EPFO to automatically transfer your PF balance when you change jobs. 5 things to know

Having your provident fund (PF) balance transferred from your ex-employer will become an automated process as the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is doing away with the cumbersome manual process in place now. The EPFO has announced that from next fiscal year you will have to no longer fill up employee provident fund (EPF) transfer claims on changing jobs.

5 things to know about the new EPFO transfer rules which will come into effect from next fiscal year:

1) The EPFO is testing the automation of EPF transfer on changing jobs on a pilot basis and the facility for all subscribers is expected to be launched any time next year, PTI quoted a senior labour ministry official as saying.

2) The EPFO plans to turn into a paperless organisation. At present, even those having a universal account number (UAN) have to fill up a transfer form. The retirement fund body gets about eight lakh EPF transfer claims every year.

3) As soon as your new employer files the monthly EPF return, the EPF contributions and interest earned on that from your ex-employer would be automatically transferred using UAN, the PTI report said.

4) Once it is implemented over the next six months, organized sector employees moving across locations are unlikely to face any problem in unifying their PF corpus, Mint had reported earlier.

5) Unification of old accounts has two key benefits—the EPF contribution period becomes longer as older accounts are merged and, second, it improves the employee’s pension eligibility, Mint had reported. Currently, 10 years of regular contribution is a must to receive pension under EPS.