Citizenship

I am sharing this for anyone who is going through these processes. It took me a lot of research to decipher everything since there isnt one authority/source who will tell you this. I have also included my personal timeline for each step. 

I am not here very often so may not be able to answer any follow up questions. 

Original citizenship: India
US location: Washington DC/Virginia
Goals: Obtain US citizenship, obtain India OCI card

Everything below has to be done in this particular order since the next step is dependent on the previous item. 

1) US Naturalization process:

- Submit the N-400 application online as soon as you are eligible - May 2021
- Interview - January 2022
- Oath Ceremony - February 2022 - receive naturalization cert at the oath ceremony 

2) Obtain US passport

- get the naturalization cert
- apply for US passport (I also applied for the optional passport card for a small fee) - you will mail the original copy of naturalization cert (make copies beforehand) 
- once you have the US passport (took two weeks) - apply for India passport renunciation cert (requires US passport info)

3) Indian citizenship renunciation cert 

- apply on the govt website first - get the application number. When it asks for passport information - it usually means your old Indian passport information (not the US passport info)
- then apply on the vfs site (requires the application number from the govt website application) - choose their FedEx shipping service, pay with credit card, it will give you a renunciation cert template, will provide shipping label
- send package to vfs (include documents listed in the checklist - make sure to sign all necessary docs, include original passport and photocopy of it)
- receive the renunciation cert and cancelled passport in mail - two weeks in March 2022

4) Apply for OCI (requires renunciation certificate)

1. fill out the form on the govt website. Make sure you have a digital version of the SAME picture you will send in the mail to VFS later to upload to this site. Make sure all PDFs and picture are less than 1M in size (painful). This form asks for a lot of information and will take a lot of back and forth to finish. This time - when it asks for passport information - it usually means your US passport information. Naturalized US citizen documents needed: canceled indian passport, US passport, US naturalization cert, indian citizenship/passport renunciation letter, address proof (utility bill), picture, self written consent letter for VFS to make edits
2. fill out the application on the VFS site
3. Mail the whole application package
4. Status is checked on https://ociservices.gov.in/statusEnqury
5. The OCI card is delivered around 2 months from the date of application (May 2022)