OCI card from the US (2026): who qualifies, renunciation, VFS, documents, fees and the new e-OCI

India does not allow dual citizenship. The day you take the Oath of Allegiance at a USCIS ceremony you stop being Indian, and the Overseas Citizen of India card is the arrangement that keeps the door open: a lifelong, multiple-entry, multi-purpose visa for India, no registration with the police or the Foreigners Regional Registration Office however long you stay, and parity with Non-Resident Indians in most economic, financial and educational matters. The Ministry of Home Affairs puts the number of cardholders above five million.

What it gives you

• Entry to India for life, for any purpose — visits, study, work, retirement — without a visa, as often and for as long as you like, on the US passport the card is linked to.
• No FRRO registration, whatever the length of stay.
• The same treatment as an NRI in buying residential and commercial property, investing, banking, holding a PAN, sitting the all-India entrance tests against NRI and supernumerary seats, and practising as a doctor, lawyer, architect or chartered accountant and in the other professions the 2021 notification names, under the relevant Indian laws.
• Indian rates for domestic airfares and for entry to national parks, monuments and museums, and inter-country adoption on the NRI footing.
• A road back. An OCI cardholder registered for five years who has been ordinarily resident in India for twelve months of them can apply for Indian citizenship under section 5(1)(g) of the Act — giving up the US one, because the rule cuts both ways.

What it does not give you

No vote, no seat in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or a state assembly, no constitutional office, no judgeship, and no government job unless a ministry specifically opens the post. No purchase of agricultural land, plantation property or a farmhouse. Research, missionary or Tablighi work, mountaineering and journalism in India need the Ministry of Home Affairs' prior permission, as does a visit to a Protected, Restricted or Prohibited Area. It is a visa and a registration, not a citizenship: in India you are a foreigner with privileges, and the US Embassy, not an Indian authority, is your consulate.

Who this page is for

Three groups of readers in America: the newly naturalised citizen with an Indian passport in a drawer, the US-born child or grandchild of Indian parents who has never held one, and the American spouse of an Indian citizen or OCI holder. Each has a different document list, covered below, and all three now receive the same thing: since July 2026 no physical OCI booklet is printed, and the card is an e-OCI you download from the portal and carry with the passport. The data hub for Indians in the US covers the community the card serves; this page covers the card.

Eligibility is section 7A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, as amended in 2015, 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, or belonged to a territory that became part of India after 15 August 1947 — Goa, Pondicherry, Sikkim and the rest;
2. is a child, grandchild or great-grandchild of such a person;
3. is a minor child of such a person, or a minor child both of whose parents are Indian citizens or one of whom is;
4. is the spouse of foreign origin of an Indian citizen or of an OCI cardholder, where the marriage is registered and has subsisted continuously for at least two years immediately before the application — a spouse qualifies on the marriage, not on ancestry, is subject to a prior security clearance in India, and may be called to the mission in person.

In practice: a naturalised US citizen qualifies under the first head; a US-born child of Indian parents under the second or third; an American partner under the fourth. A Nepali, Sri Lankan or Fijian-Indian neighbour qualifies only if the Indian connection above is theirs.

Who cannot

• Anyone who is or has ever been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh, or whose parent, grandparent or great-grandparent is or ever was — however long ago, however briefly, whatever their present nationality. The bar is in the Act; a consulate cannot waive it, and an application that hides it is refused and cancelled when found.
• Anyone who has served in a foreign military, serving or retired: the consulates' FAQ says flatly that no person who has served in a foreign military organisation is eligible. US veterans and serving personnel of Indian origin are the people this catches most often, and there is no routine exemption.
• A spouse whose marriage has not yet lasted two years, is not registered, or has been dissolved.
• A minor who still holds an Indian passport: since the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026 a child cannot hold an Indian passport and a foreign one at the same time, so a US-born child who was issued an Indian passport surrenders it before the OCI application.

PIO cards and the people who never got round to it

The Person of Indian Origin card was merged into the OCI on 9 January 2015, and the Bureau of Immigration stopped accepting it as a travel document after 31 December 2025: a PIO holder flying to India in 2026 needs an OCI or a visa, and converts the PIO through the "OCI in lieu of PIO card" service for a reduced $100 consular fee. A US citizen who naturalised twenty years ago and has been travelling to India on tourist visas ever since is exactly as eligible as a new arrival; the only extra step is the surrender certificate, below, and the penalty that comes with a passport kept too long.

The OCI application of a former Indian citizen is refused without proof that the Indian passport has been dealt with. In the United States that proof is the Surrender Certificate — VFS's September 2026 checklist for the former-passport-holder adult says it applies to everyone naturalised from 2010 onwards — and for most applicants the surrender is the step that takes the time.

Naturalised on or after 1 June 2010: the renunciation certificate

You complete the Government's surrender form online (VFS's page sends you to the Passport Seva consular portal, and the printable "Surrender of Indian Passport Certificate" comes back by email), sign two copies, and mail them to the VFS Indian Consular Application Centre for your jurisdiction with the original Indian passport, a copy of the US naturalisation certificate, a copy of the US passport, two 2×2-inch photographs and proof of address. The consulate cancels the passport and returns it with the certificate, which you keep for life. VFS's fee page for the United States lists $40 consular fee, $3 to the Indian Community Welfare Fund and $19 VFS service charge — $62 — plus 3.75% if you pay by card; it quotes 7 to 21 working days once the file reaches the consulate. Chicago's page also points to the MHA's citizenship portal for a formal declaration of renunciation under section 8 of the Act; that route is for someone who is still an Indian citizen and must renounce before taking another nationality. A naturalised American ceased to be Indian by operation of the Act on the day of the oath, and what the OCI file needs is the surrender certificate.

Naturalised before 1 June 2010: surrender only

The 2010 rule did not reach back, and the consulates issue the surrender certificate on the same form for the same fee (confirm on the VFS page: it prints one figure); what changes is the penalty arithmetic, below, because the passport has been held longer. If the Indian passport is lost, the file takes a sworn, notarised affidavit of loss and whatever older Indian document proves the origin — a birth certificate, notarised school records, a magistrate's residence certificate.

The penalties, and why to do it this year

Using an Indian passport after acquiring another nationality is an offence under the Passports Act, and the MEA's schedule — ₹10,000 for every journey made on it after a three-month grace period, capped at ₹50,000; ₹10,000 for keeping a used passport beyond three years; ₹25,000 for every renewal obtained after naturalising — is applied by the missions in dollars. VFS's online surrender form computes the figure from three things: how many years the passport was kept, how many journeys were made on it, and how many times it was renewed. The missions' published dollar schedule has long been $250 where the latest Indian passport was kept more than three years after naturalisation, and $250 for each trip made on it after the three months, up to $1,250; a passport renewed at a US consulate after the ceremony is the costliest case of all, and none of it is waived for ignorance. Confirm the dollar figures on the VFS form the week you apply. The consular fee and ICWF are refunded if the file is rejected; the VFS and courier charges are not.

Children

A US-born child who was issued an Indian passport surrenders it the same way, with both parents signing the form and a notarised parental authorisation; a child under five gives a thumb impression, an older child signs. The 2026 rules no longer let a minor keep both documents, so this comes before the child's OCI, not after.

Order of operations

1. Naturalisation ceremony; keep the certificate flat and unlaminated.
2. Apply for the US passport at once — the OCI is issued against it, and the surrender file wants a copy.
3. Within the three-month grace: the surrender application by mail; allow three to five weeks door to door.
4. OCI application, below, with the surrender certificate in the file. Family members who are still Indian citizens renew through the same VFS centres — the passport renewal guide covers that side.

The application is online first, then by post. The consulates take nothing at their own counters; VFS Global runs the Indian Consular Application Centres, and the standard route in the United States is to mail the file to the centre for your mission's jurisdiction.

1. Register on the OCI portal — ociservices.gov.in, relaunched by the MHA in May 2025 — and start a new registration. Fill Part A (you) and Part B (family, origin, addresses) exactly as the passports read: the name order, the spelling, the place of birth as printed, and the previous name exactly as the last Indian passport printed it, down to a single letter or an expanded initial. The date of birth must match the last Indian passport; a mismatch is a refusal, not a query.
2. Upload the photo and the signature. The portal wants a square JPEG, 200 × 200 to 1500 × 1500 pixels, under 500 KB, full face on a plain white background, no glasses, no shadows, taken within six months; the signature a black- or blue-ink scan on white at a 1:3 ratio (200 × 67 up to 1500 × 500 pixels). A child under five uploads a left thumbprint instead. The portal rejects wrong dimensions at once; the consulate rejects borderline photos weeks later.
3. Upload every supporting document as PDFs of up to 1,000 KB each under the portal's categories; VFS's checklists say a file with any of them missing online is rejected. Submit, and print the completed form with its file number.
4. Register on the VFS portal with the file number, answer its questionnaire, pay — $275 consular fee, $3 ICWF and $19 VFS charge, $297 per applicant, by Visa or Mastercard (plus 3.75%) or by money order or banker's cheque to VFS Services (USA) Inc. — and choose the shipping: VFS's own return courier (about $18) or your own prepaid, trackable label of a kind the checklist for your centre accepts (a USPS label with an expiry date is refused).
5. Assemble and mail. The printed application with the physical photo stuck on and signed; the VFS checklist as the cover page; the fee confirmation; self-attested copies of everything uploaded; and the original cancelled Indian passport and surrender certificate for a former citizen. One application per envelope, nothing stapled, no double-sided printing, to the centre for your jurisdiction. Some centres also take the file in person by prior appointment (New York has since July 2021), which saves the inbound postage and nothing else: there is no walk-in, and no appointment with the consulate itself.
6. Track the file. VFS updates the status within 48 to 72 hours of delivery; the portal's status moves through "under process" at the consulate to "granted" when the MHA registers you. An incomplete file sits on hold — VFS allows 20 days for what it finds missing, the consulate 7 for anything it asks for — and is returned unprocessed after that.
7. Download the e-OCI. Since July 2026 no card or booklet is printed. When the status reads granted, log in to the portal, open the e-OCI tab, generate the card and keep it on your phone and as a printout; travel on it with the US passport it names. Anyone issued a physical card before July 2026 keeps it, and it stays valid.

Who does the paperwork

You can. The portal is free and the form is tedious rather than hard; what the paid "OCI agents" in Edison, Fremont and Sugar Land sell is form-filling and a photo check for anything from a hundred dollars to several hundred on top of the fees. None of them can shorten the consulate's queue, and the ones promising to are the ones to avoid.

VFS's checklists, revised in September 2026, are the authority, and the centre enforces them on arrival; this is what they come to for the kinds of applicant in America. Everything is uploaded first and sent as self-attested copies — sign each page — with originals only where the list says so.

Everyone

• US passport — the biographical page, signed, with at least nine months' validity at submission; the OCI is linked to this number.
• Proof of address matching the form: a state ID or driving licence, a utility bill under three months old, a current lease, a mortgage statement or a tax return; a university's letter for a student in a dormitory; a notarised undertaking from the householder if you live with family. No PO boxes, no expired licences, and do not trim the licence copy.
• The photo and signature as specified above, with the physical photo stuck on the form.
• An employment letter (or proof of self-employment, retirement or study), copies of any Indian visa and of any OCI card held by parents or spouse, and three notarised forms VFS supplies: the affidavit in lieu of originals, the undertaking by the applicant, and the consent letter that lets the consulate correct clerical errors.
• Proof of legal status — green card, EAD or long-term visa — if you hold a passport other than a US one, plus proof of your native address.

A former Indian citizen (naturalised American)

• The last Indian passport (first two and last two pages) and the surrender certificate.
• The naturalisation certificate, signed; if you derived citizenship through your parents and have no certificate of your own, a notarised affidavit by both parents with copies of theirs.
• Proof of marital status — a US marriage certificate, divorce decree or death certificate must be apostilled by the issuing state; send a self-attested copy of the apostilled document, never the original.
• A name-change document — court order, marriage certificate or notarised affidavit — for any difference from the Indian passport, and the undertaking to surrender the Indian voter card and ration card, mandatory for every former citizen.

A US-born child of Indian parents (and a US-born adult)

• The birth certificate — the county or state record naming both parents, not the hospital souvenir — apostilled by the state's Secretary of State. Parents who have done it twice date the requirement to the end of 2024 and say to start it first, because some states take up to five weeks.
• Proof of the Indian connection: a parent's or grandparent's Indian passport (first two and last two pages), current or cancelled, or their OCI card with the documents it was issued on, or a domicile or nativity certificate — one document per generation. A lineage that cannot be shown is a refusal.
• The parents' marriage certificate from a registrar (a religious body's certificate is not accepted), apostilled if American; their passports, naturalisation certificates and legal status.
• Parental authorisation, signed by both parents before a US notary, with signatures identical to those on the passports and the form; one parent signs alone only with a custody order, a death certificate or adoption papers.

A spouse of an Indian citizen or OCI cardholder

A registered marriage certificate (apostilled if American) showing two years of marriage, the Indian spouse's passport — re-issued if it does not yet carry your name — or their OCI card and foreign passport, a notarised joint affidavit that the marriage subsists, your birth certificate, and the undertaking about voter and ration cards if your spouse was Indian. Either spouse may be called for an interview.

A PIO cardholder

The PIO card, the documents it was issued on, and the passport it was issued against, through the "in lieu of PIO" service; a lost PIO card goes through its own list.

Every Indian consular service in the United States has three parts: the consular fee, set in US dollars by the Ministry of Home Affairs; the Indian Community Welfare Fund contribution of $3, which pays for stranded Indian nationals' tickets home and the missions' emergency help; and VFS Global's service charge of $19 on most OCI applications ($15.90 at some centres — the VFS cost calculator shows yours). The figures below are VFS's United States table as published in October 2026, which the MHA left unchanged this year; check the VFS page the week you pay.

On top: 3.75% when you pay by card, VFS's return courier at about $18 (or your own prepaid, trackable label), and a $20 reference fee where the applicant holds a non-US passport or has lived in the United States under two years, because the file is referred to another mission. A refused or abandoned application gets the consular fee and the ICWF back; the VFS charge, courier and card surcharge are never refunded.

How long

There is no single published figure. The consulates' own ranges, as the service sites quote them, run from two to three weeks at San Francisco through three to six at Washington and Houston, four to six at Chicago and six to eight at Atlanta, with New York adding about ten days — each "or more if clearance is needed", which means a former citizen whose Indian passport record has to be checked in India. Applicants posting in 2026 report seven to eight weeks from VFS's acknowledgement at Chicago and Houston; a mother who filed for a newborn in April 2025 had the card in seven weeks including a photo resubmission. Plan on six to ten weeks door to door, sixteen in a bad season, and treat the MHA's stated aim at the e-OCI launch — about 15 working days — as the direction of travel rather than a promise.

What slows a file

• A photo that is the wrong size, has a shadow, shows glasses or is more than six months old — the single commonest query, and the reason VFS now sells a photo-editing service.
• A previous name left out, or a date of birth that differs from the last Indian passport.
• A birth or marriage certificate without the apostille.
• A surrender certificate still in process on the day the OCI file is posted: apply only when it is in hand.
• A spouse application with less than two years of marriage, or a certificate from a temple or church rather than a registrar.
• Any Pakistan or Bangladesh connection, or foreign military service, which is not a delay but a refusal.

Priority

There is no paid fast track for the OCI. A death or a critical illness in India is handled by an emergency visa on the US passport, not by speeding the OCI up.

2026 is the year the OCI went digital. The Ministry of Home Affairs notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2026 at the end of April — 30 April by the gazette, 1 May by the press — the Home Minister launched the electronic card on 30 June, VFS's September 2026 checklists date the end of physical cards to 1 July, and the Houston consulate's FAQ records that printing of booklets was discontinued on 8 July 2026. Seven things changed.

1. The card is electronic. A registered cardholder receives the OCI "either in physical form or as an electronic OCI (e-OCI)", its particulars in Form XXIX and the register itself kept electronically in Form XXX; since July every new grant is the e-OCI only, a PDF generated from the portal once the status reads granted, carrying a unique registration number the immigration officer verifies against the electronic register. Carry it on your phone and on paper, with the passport it names.
2. Existing cards stay valid. Nothing in the rules cancels a physical card or requires its exchange. The Houston FAQ says an existing cardholder may generate the e-OCI from the portal; in the first weeks holders of older cards did not always see the option, and the sensible course is to carry the physical card until you have both.
3. Everything is on the portal. Registration (Form XXVIII), new-passport uploads, miscellaneous changes and the renunciation of the OCI itself (Form XXXI, acknowledged in Form XXXII) are filed electronically, and the old requirement to submit documents in duplicate has gone — though the posted file to VFS for a fresh registration remains.
4. Minors may not hold two passports. A child cannot keep an Indian passport alongside a US one; surrender it, then apply.
5. Refusals can be reviewed. A refused application can be taken to an authority one rank above the one that decided it, after a hearing — a route the rules did not previously spell out.
6. Cancellation is spelt out, and the physical card is surrendered. The grounds in section 7D are restated — fraud or concealment, disaffection towards the Constitution, trading with an enemy, imprisonment, the interests of India's security — and since August 2025 the MHA has added, by notification under clause (da), a sentence of two years or more anywhere in the world, or a charge sheet for an offence punishable with seven years or more, at any point in the holder's life rather than within five years of registration. A cancelled holder, or anyone holding their card, must hand it in within the time the notice sets; the cancellation stands whether or not the card comes back.
7. A consent form for the e-gates. New applicants sign a consent to biometric collection for the Fast Track Immigration – Trusted Traveller Programme, the scheme that puts OCI holders through the automated gates at the big airports.

What did not change

Eligibility, the two-year spouse rule, the Pakistan–Bangladesh bar, the fees, the benefits and the restrictions are as they were. The lifetime validity is unchanged: the card does not expire, and "renewal" is not a thing that exists — the only maintenance is keeping the linked passport current, which the next section covers.

The practical difference at the airport

Immigration at Delhi, Mumbai or Bengaluru matches the e-OCI's number to the passport you present. A traveller whose record names an old passport number, or who carries a physical card issued against a passport they no longer hold, is where the delays happen; keep the record updated and the old passport in the hand luggage until the update is confirmed.

The OCI is linked to the number of the passport it was issued against, so a new US passport — every ten years from the age of sixteen, every five for a younger child — needs a step on the portal. The rules were simplified in 2021 and simplified again with the e-OCI.

The rule now

Each time a new passport is issued, upload a copy of it and a recent photograph on the OCI services portal within three months of the passport's date of issue. There is no fee inside the window; file it late and it becomes a miscellaneous service at $25 plus ICWF and the VFS charge — $47 — once, however late. The Houston consulate's FAQ is explicit about what follows: no new physical card is issued; the updated particulars are written to your record and you download a fresh e-OCI carrying the new number.

The old age rules, and what is left of them

Until April 2021 the card had to be re-issued every time a passport changed before the holder turned 20 and once after 50. The MHA's circular of that month — the Chicago consulate republished it on 2 August 2021 — dispensed with both, kept a single mandatory re-issue the first time a passport was issued after the holder turned 20, and replaced the rest with the free online upload. Since July 2026 no physical re-issue exists at all, so the age-20 re-issue has become the same upload with a fresh photograph, and the five-yearly uploads for a child continue as before. For a physical card issued before 2026 the old practice still works: carry the passport the card was issued on alongside the current one until the record is updated.

Changes of name and nationality

A new name after marriage or a court order, or a change of the foreign nationality, is an OCI miscellaneous service — $25 plus $3 plus $19 — applied for on the portal with the court order or marriage certificate (apostilled if American) and the new passport, and posted to VFS. A change of address needs no application; keep the portal profile current.

Children

A child's five-year passport means an upload every five years and the photo refresh at 20; a parent files it, both parents sign, and the child's OCI stays valid throughout. A child who turns 18 with an OCI keeps it for life.

Lost or stolen

Report a lost physical card to the police and to the consulate; the replacement is the e-OCI, generated against the current passport once the loss is recorded, through the "in lieu of lost or damaged card" service at $100 plus ICWF and the VFS charge. A lost e-OCI is simply downloaded again.

Most OCI delays in the United States come from a dozen repeat errors, and the consulate's queries are answered by email and post, so each costs two to four weeks. VFS prints its own list of the common mistakes at the end of every checklist; it is worth reading before the form, not after.

Fixable, but expensive in time

• The photo. Taken against a patterned wall, in a white shirt on a white background, with glasses, with a shadow, or more than six months old; or a US-passport-style 2×2 with a small head rather than the Indian square with the face filling most of the frame. Use a pharmacy that does the Indian OCI size, and upload the same image you print.
• The previous name. "Harish Chander Gupta" on the Indian passport and "Harish C. Gupta" on the American one, a maiden surname, a split first name, a missing "bhai" — VFS's checklist gives five worked examples and the rule is the same for all: write the old name exactly as the Indian passport printed it, and attach the court order, marriage certificate or notarised affidavit that explains the change.
• The date of birth. It must match the last Indian passport; "corrected" birth dates are a refusal.
• Unapostilled American certificates. A county birth or marriage certificate needs the state's apostille — same day over the counter in some states, one to four weeks by post in others, up to five in the slow ones.
• Applying before the surrender certificate is in hand; a receipt is not enough.
• The wrong jurisdiction. The file goes to the VFS centre of the consulate that covers your state — by residential address, not convenience — and a file lodged at the wrong one is returned.
• Expired proof of address, a bill in a spouse's name without the marriage certificate, or a PO box.
• An unsigned Part B, a child's form signed by one parent, or a parent's signature that differs between the passport, the form and the notarised authorisation.

Not fixable

• Pakistani or Bangladeshi ancestry anywhere in the four generations the Act names. There is no discretion and no appeal, and a card obtained by omitting it is cancelled when found.
• Foreign military service, serving or retired.
• Marriage under two years on the day of a spouse application — reapply when it is; the fee is not refunded.
• Fraud in the application — a borrowed document, an edited scan. The 2026 rules restate cancellation, and the consulates say they are under no obligation to give reasons for a refusal.

The agents

There is a cottage industry of "OCI consultants" wherever there is an Indian community — Edison, Fremont, Sugar Land, Naperville. Some are honest form-fillers charging a modest fee for a service a nervous first-timer may want; some charge several hundred dollars for the same thing and promise speed they do not have; a few are the people who submitted borrowed documents on a client's behalf. Nobody outside the consulate can expedite an OCI, nobody can overturn the Pakistan–Bangladesh bar, and the portal and VFS are open to you directly. If you use one, keep your own portal login, see every document before it is uploaded, and pay the fees to VFS yourself.

The card does more than open the airport. For an American of Indian origin who spends real time in India, or plans to, these are the things the OCI settles — and the two things the IRS wants to know about.

Entry and stay

No visa, no registration, no limit on the length of stay. Arrive with the US passport and the e-OCI (or physical card); the officer stamps the passport. An OCI holder who has consented to biometrics can use the Fast Track Immigration e-gates at the major airports. Children travelling with one parent may be asked for the other's consent, as anywhere.

Work and study

An OCI holder may take any private employment in India without a work permit — government service and the posts a ministry reserves are the exception — and the professions regulated by Indian councils are open under each council's rules. Universities admit OCI candidates to NEET, JEE and the other all-India tests only against NRI or supernumerary seats, never against seats reserved for Indian citizens; the 2021 notification is explicit, and it is the point American-born teenagers' families most often misunderstand.

Property and money

Under the RBI's master direction on immovable property an OCI holder can buy any residential or commercial property, inherit any property at all — agricultural land included — and sell to a resident; what you cannot do is buy, or receive as a gift, agricultural land, plantation property 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 preceding twelve months can enrol for Aadhaar — issued to OCI holders for ten years rather than for life — which banks and telecoms increasingly want.

What the IRS wants to know

A US citizen is taxed on worldwide income wherever they live, and the OCI does not change that. Two filings catch people: the FBAR (FinCEN Form 114), due 15 April with an automatic extension to 15 October, whenever the aggregate value of your foreign accounts — NRE, NRO, the fixed deposit your parents opened in your name — exceeded $10,000 at any point in the year; and the India–US income-tax treaty of 1989, under which Indian tax on rental income or interest is credited against US tax rather than paid twice. Indian mutual funds are treated harshly by US rules on foreign funds; take advice before buying any.

Indian tax

Tax in India follows presence, not the card. Spend 182 days or more in India in a financial year and you are Indian-resident for that year, with worldwide income in scope; a person of Indian origin visiting India with Indian income above ₹15 lakh is caught at 120 days if they have spent 365 days in India over the previous four years. Below those thresholds, India taxes only Indian-source income.

Giving it up, and coming back

An OCI holder who wants Indian citizenship again applies after five years of registration, ordinarily resident in India for twelve months of them, and gives up the US citizenship — the Act does not allow both. An OCI that is no longer wanted is renounced on the portal (Form XXXI); a parent's renunciation takes a minor child's registration with it. There is no fee for holding a card you do not use, and no penalty for not using it.

Which Indian post handles your OCI is fixed by where you live. The consular map was redrawn on 15 July 2025, when the new consulates in Boston and Los Angeles took their territories, and VFS Global runs the counters for all nine missions.

Boston has a consulate and, since March 2026, a VFS centre at 90 Canal Street for attestations and other miscellaneous work; New York's site says OCI, passport and visa files for the five New England states are still processed by New York until Boston's office is fully established, so a Massachusetts applicant should read that notice on the day. Los Angeles began direct visa and OCI services on 6 April 2026, from a VFS centre at 800 South Figueroa Street that opened in December 2025.

The VFS centres

VFS Global's Indian Consular Application Centres take OCI, passport, surrender and attestation applications: the original seven in Washington, New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta and Seattle; eight more opened on 1 August 2025 in Boston, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Edison, Orlando, Raleigh and San Jose; and Los Angeles. The file still goes to the centre for your consulate's jurisdiction — the new ones are its outposts, not new jurisdictions — and the mailing address is shown on the VFS cost calculator when you choose your state. VFS's helpline for OCI and renunciation is +1 800 320 9693, weekdays 8am to 8pm Eastern.

Contact

Each mission's website carries its consular jurisdiction, the current checklist, the fee table and an emergency number for genuine after-hours emergencies; the MADAD portal is the consular grievance system, and the Indian Community Welfare Fund you contribute $3 to is what pays for a stranded Indian national's ticket home. For questions that are not emergencies, the OCI portal's helpdesk and VFS's contact form are quicker than the switchboard.

The rest of the paperwork

Passport renewal for family members who are still Indian citizens, attestations, police clearance certificates and the Indian visa for an American partner who does not yet qualify for the OCI all run through the same VFS centres; the UK's version of this guide — OCI card from the UK — shows how little the Indian side changes between countries. The groups in each US city are where last month's VFS experience is reported first, the Indian businesses directory lists the notaries and photo studios who know the Indian sizes, and the events calendar is what the card is for.