Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) vide Circular No. WSU/Transfer of Claims/E-52972/2024-25/005, dated January 15, 2025, has permitted transfer of provident fund (PF) accumulations by employees without requiring transfer claims to be approved by their previous or current employers in several scenarios.
Previously, when employees needed to transfer their PF accumulations due to a change of employment, they were required to submit the transfer application to their current employer, who would then forward the application to the relevant authority under the EPFO. However, under the revised process, the approval of the present or past employer for transfer of PF accumulations is no longer required in the following cases:
- Same Universal Account Number (UAN) linked with Aadhaar (Post-2017): Where the transfers are between different ‘member IDs’ linked to the same UAN (issued on or after October 1, 2017) and Aadhaar.
- Different UANs linked with Aadhaar (Post-2017): Where transfers are between different ‘member IDs’ with different UANs (issued on or after October 1, 2017) but linked to the same Aadhaar.
- Same UAN linked with Aadhaar (Prior to 2017): Where transfers are between different ‘member IDs’ linked with the same UAN (issued before October 1, 2017), provided that the UAN is linked to Aadhaar, and the member’s name, date of birth, and gender is identical across all ‘member IDs’.
- Different UANs with Aadhaar Linkage (Prior to 2017): Where transfers are between different ‘member IDs’ linked with different UANs (where at least one of the UAN was issued before October 1, 2017) and linked to the same Aadhaar, provided that the details of the member, including name, date of birth, and gender is identical across all ‘member IDs’.
Key benefits:
The amendment to the process of transfer of PF accumulations is aimed at eliminating the burden on employees for seeking the employer’s intervention for transferring their PF accumulations while changing employment, significantly speeding up the process for such transfer and reducing the compliance burden on the employees. EPFO members will now be able to directly manage the PF account transfers through the EPFO portal in most instances, thus providing greater ease of use, enhancing clarity and reducing reliance of employees on the employers. This is expected to provide faster, hassle-free transfers and a more employee-centric way of managing PF accounts. Moreover, for large employers with substantial workloads related to approving such cases, this process change will enhance operational efficiency and ease of compliance.