Q.1200 Travel to India with PIO

Card in 2019 . . .

Question: Hi thanks for the website. I am a US Citizen with a passport valid till 2021. I only have a PIO book. Can you please let me know If I can travel to India in February- March of 2019. I am not able to get a reliable answer anywhere. Thanking you in advance Answer: I am not aware of any notification from the Indian Government stating that PIO cards are obsolete. While the Government has canceled the PIO Card scheme and urged PIO card holders to apply for OCI cards in lieu of PIO cards, they have not formally announced that PIO card benefits are canceled. There is however one exception relating to visa free travel for PIO card holders. Read on . . . As of October 1, 2018 PIO cards cannot be used for travel to India because International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) which is an international organization that manages international civil aviation, will no longer allow use of non-machine readable travel documents. It should be noted that PIO Cards which were hand written are NOT machine readable and will therefore become invalid travel documents. PIO card holders arriving in India from October 1, 2018 onwards without machine readable documents will risk being denied entry. The option for such PIO card holders would be to either convert PIO card to OCI or travel with a valid Indian visa such as e-visa or regular tourist visa etc. There is also a possibility that the requirement of machine readable documents from October 2018 may result in airlines denying boarding. All airlines must check travel documents before boarding passengers. Kindly refer to question number 1149 titled ‘My PIO Card expires in 2022 - Can I Travel to India with PIO’ for more information on this topic.