Centre notifies three new FRRO offices in Nagaland, Tripura and Odisha

The Centre has notified three new Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) in Kohima (Nagaland), Agartala (Tripura) and Bhubaneswar (Odisha), taking the total number of such offices across the country to 20, according to a government statement issued on November 2.

The expansion follows a directive from Union Home Minister Amit Shah to establish at least one FRRO in every state capital to facilitate the growing number of foreigners visiting India for tourism, medical treatment and education.

Five new FRROs have already started functioning since 2025 in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Aizawl (Mizoram), Amravati (Andhra Pradesh) and Guwahati.

The newly notified offices in Kohima and Agartala were earlier under the jurisdiction of the FRRO in Kolkata, while Bhubaneswar was under the jurisdiction of the FRRO in Hyderabad, the statement said.

The government is also considering expanding the network to the remaining states without dedicated FRRO offices, including Bihar, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.

The 20 FRRO offices are located in Ahmedabad, Amravati, Amritsar, Aizawl, Agartala, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chennai, Cochin, Chandigarh, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kohima, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai and Trivandrum.

The expansion is aimed at facilitating the legitimate travel and stay of foreign nationals in India while ensuring effective enforcement of immigration laws and security requirements.

The statement also referred to the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which consolidated four earlier laws governing immigration and foreign nationals into a unified statutory framework regulating their entry, stay, movement and exit.

Under the Act, the Bureau of Immigration, which primarily performs immigration-related functions, is assisted by Foreigners Regional Registration Officers authorised by the Central government.

FRROs monitor compliance with Indian immigration laws, deal with cases of overstaying and visa violations, and coordinate legal action or penalties wherever necessary.