Census 2027 is coming to your door. Here's when, and what it will ask

India hasn't counted itself in fifteen years. The 2021 census was postponed, so almost every population figure you see quoted today, from your state's literacy rate to how many homes have a toilet, still comes from 2011. Census 2027 changes that.

I made a small site, census2027.tukka.dev, to make sense of it: when the count reaches you, every question on the form, how to fill it in online yourself, and what the 2011 census found in each state. Here's the short version.

When it happens

The census runs in two phases. Phase 1 listed every building and home between April and September 2026, each state in its own 30-day window. That part is over.

Phase 2 counts people, and when depends on where you live:

1. Ladakh and the snow-bound parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand went first, in September 2026.
2. Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are next, from 1 December 2026 to 4 January 2027. All four have assembly elections due in 2027, so their count was moved earlier.
3. Everyone else is counted from 9 to 28 February 2027, as of midnight on 1 March 2027.

The dates page has the full timeline.

What it asks

There are 33 questions about your home and 40 about each person. A few are new since 2011:

1. Caste is recorded for everyone, not just Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. That last happened in 1931.
2. Homes are asked about internet access and smartphones. In 2011, 63% of homes had some kind of phone, and only 3% had a computer with internet.
3. Each person is asked how many bank accounts they have, about digital literacy, where they got their COVID-19 vaccine, and for ID numbers such as Aadhaar and voter ID, if they have them.

Every question is on the questions page, in plain words.

You can fill it in yourself

For the first time, a household can answer online before the enumerator visits. It's optional. During your area's window, you sign in at se.census.gov.in with your mobile number, one person answers for the whole household, and you get a Self-Enumeration ID. When the enumerator comes, you show them the ID, and they check your answers and submit them.

In Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the window is 16 to 30 November 2026. For the rest of India, the dates haven't been announced yet. se.census.gov.in is the only official portal, and census staff never ask for money or bank PINs. The self-enumeration guide walks through each step.

What 2011 found

Until the new numbers arrive, the site shows the 2011 census for India and each of its 35 states and union territories of the time. You can shade the map by any of more than fifty numbers: population, literacy, sex ratio, homes with a toilet, homes with a TV and so on.

Some of the numbers are worth a second look:

1. India had 121 crore people, with 943 women for every 1,000 men.
2. Kerala's literacy rate was 94%. Bihar's was 61.8%, the lowest of the 35.
3. Fewer than half of India's homes, 47%, had a toilet. In Kerala it was 95%; in Bihar, 23%.
4. Kerala had 1,084 women for every 1,000 men. Daman and Diu had 618.

Each state's page puts its numbers next to India's and shows its rank out of 35, so you can see where your state stood before Census 2027 redraws the picture. When the 2027 results come out, the site adds them in their own section.

Find your state at census2027.tukka.dev/2011.