PAN card for NRIs
Forms 49A and 49AA no longer exist for new applications. Since 1 April 2026, an NRI holding an Indian passport applies on Form 93, and a foreign citizen, which includes OCI holders, applies on Form 95. The citizenship logic is unchanged, only the form numbers are.
Existing PAN cards stay valid. This affects new applications only.
Which form applies to you
| You are | Old form | Form now |
|---|---|---|
| An Indian citizen, including an NRI on an Indian passport | 49A | Form 93 |
| A foreign citizen, including an OCI holder | 49AA | Form 95 |
Most guides still describe 49A and 49AA. If the form number is wrong, the application is wrong before anything else is checked.
Do you actually need one?
You need a PAN if any of these apply:
- You have taxable income in India
- You are selling or buying property in India
- You hold mutual funds, a demat account or certain NRO accounts
- You want to avoid tax being deducted at the higher no-PAN rate
Without a PAN, tax is deducted at the higher of the rate specified in the Act, the rate in force, or 20 percent. That rule now sits under Section 397(2), recodified from the old Section 206AA.
What it costs
- Dispatch to an Indian address: roughly 101 to 107 rupees
- Dispatch to a foreign address: roughly 1,011 to 1,017 rupees
- e-PAN: roughly 66 to 72 rupees
- Reprint: about 50 rupees inside India, about 959 rupees abroad
Official processing is 15 working days. Delivery to a foreign address realistically runs closer to three weeks.
What we charge to prepare it
One flat fee, whichever of the three you need.
- The correct form for your citizenship
- Proof documents checked for a foreign address
- Applied through the route that works for your case
- Followed up until the card is dispatched
Government and application-centre fees are separate and paid by you directly. See all prices.
The Aadhaar linking question
The NRI exemption is conditional, not automatic. It applies if you do not hold an Aadhaar and your residency status is correctly updated on the income tax portal. People assume being abroad is enough, then find their PAN has gone inoperative. Reactivating it costs 1,000 rupees.
A common failure worth knowing about: the citizenship or residency field mismatching between the Protean and UTIITSL systems. People routinely get stuck on one route and succeed on the other. See also OCI applications, since OCI holders apply as foreign citizens here.
Where these numbers come from
- Income Tax Department, PAN services — the Income-tax Act 2025 and Rules 2026 form change (checked 2026-08-19)
- Protean (formerly NSDL) TIN-PAN — dispatch fees inside and outside India (checked 2026-08-19)
- UTIITSL PAN services — the alternative application route (checked 2026-08-19)
We re-check every fee and rule on this page monthly. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it the same day.