Press Release

The Government of India has announced that the PIO cards can be converted to OCI cards without any additional charge only till 31st December, 2017.  After this date, PIO card holders would have to pay a fee of USD 275.00 to convert their existing PIO cards to OCI cards.

          As per the International Civil Aviation Organization rules/guidelines,passengers can now travel only with machine readable travel documents.  Therefore, the PIO cards, most of which are hand-written, are being currently converted to OCI cards without any extra fee till 31st December, 2017. 

          There are many benefits of converting PIO cards into OCI cards. It may be noted that the Governmenthas extended the validity of OCI cards for life time as againstPIO cards which were valid for 15 years only. The OCI card holders can also buy residential/commercial property in India except for agricultural/farming land.  They can also travel to India without any restriction and the requirement of registration with Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) if their stay is more than 6 months has also been done away with.