Easy Steps to Transfer Employees Provident Fund Balance

Employee Provident Fund is a savings mechanism that offers savings to every salaried professional where one part of the contribution in the employee provident fund is made from the salary of the employee and the other part is the employer’s contribution. The returns on the Employee Provident Fund are provided with the government of India that governs the EPF or the employee provident fund. It is a tax free saving instrument and one that helps the millions of salaried employees to get tax free savings for their retirement age.

While the EPF and its returns are great news for the salaried employees, what often bothers people is the process to transfer Employee Provident Fund when they switch to a new job. A few years ago the entire process was manual and one had to complete a lot of paperwork and followups to get the transfer done. However, now the EPFO or the Employee Provident Fund Organisation has offered the complete process online and made it really simple for everyone to transfer their employee provident fund online when they switch their jobs. Here is step by step guide to transfer EPF.

Note your UAN number: The UAN Number is a unique number that is assigned to every salaried professional as and when their EPF account is opened, while the EPF account number may change with every new job, the UAN number stays the same. Thus, it is important to keep a record of your UAN number, the same may be obtained from salary slips of the previous employer, or EPF passbook. The EPF passbook is now also available in its digital version on the app and the web login.
Sign in your EPF account: One can log in to their EPF account with their UAN number, those visiting for the first time can sign up using the UAN number and verify with the date of birth and other secure details.
Visit the section “Online Services”. After logging in to the EPF portal one needs to visit the Online Services tab from the menu, this is where all the services including the transfer can be processed.
Request for Transfer:. Under the Online Services select the Request Transfer service. It is mentioned as One Member – One EPF Account (Transfer Request).
View the Existing Details: One can view the company name and EPF account details of the current organisation.
Re-enter UAN: Re-enter UAN or enter the old EPF number to fetch the details.
Select the Validation Method: The applicant needs to select if they would want their UAN details to be verified by the previous employer or the new employer. Either option can be selected depending on the comfort level and reach. We would recommend selecting the new employer as it is easier to follow-up.
In case results are not fetched: In case validation method doesn’t show it might mean that the previous employer has not mentioned the last working date in the UAN portal. The employee needs to followup with the previous employer in this case and requests them to mark the last working date in the EPF portal. Once this is done, the validation as in the previous step will start showing up in the UAN portal.
Verify OTP: Once the employee selects the old account and clicks to proceed they are requested to generate an OTP to verify, this is sent to their registered mobile number. In case the mobile number is not registered one needs to add the mobile number by following the secured protocol.
The request is Sent: Once the OTP is filled and proceeded with the request to transfer the EPF account is initiated and an intimation is sent to both the employers. Depending on the method chosen once the employers verify the request the transfer is executed.
Validate: One can validate the request under the view status tab which is named as “Track Claim Status” under the online services menu.
Pass Book: Another way to ratify the transaction is to view the EPF digital passbook and see the merged balance of EPF in the new account.