The Employees\u2019 Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has introduced a 12-month waiting period for members who quit their jobs or retire before attaining the age of 55 years to withdraw their full EPF balance.<\/p>\n
However, members can withdraw 75 per cent of their EPF balance within 12 months of quitting or retiring from service. Members who have attained 55 years of age can withdraw their entire balance within 10 days of their exit from service, EPFO officials said.<\/p>\n
The agency issued a notification on June 29, 2026, following a decision taken by the Central Board of Trustees (CBT).<\/p>\n
Recently, several members complained to the EPFO that they were facing difficulties in withdrawing their funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI retired at the age of 58. But when I tried to apply for settlement of claims. I got a message that reads: \u2018Member is presently not eligible to submit PF final settlement (Form 19) claim, as the mandatory waiting period of 12 months from date of exit has not been completed\u2019,\u201d said a member.<\/p>\n
The message is contrary to the Gazette Notification dated June 29, 2026. The notification says: \u201cA member may withdraw the full amount standing to his credit in the fund on retirement from service after attaining the age of 55 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EPFO official said the organisation has created two windows for submitting applications \u2014 \u2018Retirement\u2019 and \u2018Retirement after 55 years\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who are retiring after 55 years should opt for the \u2018Retirement after 55 years\u2019 under the drop down menu while submitting claims. Others will submit under the \u2018Retirement\u2019 option\u201d, said the official.<\/p>\n
Members who have attained 55 years of age will receive their funds within seven to 10 days if the amount is more than \u20b95 lakh. If the amount is less than \u20b95 lakh, the funds will be disbursed within three days.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people who have attained the age 55 years and are submitting claims under the \u2018Retirement\u2019 window are getting the message of a 12 months waiting period. We have clarified this in the FAQ section. We will publicise it through social media too,\u201d said the official.<\/p>\n
The official said the 12-month waiting period was introduced to prevent members from withdrawing their full balances when changing jobs.<\/p>\n
The EPFO had found that people were frequently withdrawing their funds while changing jobs, leaving them with very little in their EPF accounts at the time of retirement.<\/p>\n
Members can opt for final settlement of claims and withdraw the full amount on grounds, including termination of employment, retirement from service after 55 years of age, migration to a foreign country, closure of an establishment and permanent disability.<\/p>\n
According to EPFO data, a total of 52,95,281 members opted for final settlement of claims in 2024-25. More than 75 per cent of these members received less than \u20b950,000.<\/p>\n
The data shows that 48.73 per cent of members opting for final settlement in 2024-25 received less than \u20b920,000. While 1.29 per cent received between \u20b95 lakh and \u20b910 lakh, 1.01 per cent received between \u20b910 lakh and \u20b925 lakh, and only 0.62 per cent received more than \u20b925 lakh.<\/p>\n
The EPFO\u2019s analysis showed that for a member earning a wage of \u20b915,000 per month, the post-retirement EPF corpus would reach \u20b914 lakh. With the provision requiring a minimum 25 per cent balance to be retained, the person would have at least \u20b93.5 lakh remaining in the corpus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Employees\u2019 Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has introduced a 12-month waiting period for members who quit their jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,473874,186,184,185],"class_list":["post-906052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-epfo-epf-withdrawal-rules-2026","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}