PF withdrawn but no idea about EPS? You can still access it.

An employee’s 12% basic salary goes into EPF as the employee contribution. The employer matches the employer contribution. But what many miss out on is that only 3.67% of the employer contribution is allocated to EPF while the rest 8.33% goes into EPS.

Being ignorant of EPS means Mr. A would lose out on this contribution done in his name. Employers or the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) are unlikely to make him aware about it proactively. But there are ways to claim EPS if a person has already withdrawn their PF. But it requires an understanding of three basic rules in the context of EPS. 

You should also know that if you joined employment after 1 September 2014 with a basic salary of more than ₹15,000 per month, the entire 12% of employer contribution will go into EPF. You will not become an EPS member.

Decoding EPS 

The first rule is about EPS transfer. When you transfer your EPS from the previous employer to the current one, only service history is transferred, not the amount. “Your passbook will keep showing EPS funds standalone for all employers so far. Only service history, that is, the duration of your service period with the previous employer, will get transferred to the new employer,” said Ketan Das, PF business head, Finright. 

Kunal Kabra, founder and chief executive of Kustodian.life, said many people are unsure if their EPS gets transferred along with the PF. “They feel so because they cannot find the consolidated EPS amount on their member portal unlike the PF amount which gets consolidated. Be assured that when you raise a transfer for PF online, EPS service history too gets transferred,” he said. 

The second rule is about EPS withdrawal. One cannot withdraw EPS if the total service period is more than 10 years. “It is 113 months to be precise, that is, 9 years and 4 months,” said Kabra. 

The third rule involves exempt and non-exempt employers. Exempt employers only take care of the PF in the form of a trust, while the EPFO maintains the EPS contribution. It maintains both in case of non-exempt employers. That said, if you have to withdraw both EPS and EPF after leaving an exempt organisation, you need to approach the employer and the EPFO both.

In case of non-exempt employers, the withdrawal request will release EPF and EPS both if service period is less than 113 months. If the service period is longer, your PF money will be released, but not the EPS. You need to obtain a pension scheme certificate to have proof of your EPS service history. Submit it to the designated PF office of your last employer when you turn 58 (the retirement age under EPFO) to be eligible for pension benefits.

PF withdrawn, EPS left out

What can you do when you become aware of your long-forgotten EPS? The process will differ for exempt and non-exempt employers. “In exempt, if the employment record shows up on the member portal, simply raise the transfer request online to merge it with the latest employer. Your service history will get updated,” said Sanjay Kesari, retired regional provident fund commissioner-I, EPFO.

In case of non-exempt organisations, if PF has been withdrawn, you cannot transfer or withdraw EPS. You will have no option but to get the scheme certificate issued irrespective of the number of years of service period. It can only be done offline. The scheme certificate gets delivered to your home address, which you need to keep safe until you turn 58. It is your responsibility to surrender it to the PF office so the field officer can update it in the EPFO’s record when calculating your pensionable service history. 

Kesari said that if you have old PF accounts not linked with UAN (pre-January 2014 cases), you need to first get such account(s) linked with the UAN, which may or may not require updating the basic details as per the UAN/ Aadhaar data. 

“This requires approaching the respective employers through a joint declaration and the changes may require EPFO’s approval. Once this is done the member may apply online for the transfer,” he said. “Offline Form 13 is also an option but that requires employer authentication.”

How to check EPS transfer status 

Ironically, you cannot review your past employment history to verify with which employers your EPS is stuck. 

“EPFO shows the joining date and exit date separately for EPF and EPS both for each employer, but consolidated service history does not show up,” said B.G. Vishwanath, vice president–operations, at TeamLease RegTech.

“It is a good idea to fetch annexure-K to review if your EPS transfer has happened or not after you made the transfer request. You must do it when the transfer is happening from a trust because errors happen many times in those cases,” Vishwanath added.

Annexure-K is a transfer certificate that contains a member’s PF accumulation, service history, and employment details when they move from one employer to another. 

“EPFO easily gives it. It will be a good idea to generate and review it when you are about to get retired or just to be sure if things are in order. But remember, it only shows you transfer between the last two employers, not past EPS history,” said Kabra. 

What lies ahead 

EPFO wants to set up a centralised system. If that happens all services having different UANs but the same Aadhar number will show up on the member portal.

“If a member has five accounts—all linked with the same Aadhar number but not the same UAN—all of them will show up on the member portal after login. In that case not only EPF+EPS but also standalone EPS transfer can happen online easily,” said an EPFO official requesting anonymity. “We shall do away with issuing pension scheme certificates then. We understand keeping a physical document safe until retirement is difficult. We hope to take it live in a year.”

A major part of employer contribution goes into EPS. Ignoring it is your loss. Take measures to transfer your EPS service history to the current employer or obtain a pension scheme certificate to be eligible for pension.