How to update your Aadhaar details

Log in at myaadhaar.uidai.gov.in with your Aadhaar number and the OTP sent to your registered mobile. Everything else depends on that mobile working, which is the first thing to establish.

If you no longer have the registered mobile number, stop here — you cannot do anything online, and updating the mobile requires a physical visit to an Aadhaar Seva Kendra with biometric authentication. This is the single most common blocker, and there is no online workaround by design.

Once logged in, check your current details against your other documents. Mismatches between Aadhaar, PAN and bank records are the usual cause of failed KYC, rejected EPF claims and blocked scheme payments, and it is worth fixing all of them together rather than one at a time.

Download your e-Aadhaar as a PDF — it is legally equivalent to the physical card and is what most institutions actually want. The password is the first four letters of your name in capitals followed by your year of birth.

Check your Aadhaar authentication history while you are logged in. It shows every occasion your Aadhaar was used for authentication, and anything you do not recognise is worth investigating.

Address is the one demographic field UIDAI allows you to update entirely online, through the Update Aadhaar section of myAadhaar, for a small fee paid on the portal.

You need a valid proof of address document from UIDAI's accepted list, uploaded as a scan or clear photograph. The list is long and includes passport, bank statement or passbook, ration card, voter ID, driving licence, registered rent agreement, and recent electricity, water, gas or telephone bills. Check the current list on the portal rather than assuming — it changes.

The name on the proof document must match your Aadhaar name. This is where most rejections come from: a bank statement in an initials-only format, or a bill in a spouse's or parent's name, will not be accepted on its own.

If you have no document in your own name at your current address, the head of family route allows an address to be updated based on a relative's Aadhaar with their consent, provided you can show a relationship document.

Submit and note the Update Request Number (URN). Track it on the portal; processing typically takes up to about 30 days, though it is often faster.

If the update is rejected, the URN status will say so, usually with a reason. The commonest are document mismatch, illegible upload and address not matching the document. Fix and resubmit rather than starting fresh.

Mobile number and email, biometrics (fingerprints and iris), and photograph can only be updated in person at an Aadhaar Seva Kendra or an authorised enrolment centre. Locate one through the Bhuvan Aadhaar portal or the myAadhaar site.

Book an appointment online where the centre supports it — walk-in queues at busy centres are long. Take your Aadhaar number or e-Aadhaar and the original of any supporting document.

For a mobile number update you do not need a document, only your biometric authentication at the centre. This is deliberate: it is what prevents someone else attaching their number to your Aadhaar.

Fees are prescribed and small, and are displayed at the centre. Any centre asking for substantially more than the prescribed fee is overcharging, and this can be reported to UIDAI on 1947.

Children's biometrics must be updated at ages 5 and 15 — these are mandatory milestone updates and are free at those ages. Aadhaar issued to a child under 5 contains no biometrics at all, so a card that has not been updated after the child turns 5 is liable to be deactivated.

UIDAI also recommends updating supporting documents every ten years, and has periodically made this free online through myAadhaar. Check whether a free window is currently open before paying at a centre.

These three fields have hard lifetime limits: name may be updated twice, gender once, and date of birth once. UIDAI can consider exceptions beyond these limits only through a special request process with additional scrutiny, and it is not something to rely on.

The practical consequence is that a casual correction burns a limited allowance. If your name appears differently across documents, decide on the definitive version first, then update Aadhaar once to match — rather than making an intermediate change and needing another.

Name updates need a supporting document showing the name you want: passport, PAN, marksheet, marriage certificate, gazette notification for a formal name change, or others on the accepted list.

Date of birth updates need documentary proof — a birth certificate, passport, or school leaving certificate showing the correct date. Where the existing entry was declared rather than documented, the record may show it as 'declared' rather than 'verified', which some institutions treat differently.

For gender updates, the process accepts self-declaration, and UIDAI has provided for transgender persons to record their gender accordingly.

Get all of these done at a Seva Kendra where you can show originals, rather than by upload, because the scrutiny is higher and a rejection costs you a limited attempt.

Lock your biometrics through myAadhaar when you are not actively using them. Locked biometrics cannot be used for authentication until you temporarily unlock them, which removes a whole category of misuse at no cost and no inconvenience.

Use a masked Aadhaar — which shows only the last four digits — wherever a copy is being taken for identification. It is downloadable from myAadhaar and is accepted for most purposes.

Use a Virtual ID, a temporary 16-digit number mapped to your Aadhaar, where a service asks for an Aadhaar number for authentication. It works for verification without exposing the number itself.

Aadhaar is proof of identity and residence. It is not proof of citizenship, and UIDAI says so explicitly — a point that is frequently misstated.

Check your authentication history periodically. Unexplained authentications, particularly ones tied to bank accounts or SIM cards you do not hold, are worth raising with UIDAI on 1947 and, if money is involved, with the cyber crime helpline on 1930.

No genuine agency will ever call asking for your Aadhaar OTP. UIDAI does not phone people to ask for verification codes, and anyone doing so is running a fraud — this is the mechanism behind a very large share of Indian financial fraud.