Aadhaar services 2026: updates, PVC, lock and 1947

Aadhaar touches almost every government and financial transaction in India, so the services around it — updating, locking, ordering, verifying — are worth knowing precisely. Everything below was checked against UIDAI's own website on 26 August 2026.

• Enrolment (new Aadhaar) — free of cost, per UIDAI's Citizen Charter, at Aadhaar Seva Kendras and enrolment centres.
• Address update online — Rs 75 fee, stated on UIDAI's homepage card linking to the myAadhaar portal. The older Rs 50 figure found on many sites is outdated.
• Document update on myAadhaar — free: UIDAI's office memorandum of 13 May 2026 extends the fee relaxation for document update through the SSUP/myAadhaar portal up to 14 June 2027.
• Children's mandatory biometric update — UIDAI announced waiving charges for the mandatory biometric update (MBU-I) of children aged 7 to 15 years, for one year with effect from 1 October 2025.
• Biometric or demographic update at a centre — charges apply; confirm the current amount on uidai.gov.in before you visit, because the schedule has been revised more than once.
• PVC Aadhaar card — a paid service since September 2020, ordered through myaadhaar.uidai.gov.in or the mAadhaar app, handed to India Post within five working days of the request per the Citizen Charter; the current charge is displayed at ordering.
• mAadhaar app — carries your Aadhaar on the phone and hosts the biometric lock.
• Aadhaar lock and biometric lock — free, the strongest anti-misuse switch a resident has.

Helpline for all of it: 1947, listed on UIDAI's homepage.

Aadhaar authentication can use your fingerprints. If a fraudster captures them, they can be replayed — unless the biometrics are locked. UIDAI offers this through the mAadhaar app:

1. Open mAadhaar, register your Aadhaar, and use Biometric Lock.
2. Once locked, biometric authentication attempts simply fail — for payments, eKYC, SIM issuance, anywhere.
3. When you genuinely need a fingerprint authentication, unlock briefly, transact, and re-lock.

Lock, and leave locked. An OTP-based authentication still works for ordinary uses, so the cost of locking is close to zero.

Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak, a retired government doctor, received a call from someone posing as a bank official who already knew his name, phone and partial Aadhaar digits. Nothing was debited, but the scare prompted him to spend ten minutes on the mAadhaar app locking his biometrics. Months later a SIM-swap attempt at a distant shop failed on fingerprint authentication — the shop's device simply declined. He never learnt who tried; the point is that with the lock on, he did not need to.

UIDAI runs a grievance system — file through the resident portal or call 1947, and keep the complaint number. When the complaint ages without action, the RTI Act applies to UIDAI as a public authority:

To:
The Central Public Information Officer,
Unique Identification Authority of India,
Bangla Sahib Road, New Delhi

Sir/Madam, under section 6 of the RTI Act 2005,
in respect of grievance No. [NUMBER] dated [DATE],
kindly provide:

1. Current status and stage of the grievance as on
   the date of reply.
2. Name and designation of the officer handling it.
3. Action taken with dates since lodgement, including
   file notings.
4. Reasons for delay beyond the timelines in UIDAI's
   Citizen Charter.
5. The prescribed timeline for this service category
   under the Charter.

Rs. 10 application fee paid to the Accounts Officer.

The Citizen Charter's timelines are the yardstick your RTI quotes — asking for the charter norm and the deviation is far harder to deflect than a bare “why is it delayed”.

No. UIDAI's homepage currently shows Rs 75 as the fee for the online address update. Treat any page quoting Rs 50 as outdated, and check the portal before paying.

Enrolment; document update through myAadhaar until 14 June 2027 under the 13 May 2026 order; the mandatory biometric update of children aged 7-15 during the waiver year from 1 October 2025; biometric lock; eKYC.

Mobile update requires a centre visit — it is the one demographic change not fully self-service, precisely because the mobile is the second factor for everything else.

No. PVC, e-Aadhaar and mAadhaar are all equally valid forms of Aadhaar; UIDAI's charter treats the PVC card at par with other forms.