From your country
Your USCIS forms, from India
Indian documents, USCIS boxes. Your name is built differently from region to region; here is where each part goes.
Available now in New Jersey.
Your name on the form
In India a name is built differently in each region and community. What your passport says always governs.
A Gujarati name is usually your given name, your father’s given name and the family name, such as Patel or Shah.
That middle name is your father’s, not a second given name of yours. Even so, it is what goes in “Middle Name”.
Your passport puts your name and your father’s together in “Given Name(s)”. USCIS separates them into two boxes.
In southern India many names begin with initials. Your passport spells them out in full: copy that version.
Some people have one single legal name. USCIS asks for the given name and the family name in separate boxes.
Do not invent a name and do not repeat the same one in both boxes. Copy exactly what your documents show.
Some U.S. documents print FNU before a single name. If yours carries it, write it the same way.
When in doubt, check your form’s official instructions on uscis.gov before you write your name.
Write your name the same way on every form. A surname that changes from page to page raises questions.
The “State or Province” box
USCIS asks for a “state or province”. In your country that level is called a state.
In India, “State or Province” means your state: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu.
Union territories are not states. Even so, their name is what goes in that box.
Delhi is a national capital territory, not a state. That box takes Delhi.
The district, the taluka and the village belong on the address line. They are not the state.
USCIS mails you at the address you write down. Check it before you sign.
The ñ, the accents and your passport
Your name is written in Gujarati or Hindi, and in Latin letters it can vary. The passport’s spelling governs.
We print on your form exactly what you type. Accents do not disappear on their own.
Your national ID is not your A-Number
Aadhaar and PAN are Indian. Neither of the two is your A-Number.
The A-Number comes from USCIS, not from your country. It appears on the papers USCIS has sent you.
Where do I find my A-Number →If you are outside the United States
We prepare your form, you print it, sign it by hand and mail it. Being abroad does not change that.
We publish no consulate address, phone number, hours or appointment rule. The State Department handles those.
If your question needs a lawyer
We do not give legal advice and we do not decide your case. We tell you where to look for a licensed attorney or an accredited representative.
Start whenever you want
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