If you use a helper, keep your own portal login, see every upload, and pay the fee at the counter yourself.

The Embassy's OCI checklist 1 (new card), revised on 6 August 2026, is the authority, and the counter will not take an incomplete file. Two rules run through all of it: Dutch documents are apostilled by a Dutch court (the rechtbank's fee is €27 per apostille in 2026; you bring the paper original, or post it, and anyone may take it for you), and Indian documents are apostilled or attested by the MEA's CPV Division in New Delhi.

Everyone

• The printed application, Part B completed, signed on the first and last pages, with the checklist on top.
• Four photographs, 5 × 5 cm, to the Indian specification.
• The foreign passport, valid for at least 180 days on the day you submit.
• A BRP extract (uittreksel) from your municipality, less than six months old, apostilled, showing your Dutch address and both parents' names. A holder of a non-Dutch passport needs an extract showing the date of registration and at least one year here.
• An employment letter describing your job; a self-employed applicant gives the KVK registration, a student a letter from the university. Minors, homemakers, the unemployed and the retired are exempt.
• The certificate of surrender of any Indian ration card and voter ID, or the Embassy's undertaking that you hold none.

A former Indian citizen

• A copy of the last Indian passport and the surrender certificate (or renunciation or deemed surrender certificate). The FAQ's list of mandatory uploads adds the uittreksel or the bekendmaking — upload both.

Applying through a parent or grandparent (most Dutch-born children)

• The applicant's birth certificate and BRP extract showing both parents, apostilled and under six months.
• The parent's or grandparent's foreign and Indian passports.
• One document proving the link to the Indian ancestor and one Indian document proving the ancestor's origin — an Indian passport, a domicile certificate, a school-leaving certificate.

A minor

• An original no-objection letter signed by both parents, copies of both parents' passports, their OCI cards and residence cards if any, and — if the child ever held an Indian passport — its surrender certificate.

A spouse of an Indian citizen or OCI cardholder

• An apostilled marriage certificate, registered, showing two continuous years of marriage.
• The spouse's passport, residence card and — for an OCI spouse — OCI card.
• For the spouse of an Indian citizen, a copy of the Indian spouse's passport showing your name. If it does not, the Indian spouse has the passport re-issued with the spouse's name first; the same applies to an OCI spouse's card. It is an easy one to miss, and it stops the file.
• Your own apostilled birth certificate or extract with your parents' names, and apostilled birth certificates of your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, or any government document certifying their nationality at birth — the evidence that nobody in the line was Pakistani or Bangladeshi.

A Surinamese Hindustani

• The apostilled certificate from Suriname's Ministry of Home Affairs on the Indian origin of your ancestors, up to the sixth generation; an attested English translation; and the apostilled BRP extract with both parents' names.

A PIO cardholder

• The PIO card (first and last pages and any endorsements) and the foreign passport, under the "in lieu of PIO" checklist.

Miscellaneous services on an existing card

Checklist 2 asks for the old and new foreign passports and the current OCI card; an apostilled BRP extract for a change of address; the marriage certificate or other document for a change of name; the original police report for a lost card; and, if your first OCI was issued before 1 September 2015, the original foreign passport carrying the U-visa sticker, for cancellation.

What is not accepted

Documents brought but not uploaded, a printed form with handwritten corrections, an un-apostilled Dutch or foreign document, a BRP extract older than six months, and a passport with less than 180 days to run. Where your case is not on the list, the checklist's own advice is to email attcons.thehague@mea.gov.in before the appointment, not at it.

Every Indian consular service at The Hague now has three parts: the consular fee, set by the Government and converted to euros; the Indian Community Welfare Fund contribution — €3 on OCI services, €2 on passport services — which pays for emergency help to Indian nationals in distress; and a €1 bank charge. There is no longer an outsourcing service charge on top, because there is no outsourcing provider. The figures below are the Embassy's fee chart dated 1 July 2026.

The OCI line has risen: ocihelp.nl quoted €255 for the OCI fee in August 2025, and the older surrender fee on the Embassy's site is €20 + €3.

The Dutch costs around it

• Apostilles: €27 each at the rechtbank in 2026 — at least one, on the BRP extract, for every applicant, and more for a spouse or a child applying through parents.
• The BRP extract itself: your municipality's fee.
• A Dutch passport: at most €88.65 for an adult and €67.05 for a child in 2026, valid for ten and five years.
• Photos to the 5 × 5 cm Indian size, and a prepaid DHL Express waybill for anything posted back — the surrender certificate, a passport.
• Naturalisation itself, if you are not Dutch yet: €1,139 alone, €1,454 with a partner, €168 per child.

A newly Dutch adult therefore pays €38 + €266 + €27 = €331 to the Embassy and the court, before the municipality, the photographer and the courier.

How long

• Surrender certificate: a minimum of 12–14 working days from the appointment.
• OCI: the Embassy's how-to sheet says the usual processing time is three months and asks you not to enquire before then. ocihelp.nl reported two to three months, and eight to ten weeks or more in peak periods, in 2025.
• The appointment comes before any of it: slots are released monthly and weekly and, by ocihelp.nl's account, go within hours. Book the day the portal application is complete.
• Door to door, from the naturalisation ceremony: a week to apply for the Dutch passport and its production time, three weeks for the surrender, three months for the OCI. Plan on four to five months without a trip to India, or take an e-Visa.

What slows a file

• An upload the portal accepted but the Embassy cannot read — a dark photo, a signature in the wrong ratio.
• A BRP extract without both parents' names, unapostilled or over six months old.
• An Indian spouse's passport that does not name the foreign spouse.
• A name or date of birth that differs between the Indian passport, the Dutch passport and the birth certificate.
• A surrender still in process on the day of the OCI appointment.
• Any Pakistani or Bangladeshi link, or military service — which is not a delay but a refusal.

Priority

There is no fast track. The Embassy offers no Tatkal even for passports. A death or illness in India is handled by an e-Visa on the Dutch passport, not by speeding up the OCI.

2026 is the year the OCI went digital. The Ministry of Home Affairs notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2026 at the end of April, the e-OCI was launched on 30 June, and the Consulate in Houston's FAQ records that the printing of physical cards was discontinued on 8 July 2026. The Hague's how-to sheet says it in one line: there is no physical OCI card now, and the e-OCI, downloaded from the portal, is equivalent to one.

What changed

1. The card is electronic. A new grant is an e-OCI, a document generated on ociservices.gov.in once the status reads granted and checked by immigration against the electronic register. The portal's FAQ: the download is free, up to five times a day, by logging in with the email address on your OCI record.
2. Existing cards stay valid. The portal says the e-OCI does not alter the validity or status of an existing card. A holder of a physical card can generate the e-OCI too; if the email on the old record is dead, the Email ID Updation service under miscellaneous services fixes it first, and once each card's email is updated, one family account can hold everyone's.
3. Everything is filed on the portal, including the renunciation of the OCI itself, though the appointment at the Embassy, with originals, remains.
4. Minors may not hold two passports — surrender the child's Indian passport, then apply.
5. Refusals can be reviewed by an authority one rank above the one that decided.
6. Cancellation is spelt out. Since the MHA's notification of 11 August 2025, the grounds include a prison sentence of two years or more, or a charge sheet for an offence punishable with seven years or more, anywhere in the world. The Hague's FAQ adds that a card obtained by false information is cancelled under section 7D and the holder blacklisted.
7. A consent for the e-gates. New applicants consent to biometric collection for the Fast Track Immigration – Trusted Traveller Programme.

Eligibility, the spouse rule, the Pakistan–Bangladesh bar, the military bar and the benefits did not change, and the card still does not expire: "renewal" does not exist.

A new Dutch passport

The OCI is linked to the passport number. A Dutch passport is valid for ten years from 18 and five years for a child, so an adult deals with this once a decade and a child every five years. - Every new passport: upload a copy and a recent photograph on the portal within three months of its date of issue. It is free inside the window; The Hague's how-to sheet charges €25 after it. No new card is printed: the record is updated, and you download a fresh e-OCI once the request is approved. - The age-20 rule: the 2021 simplification ended the re-issue at every passport change before 20 and once after 50, but kept one re-issue with the first passport issued after the holder turns 20. Since July 2026 that is the €27 miscellaneous service with a new photo, not a new booklet. - A spouse-based OCI: every new passport is uploaded with a declaration that the marriage subsists and a copy of the Indian spouse's passport or the OCI spouse's passport and card. - A first OCI from before 1 September 2015: the miscellaneous checklist wants the old foreign passport with the U-visa sticker, for cancellation. - A change of name after marriage, or of nationality, is a miscellaneous service with the marriage certificate or other proof. A change of address, when you are filing a miscellaneous application anyway, is proved with an original apostilled BRP extract under six months old. - A lost physical card: a police report, the original and a copy, and the €96 lost-or-damaged service; what you receive is the e-OCI. A lost e-OCI is simply downloaded again.

At the airport

Immigration in Delhi, Mumbai or Bengaluru matches the e-OCI to the passport you present. The delays happen when the record still names an old passport. Until an update is approved, carry the old passport too.

Since the Embassy took the counter back from VFS, the cost of a mistake has changed shape. There is no centre to fix things for a fee, each slot is fifteen minutes, and an incomplete file is not accepted — so a mistake costs you the next appointment rather than a query weeks later.

Fixable, but expensive in time

• Following stale instructions. The Embassy's own older OCI page still tells you to go to VFS at Parkstraat 99 in The Hague or the Travelport Building on Radarweg in Amsterdam, and blogs and agents repeat it. Both have been closed to Indian applications since 1 June 2025. Use the dated sheets — the OCI how-to and checklists of August 2026, the surrender checklist of July 2026, the fee chart of July 2026.
• The BRP extract. The standard extract may not show your parents; ask the municipality for one that does, check it is under six months old on the day of the appointment, and get the apostille at the rechtbank first. An extract without the apostille, or a month too old, is a new appointment.
• The spouse's Indian passport. If it does not carry the foreign spouse's name, the OCI waits for a passport re-issue.
• Surrendering too early. The Embassy cannot take the surrender before you have the Dutch passport. The bekendmaking alone is not enough.
• Applying for the OCI too early. The surrender certificate must be in hand; an appointment for it is not enough.
• One slot for the family. Each application needs its own appointment.
• The printed form. Errors cannot be corrected by pen at the counter; reprint it before you go.
• The photo upload. A photo the portal accepted can still be rejected by the Embassy for quality, weeks later.
• The wrong venue. The Embassy has two addresses in The Hague; the letter names one.
• Travelling on the Indian passport after the three-month grace. That turns a €38 surrender into a penalty that cannot be waived.
• An Indian document without the MEA apostille, or a Surinamese or other foreign document without the issuing country's apostille.

Not fixable

• Pakistani or Bangladeshi nationality in you or anyone in the four generations the Act names. There is no discretion and no appeal.
• Military service — Defensie, the Marechaussee, or any other country's forces — serving or retired, and in the MHA's wording the police too.
• A marriage under two years old on the day of a spouse application. Reapply when it is not.
• Fraud. A borrowed document or an edited scan leads to refusal, or cancellation under section 7D and a blacklisting that bars entry to India.

The agents

The VFS closure created a market. Some helpers do honest form-filling for a nervous first-timer; some sell "guaranteed" appointments the Embassy says nobody is authorised to sell, and the Embassy has warned that misuse of its booking system can lead to services being refused to the agency and the applicant alike. Nobody outside the Embassy can shorten the three months, nobody can overturn the Pakistan–Bangladesh bar, and the portal and the booking site are open to you directly. If you pay someone, keep your own login, see every upload, and pay the fee at the counter yourself.

If something has gone wrong

The Embassy holds an Open House for consular complaints on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, 15:00–16:00. Email consular.thehague@mea.gov.in a week before, setting out the problem, and bring every document and the fee receipt. For a refusal, the 2026 rules add a review by an authority one rank above the one that decided.

The card does more than open the airport. For a Dutch citizen of Indian origin who spends real time in India, or plans to, these are the things the OCI settles, and the things each tax office wants to know.

Entry and stay

No visa, no registration, no limit on the length of stay. Arrive with the Dutch passport and the e-OCI (or the physical card, with the passport it was issued against); the officer stamps the passport. Fill in India's e-Arrival card before landing, which the Embassy publicised in October 2025. Children travelling with one parent may be asked for the other's consent, as anywhere.

Work and study

An OCI holder may take private employment in India without an employment visa; government service and the posts a ministry reserves are the exception. The regulated professions are open under each council's rules. For admissions, the OCI stands on the NRI footing, sitting the all-India tests for the seats those rules allow. It is the point families of Dutch-born teenagers most often misunderstand.

Property and money

Under the RBI's master direction on immovable property an OCI holder can buy residential and commercial property, inherit any property, agricultural land included, and sell to a resident. You cannot buy, or receive as a gift, agricultural land, a plantation or a farmhouse. NRE and NRO accounts, mutual funds, listed shares and a PAN are all on the NRI footing. An OCI who has lived in India for 182 days in the year before applying can enrol for Aadhaar, issued to OCI holders for ten years.

What the Belastingdienst wants to know

A Dutch tax resident is taxed on worldwide income and assets, and the OCI changes nothing. The flat in Pune, the NRO deposit and the Indian shares sit in box 3, which in 2026 still taxes a deemed return at 36%. The tax-free allowance was fully indexed to €59,357 per person, and the deemed return on assets other than bank balances is 6%; the planned cut to the allowance and rise in the deemed return were dropped in November 2025. Indian tax on the rent or interest is relieved under the India–Netherlands tax treaty, signed on 30 July 1988 and in force since 1989. Its information-exchange article was replaced by a protocol in 2012, so an Indian account left off the Dutch return is findable. Box 3 is due to move to actual returns in 2028. An hour with an adviser who knows both systems is worth more than any blog post.

Indian tax

Tax in India follows days, not the card. Spend 182 days or more in India in a financial year and you are resident for that year, with worldwide income in scope once you are ordinarily resident. A person of Indian origin visiting India with Indian income above ₹15 lakh becomes resident at 120 days if they also spent 365 days there over the previous four years. Below those thresholds India taxes only Indian income, and the treaty decides who taxes what when both countries claim you.

Moving to India for good

Your Dutch nationality is safe. The rule that a Dutch citizen living outside the Kingdom and the EU for thirteen consecutive years loses Dutch nationality applies only to someone who also holds another nationality. An OCI is not a nationality — the Embassy's FAQ is explicit that registering as an OCI does not change your citizenship — so a former Indian who holds only the Dutch passport and an OCI can retire to Kochi indefinitely. Keep the Dutch passport valid, because India admits you on it, and update the OCI each time it changes. The country guide covers the Dutch state pension and social-security side of leaving.

Giving it up, and coming back

An OCI holder who wants Indian citizenship again applies under section 5(1)(g) after five years of registration and one year in India, and gives up the Dutch passport. An OCI that is no longer wanted is renounced on the portal. There is no fee for holding a card you do not use, and no penalty for not using it.

There is one Indian mission in the Netherlands, and since mid-2025 it handles every OCI application itself.

Is it still VFS? No — and not Alankit either

VFS Global ran the Indian consular application centres in the Netherlands for years, at Parkstraat 99 in The Hague and in the Travelport Building, Radarweg 501–545 in Amsterdam, and it is still the name most people search for. The Embassy's notice of 2 June 2025 announced that VFS had ceased operations on 1 June 2025 and that consular, passport and visa services would be delivered at the Embassy's own counter. A tender issued on 10 February 2025 had been awarded to Alankit Assignments Ltd on 4 April 2025. The Embassy annulled the tender on 16 July 2025, and its appointment notice says it has not outsourced consular services to any private agency. As of 10 October 2026 there is no newer tender or award on its news page. If that changes, the news page is where it will appear first.

The counters

When you book, you choose the venue; go to the one on your letter. The The Hague city guide has the neighbourhood.

Jurisdiction

The Embassy serves the European Netherlands. Belgium and Luxembourg belong to the Embassy of India in Brussels, which has its own arrangements. For the Caribbean parts of the Kingdom, the Embassy records that consular work for Aruba and Curaçao moved to the Embassy in Panama in June 2022. Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba have an honorary consul under The Hague.

Coming from elsewhere in the country

There is no consulate in Amsterdam, so everyone comes to The Hague. From Amsterdam or Amstelveen, Utrecht, Rotterdam or Eindhoven it is a train to Den Haag Centraal and a tram or a walk, so book a slot that lets you arrive early, because late entry is refused. The consular camps — Almere in August 2026, Rotterdam in September, Eindhoven and Groningen in 2024 — bring the counter closer for a day.

Help, and the rest of the community

The Open House on the second and fourth Wednesday handles complaints. The MADAD portal is the Government's consular grievance system, and the Indian Community Welfare Fund you contribute to with each application pays for emergency help, legal aid and repatriation for Indians in distress. The groups for Indians in the Netherlands are where last week's appointment release and the next consular camp are reported first. The Indian businesses directory lists the photo studios that know the 5 × 5 cm size and the notaries and translators. The events calendar is what the card is for. The British and German versions of this guide — OCI card from the UK and OCI card from Germany — show how little the Indian rules change between countries and how much the counter does. Every country guide is in the Indians abroad index.