The OCI card went digital in April and the rules changed for every new Indian-Australian citizen

In 2024-25, 23,015 people holding Indian nationality became Australian citizens. India was the second largest source country after New Zealand, out of more than 190 nationalities represented.

Every one of those 23,015 people has to give up their Indian citizenship, because India does not permit holding both. And every one of them who wants to keep going home without a visa has to apply for an Overseas Citizen of India card.

On 30 April 2026, India rewrote the rules governing both processes.

What was notified, and what it is not

The instrument is G.S.R. 323(E), the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2026, notified on 30 April 2026 under section 18 of the Citizenship Act, 1955. It amends the Citizenship Rules, 2009, and it came into force on the date of publication, with no transition period.

One warning before anything else. A second instrument, G.S.R. 369(E) dated 18 May 2026, carries the same short title, the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2026. It deals with declarations about Pakistani, Afghan and Bangladeshi passports under the citizenship amendment framework and has nothing to do with OCI. Coverage confusing the two is circulating. The one that matters to Indian Australians is the April instrument.

Everything moves to one portal

The rules name a single website, ociservices.gov.in, six times, and route the whole lifecycle of an OCI card through it.

Applications for registration as an OCI cardholder are now made in Form XXVIII electronically on that portal. The requirement to submit documents in duplicate has been removed from the rules entirely, which ends the practice of preparing two full document sets.

The card itself has changed form. The amended rule provides that a person may be issued an OCI card in physical form or an electronic OCI registration, described as e-OCI. The register of cardholders is now kept in electronic form.

Renunciation of OCI is now a declaration in Form XXXI lodged on the portal with the Indian mission or the local registration office, with an acknowledgment issued in Form XXXII electronically. Where a physical card was issued, the original card must still be surrendered.

Cancellation follows the same split. A physical card must be delivered up on written notice, and if it is not, the government may direct that it be treated as cancelled. A new sub-rule does the equivalent for electronic registrations.

The Bureau of Immigration’s own description of the practical effect is that a cardholder no longer needs to carry the physical booklet everywhere and can present a digital card on a mobile phone alongside the passport.

Two changes almost nobody has reported

The first is a new right of review. The rules substitute the existing revision provision and insert a new rule creating a review path under section 15A of the Act, covering appeals against refusal of OCI registration and against cancellation.

For a cardholder whose application is refused or whose card is cancelled, that is a materially different position from the one that existed a year ago, and it has gone almost entirely unmentioned in coverage focused on the digital card.

The second sits in the application form. Form XXVIII now includes a declaration consenting to the sharing of biometric information captured during OCI registration for the purposes of registration under India’s Fast Track Immigration Programme. Applicants should read that paragraph before signing it rather than after.

The provision Indian-Australian families need to read

Buried in the same instrument, and not about OCI at all, is a new proviso concerning minors, mirrored as a new item in the form used to register a minor’s Indian citizenship.

It states that the minor child cannot at any time hold the passport of any other country while also holding the Indian passport.

For an Indian-Australian family with a child born in Australia, this is the provision that bites. Australian-born children of Indian parents are generally Australian citizens by birth and eligible for an Australian passport. Registering that child’s Indian citizenship and obtaining an Indian passport is now incompatible with holding the Australian one.

This is not a change of principle, since India has never allowed dual citizenship. It is the first time the incompatibility has been written into the rules in this form and attached to the minor registration process.

Why renunciation is compulsory, and what it actually involves

Article 9 of the Constitution of India provides that a person who has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of a foreign state is not a citizen of India. The Ministry of Home Affairs states the position plainly: the Constitution does not allow holding Indian citizenship and the citizenship of a foreign country simultaneously.

One point of legal accuracy that matters practically. Section 9 of the Citizenship Act deals with termination of citizenship. What a person naturalising in Australia actually files is a renunciation under section 8, using Form XXII under rule 23 of the Citizenship Rules. Getting this wrong leads people to assume the paperwork is automatic. It is not.

The process runs in two steps and in a fixed order. First, renunciation is lodged online through the Ministry of Home Affairs renunciation module, with a fee of 1,000 rupees paid on the Indian government site, producing a renunciation certificate. Second, the Indian passport is surrendered, with the renunciation certificate attached.

The official consular instruction to Indian nationals in Australia is unambiguous: once a foreign citizenship is attained, every Indian national should apply for renunciation of Indian citizenship and surrender of the Indian passport.

The consequence of not doing it is stated in the current consular checklist. Keeping an Indian passport, acquiring one, or travelling on one after acquiring foreign citizenship constitutes an offence under the Indian Passport Act, 1967, and attracts penalties.

[Unverified] The current Australian dollar fees for renunciation and surrender could not be confirmed. The most recent published figure found, from a November 2021 instruction sheet, was AUD 147 plus a community welfare fund fee of AUD 4 plus service charges, with processing of thirty to sixty days. The fee calculator requires a form submission and returns nothing to a direct request, and no schedule of penalty amounts for late surrender is published on any Indian mission site in Australia. Ring the consulate for both figures before relying on them.

Two further consequences are worth knowing. Where a person ceases to be an Indian citizen on renunciation, every minor child of that person also ceases to be a citizen, with a right to resume within one year of attaining full age. And a former citizen is required to surrender documents acquired on the basis of Indian citizenship, including a voter card.

What an OCI card gives you, and what it does not

The Ministry of Home Affairs description of the scheme is precise about the limits.

OCI cardholders have no voting rights, cannot stand for the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or a state legislature, and cannot hold constitutional posts such as President, Vice President or judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court. As foreign nationals, they are not eligible for public employment.

What the card gives is a lifelong multiple entry visa for any purpose, and exemption from registration with the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer for any length of stay. It gives parity with non-resident Indians in economic, financial and educational matters, with one carved out exception: the acquisition of agricultural or plantation properties. So residential and commercial property is open; farmland, plantations and farmhouses are not, other than by inheritance.

It also gives parity with non-resident Indians for inter-country adoption and for practising as a doctor, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, advocate, architect or chartered accountant, and parity with resident Indians on domestic air fares and national park entry fees. After five years as a cardholder plus twelve months ordinarily resident in India, a holder becomes eligible to apply for Indian citizenship.

[Unverified] The ministry’s published description dates from April 2017 and predates a 2021 notification adding requirements for special permission to undertake research, journalism, missionary or Tabligh activity, mountaineering and travel to restricted areas. The 2017 list should not be treated as exhaustive for 2026, and the special permission requirement for research is confirmed in the ministry’s own text.

What has actually changed for applicants in Australia

Two Australian-specific developments matter more to readers than the gazette itself.

From 1 April 2026, postal submission of OCI applications ended. The official notice requires applicants to attend their VFS centre in person by prior appointment for submission and document verification. Passport surrender applications are still accepted by post under the current checklist, which is an inconsistency worth putting to the High Commission.

Pooja Choudhary, a Melbourne resident, described the stakes for the community: “OCI is a very important document for us. It helps us stay connected to our roots in India and makes travel much easier.”

Vivek Asthana identified who bears the cost of the change: “If you submit the application in person, there is no risk of fraud but for those living in regional areas it will be a big change to deal with.”

That is the practical effect. A family in Mildura, Townsville or Alice Springs now travels to a capital city for a submission that used to go in the post.

[Unverified] The second development is larger and its outcome is unknown. Reporting from July 2026 states that all Indian visa, passport, OCI and consular services delivered through VFS Global in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide were suspended from 1 July 2026, after the operator’s contract expired on 30 June and a Delhi High Court interim injunction on a challenge by competing bidders blocked the replacement contract. The company’s own notice said services were suspended until further notice. Whether the injunction was lifted, when services resumed and what backlog resulted could not be established from any source. This masthead has asked the High Commission.

Published processing times, when services are running, are an average of eight weeks for a new OCI registration, six weeks for a miscellaneous service plus about seven working days after the passport is resubmitted, five working days for renunciation, and six to eight weeks for an online passport or photograph update. Card payments attract a 1.95 per cent surcharge and personal cheques are not accepted.

The question the sources disagree on

If you renew your passport, do you still have to update your OCI record.

The Consulate General of India in Sydney says yes. Its current guidance is that a cardholder must upload a copy of the new passport and a recent photograph online each time a new passport is issued up to twenty years of age, and once after completing fifty years, and that the upload should be done within three months of receiving the new passport.

Reporting on the digital rollout says the requirement has been eliminated.

[Unverified] These are probably compatible rather than contradictory. A 2021 order dispensed with the requirement to physically re-issue the card at those ages, and the surviving obligation is the online update rather than a new card. Separate reporting refers to a fine of USD 25 for failing to update passport details on the portal within three months. That fine does not appear anywhere in the April 2026 gazette, which was read in full, so it must come from a separate circular that could not be located.

This is the single most practically important open question for readers, and the sources genuinely disagree. Until the High Commission answers it, the safe course is to do the online update within three months, because doing an unnecessary update costs nothing and the portal describes it as free.

One risk that has grown

In August 2025 the Indian government confirmed that OCI registration will be cancelled if a holder is sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more, or is charge-sheeted for an offence punishable with imprisonment of seven years or more. It applies to offences in India or abroad where the offence is recognised under Indian law. The framing used was that OCI is a privilege rather than an entitlement.

For Australian cardholders, that means an Australian conviction can cost an Indian travel document. It is not hypothetical, and it is not widely understood.

[Unverified] No case of an Australian’s OCI being revoked could be found in any public reporting, and no claim is made that one has occurred. How many cancellations have affected Australian nationals is a question for the High Commission, and a refusal to answer it would itself be worth reporting.

Sources

Every date, figure and quotation in this article is drawn from the sources below. They are listed so you can check the record yourself.

• Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, "Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2026, G.S.R. 323(E)"
• Mondaq and RPV Legal, "India notifies Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026"
• Akashvani, All India Radio, "Government notifies Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026 introducing revised provisions related to OCI cardholders"
• Constitution of India, "Article 9"
• Ministry of Home Affairs, "Overseas Citizenship of India cardholder"
• VFS Global Australia, "Surrender of Indian passport checklist"
• VFS Global Australia, "Renunciation of Indian citizenship through the online module of the Ministry of Home Affairs"
• VFS Global Australia, "India consular services processing times"
• Consulate General of India, Sydney, "OCI services"
• High Commission of India, Canberra, "OCI services"
• SBS Hindi, "OCI applications now in person only as postal submissions end in Australia"
• NRI Affairs, "VFS Global Australia India services suspended"
• Business Today, "e-OCI card goes live, new applicants get only digital cards"
• Fragomen, "India, new OCI rules bring broader eligibility but stricter compliance measures"
• Akashvani, All India Radio, "OCI registration to be cancelled for serious criminal offences"
• Department of Home Affairs, Australia, "Australian citizenship statistics"