The Ministry of Labour and Employment notified the Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS) 2026 on 29 June. This new scheme has replaced the EPS-1995 and 1971 Family Pension Scheme under the Code of Social Security, 2020.
For about 6 crore EPFO subscribers, it is natural to wonder whether their retirement planning needs a fresh impetus and how the maths behind it has changed. The short answer is that the core pension formula and the 10-year eligibility rule continue to remain the same.
Therefore, to qualify for a lifelong monthly pension, an employee must complete 10 years of pensionable service and reach the retirement age of 58, with an early reduced pension option also available to aspiring subscribers from age 50. In case you fall short of 10 years, and you can only withdraw your EPS corpus or carry it forward through a scheme certificate, you won’t get a monthly payout.
The pension itself is calculated using the EPFO’s long-standing formula:
Monthly Pension = (Pensionable Salary × Pensionable Service) ÷ 70
The EPS monthly pensionable salary is the average of your last 60 months' basic payments, plus dearness allowance (i.e., the average monthly salary drawn), capped at the ₹15,000 wage ceiling for most subscribers.
Let us now look at the approximate pension an individual can draw based on years of service, assuming a ₹15,000 wage ceiling (i.e., average basic pay).
Therefore, upon completion of 10 years of service, the payout amounts to roughly ₹2,143 per month. Given that this is a modest figure, it still unlocks a guaranteed income for life.
The minimum pension floor remains at ₹1,000 a month, and proposals to raise it to ₹5,000 to ₹7,500 are still under review and have not yet been officially notified.
Therefore, it is wise not to withdraw your PF when you switch jobs, as withdrawal of funds while you are changing jobs can reset your service clock and cost you a lifetime pension.
