How to Move to India in 2026: Visa Options, OCI Card, and Expat Life

Moving to India as a foreign worker or a person of Indian origin runs through two very different systems depending on your background, and conflating them is the most common planning mistake. If you have no Indian ancestry, you'll go through the Employment Visa; if you or a parent/grandparent held Indian citizenship, the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card is almost always the better route.

The Employment Visa route for non-Indian-origin foreigners

India's Employment Visa (E-Visa category, not to be confused with the e-Visa tourist product) is issued to skilled or qualified foreign nationals hired by a company registered in India, and the Ministry of Home Affairs guidance has long used a salary floor — commonly cited around USD 25,000 a year — below which the ministry generally won't issue the visa (there are carve-outs for specific sectors like language teaching, ethnic cooking, and IT installation work at lower thresholds). The application must be sponsored by the Indian employer, who typically initiates the process with the Ministry of Home Affairs online portal, and the visa is generally issued for the duration of the contract or up to five years, renewable through the local Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) after arrival — a mandatory registration step within 14 days of entry that many first-timers miss.

OCI: the better path if you qualify

For anyone with an Indian parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent (or a spouse of an OCI/Indian citizen after two years of marriage), the OCI card is the far more practical long-term option: it grants multiple-entry lifetime visa-free travel to India and exemption from FRRO registration, essentially functioning as a quasi-citizenship for civil and economic purposes (though not voting rights or the ability to buy agricultural land). Fee structures were revised in 2026: applying from within India now costs roughly INR 15,000, while applying from abroad through an Indian mission runs about USD 275. A newer compliance wrinkle to know about: OCI holders who get a new passport are now required to update their OCI registration within a set window (commonly cited as three months) or face a modest late fee, so don't let a passport renewal sit unlinked.

What rent and daily costs look like in the two biggest hubs

Bangalore, India's tech and startup hub, is generally the more expensive of the two major relocation destinations for foreign professionals, with a decent one-bedroom in a well-connected area (Koramangala, Indiranagar, HSR Layout) running roughly INR 25,000-40,000 a month. Mumbai, India's financial capital, runs meaningfully higher — commonly INR 35,000-70,000 for a comparable one-bedroom in areas like Bandra, Andheri, or Powai — reflecting its role as the country's densest and costliest major city. Both cities have deep expat and tech-worker communities, English-language schooling options, and international-standard healthcare in private hospital networks, though day-to-day payments increasingly run through UPI (Unified Payments Interface), India's real-time payment rails that now dominate retail transactions even for small vendors — getting a UPI-linked account set up early (through a local bank once you have a registered address) makes daily life noticeably smoother than relying on cash or cards alone.

Healthcare and settling in

India's major metros have a well-developed private hospital network — Apollo, Fortis, and Manipal are among the larger chains with English-speaking staff and standards comparable to Western private healthcare — and most expats on employer-sponsored packages carry private international or local health insurance rather than relying on India's public healthcare system, which is stretched and generally not the default expat choice in the big cities. Registering with the local Foreigners Regional Registration Office within 14 days of arrival, and re-registering after any address change, is a compliance step that's easy to overlook amid the rest of a relocation but carries real penalties if missed — build it into your first-two-weeks checklist alongside opening a local bank account and getting a SIM card.

Related guides

Continue with these closely related guides:

• How to Move to Amsterdam as a Digital Nomad in 2026: HSM Visa and City Guide — Overlapping theme (salary).
• How to Move to Belgium in 2026: EU Blue Card, Costs, and Expat Life — Overlapping theme (salary).
• How to Move to Finland in 2026: Specialist Visa, Startup Permit, and Expat Life — Overlapping theme (salary).
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