OPF was established under the Emigration Ordinance, 1979. It was registered on 8th July, 1979 as Not for Profit Company under the Companies Act, 1913 (now Companies Act, 2017, Section-42). It is a public sector company to be governed under Public Sector Companies (Corporate Governance) Rules, 2013 of Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). The Board of Governors is supreme body and all operations of OPF are managed under overall control of the Board and policy directions from Government.
To cater to the housing need of Overseas Pakistanis and to provide them residential facilities, OPF has planned and established a number of housing schemes in different cities of the Pakistan. Thousands of plots created in these schemes were allotted to Overseas Pakistanis. These schemes are located at the prime locations in the cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Gujrat, Peshawar, Dadu, Larkana and Mirpur (AJK).