Employee Provident Fund- Transfer

The EPFO or Employees’ Provident Fund Organization has introduced an online system to facilitate transfer claims and withdrawals by its members. Using this system, an employee can transfer his or her provident fund (EPF) balance with the previous employer to a new employer or can make partial/complete withdrawal of his PF balance with ease. In online transfer of PF, an employee has the option to get his or her claim attested by the current or the previous employer. After you submit your EPF transfer request, the employer will verify/correct your member details, approve and submit the request online through the portal. However, the employer needs to have a digital signature in order to affect the transfer. There are certain eligibility criteria which an employee needs to meet in order to transfer the EPF online.

Online transfer of EPF

When you move from one company to another, you need to transfer your Employee Provident Fund (EPF) as well. With the introduction of Unified Account Number (UAN) for EPFO subscribers this process has become simpler as the account number remains unchanged. Here’s how to initiate the EPF transfer process online.

Register on the EPF member portal

In order to initiate the claims transfer, you need to be a member of the EPF member portal. The registration on the portal can be carried out by logging on to the EPFO India website.

Portal for online claims transfer 

The employee must access the Online Transfer Claim Portal and register a claim for transfer of EPF. The login details for this portal are the same as those for the member portal.

Check eligibility

It is important to check whether you are eligible to make an online transfer claim. In some cases, a physical form (Form 13) must also be submitted.

Process

If you are eligible to make the transfer online, click on the ‘Request for transfer of funds’ and enter the PF numbers of your previous and current employer. The claim needs to be attested online by either your previous or current employer. On filling in the details, a PIN will be generated and sent to the registered mobile number.

Authentication

A tracking ID will be generated to track the progress of the online application. The printable Transfer Claim Form (Form 13) can be saved in the system. Print out Form 13, sign it and submit it to the employer to complete the process of claim submission.

Reasons to transfer your PF

Once an individual starts his career by taking up employment in any of the PF registered organization, an employee would be registered for PF purpose and both employee and employer contributions to employee’s PF and the fund earns interest till withdrawal. Further, it is not uncommon especially in early or mid-years of the career, to switch job for various reasons with or without break. In such scenarios, what happens to the PF account of the employee already created with the previous employer?

The employee will have two options in such cases

• Employee’s contribution with interest can be withdrawn if the employee continues to be on break for up to 60 days; or
• Transfer the balance to the current employer

As already mentioned, in order to make it an ideal saving for retirement it is always better to transfer the PF balance instead of withdrawing. This is also advisable from the tax standpoint as withdrawal of PF within 5 years of continuous service attracts tax.

How to use UAN to transfer PF online?

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has been taking several measures to simplify the operation of EPF account both for employer and employees. Keeping up with technology revolution, EPFO is also striving towards making all the process related to EPF electronic, more specifically PF transfer and withdrawal of PF which are generally tedious and time-consuming.

EPFO introduced Universal Account Number (UAN), which acts as an umbrella for the multiple Member Ids allotted to an individual by different employers. UAN enables linking of multiple EPF Accounts (Member Id) allotted to a single member. UAN offers a bouquet of services like dynamically updated UAN card, updated PF passbook including all transfer-in details, facility to link previous members’ ID with present ID, monthly SMS regarding credit of contribution in PF account and facility for auto-triggering transfer request on change of employment.

Documents required for transferring PF online

While the PF transfer was possible online earlier under ‘Online Transfer Claim Portal’, with the introduction of UAN, the process of transfer is revised and shifted under ‘unified portal’. However, in order to make online PF transfer, please ensure the following.

1. The member should have activated his UAN in UAN portal and mobile number used for activation should also be active
2. Bank account and bank IFSC code of employee should be seeded against the UAN  Seeding Aadhar number and PAN against UAN is not mandatory for raising transfer claims.
3. The employer should have approved the e-KYC
4. The previous/current employer should have digitally registered authorized signatories in EPFO
5. PF account number of both previous and current employment of an employee should be entered in EPFO database
6. Only one transfer request against the previous member ID can be accepted
7. Personal information and PF account related information is shown in EPFO should be correct

Procedure to transfer PF online

Now we know that PF transfer can be made online and above criteria need to be fulfilled. Let us understand the procedure step by step with the help of screenshots:

Step 1

Login to Unified portal (member interface) by using your credentials i.e., UAN number and password

Step 2

After login, click on ‘One Member – One EPF Account (Transfer Request)’ under Online Services

Step 3

Verify personal information and PF account for present employment:

Step 4

PF account details of previous employment would appear on clicking on ‘Get details’ below.

Step 5

You have the option of choosing either your previous employer or current employer for attesting the claim form based on the availability of authorized signatory holding DSC. Choose either of the employers and provide member id/UAN:

Step 6

In the next step, click on ‘Get OTP’ to receive OTP to UAN registered mobile number and enter the OTP and click on submit.

The employer will digitally approve your EPF transfer request by accessing employer interface of the unified portal

Fill up form 13 with details including PF number from both previous and current employer and download the transfer claim (pdf format). Submit the physical signed copy of the online PF transfer claim form to the selected employer within a period of 10 days.