The Ministry of Labour and Employment has notified the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 2026, replacing the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952. Effective June 29, 2026, PF administration now operates under the Code on Social Security, 2020, not the old EPF & Miscellaneous Provisions Act.
For HR and payroll teams, this touches on contribution rules, withdrawal categories, contractor liability, and monthly filing requirements. Some of these changes took effect this week. Others were decided back in October 2025 and are only now being widely reported. Here's what you need to know and what to update in your payroll process.
Summary: Key EPF Scheme 2026 Changes
- EPF now falls under the Code on Social Security, 2020, replacing the 1952 Act
- Form V consolidated return due within 15 days, now also requiring Aadhaar-seeded bank account details
- Contractor PF liability is now explicitly defined for registered and unregistered contractors
- Voluntary Provident Fund (VPF) contributions can be started, reduced, or stopped anytime, no annual lock-in
- Exempted PF trusts face stricter governance: dematerialised investments, annual audits, online disclosures
- Partial withdrawals: 3 categories (down from 13), with a 25% minimum balance rule
- Three transition schemes now open: EEC 2026, VISHWAS 2026, and AMNESTY 2026
- EPS 2026 replaces EPS-95, with a new 20-day pension claim settlement deadline
- The Central Government can now defer or reduce PF contributions for up to 3 months during a pandemic, epidemic, or national disaster
EPF Now Falls Under the Code on Social Security, 2020
This is the most significant legal change in the notification, even though it changes very little day to day. The EPF Scheme moves from the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 to the Code on Social Security, 2020.
Existing accounts, balances, UANs, and service history carry over automatically. No action is required from employees, and no re-enrolment is needed. For HR teams, the practical impact is limited to updated legal references in policy documents and offer letters that cite the old Act by name.
The Code on Social Security is one of four labour codes replacing India's older employment laws. The other three are the Code on Wages, the Industrial Relations Code, and the OSH Code. Each comes with its own compliance dates and changes.
EPF Scheme 2026 is just the PF piece of the Social Security Code. If you're mapping your compliance calendar beyond PF, our guide on all four labour codes covers the rest.
Read it here
Form V Consolidated Return: New 15-Day Filing Requirement
Every establishment must file a single electronic Form V consolidated return within 15 days of the scheme applying to them. The return must capture, for every employee:
- Universal Account Number (UAN)
- Aadhaar number
- PAN
- Aadhaar-seeded bank account details
- Gross wages and EPF wages
After the initial filing, monthly returns follow the same 15-day window from the close of each month. This is the first place payroll teams should check for readiness, since it depends on Aadhaar and PAN seeding being complete across your workforce. Aadhaar-seeded bank account mismatches are worth checking early, too, since they're among the most common reasons auto-settlement claims get held up.
greytHR helps: Form V can be generated directly from the application. UAN, PAN, and Aadhaar fields go through field-level validation, and PAN-Aadhaar linkage can be verified, within employee master data, catching format errors and linkage mismatches before filing.
Contractor PF Liability: What Changed
The new scheme spells out contractor liability more explicitly than before:
- Unregistered contractors: If a contract worker's employer (the contractor) is not independently registered with EPFO, the principal employer is directly responsible for calculating, deducting, and depositing that worker's PF.
- Registered contractors: The contractor handles contributions, but if they default, EPFO recovers from the principal employer, who must then recover the amount from the contractor separately.
Any organisation using outsourced staffing, security, housekeeping, or contract labour should confirm registration status for every contractor on their vendor list.
New Emergency Power: Contributions Can Be Deferred During a Crisis
A provision in EPF Scheme 2026 gives the Central Government the power to defer or reduce employer and employee PF contributions for up to 3 months during a pandemic, epidemic, or national disaster. This is a genuinely new provision, not something carried forward from October 2025.
The notification is explicit that this is an emergency mechanism, not a permanent change to contribution structure. It would only take effect if invoked during a declared crisis. There's no immediate action for payroll teams here, but it's worth knowing this power now exists, since the last time contribution relief was discussed at this scale was during COVID-19, when similar flexibility had to be introduced through separate emergency notifications rather than being built into the scheme itself.
Voluntary Provident Fund (VPF): No More Annual Lock-In
Under the old rules, once an employee opted into VPF, the contribution rate was locked for the full financial year. Mid-year changes weren't allowed.
Under EPF Scheme 2026, employees can start, increase, reduce, or stop VPF contributions at any point in the year. Employers are still not obligated to match VPF contributions, which is unchanged from before.
greytHR helps: VPF declarations can be collected and the calculations automated in the application, so a mid-year change to an employee's VPF contribution doesn't turn into a manual payroll adjustment.
Note: Several reports have described the ₹1,800 mandatory contribution cap and the option to contribute voluntarily above it as a new feature of this scheme. It isn't. That structure has existed since the ₹15,000 wage ceiling was last revised in September 2014. The genuinely new part is the flexibility to adjust VPF mid-year.
Two More Rules That Carry Forward, Not New Either
Above-ceiling employees still need to opt in. Employees earning above the statutory wage ceiling at the time of joining remain outside mandatory EPF coverage unless both the employer and employee jointly opt for coverage. This isn't a new rule introduced by EPF Scheme 2026, it's a continuation of a provision that already existed under the 1952 scheme. If your organisation hires above-ceiling employees, this is worth double-checking against your own onboarding paperwork rather than assuming it changed.
A lower 10% contribution rate continues for notified establishment categories. Certain categories of establishments notified by the Central government (typically smaller or specified establishments) continue to contribute at 10% instead of the standard 12%. This also carries forward unchanged.
Exempted PF Trusts: Stricter Governance Rules
Organisations running their own private PF trusts instead of depositing with EPFO face the biggest operational shift under the new scheme:
- Mandatory dematerialised investments
- Annual independent audits
- Online disclosures and investment reporting
- Renewal requirements for continued exemption status
If your organisation manages an exempted trust, this is the section to route to your compliance and finance teams first.
PF Withdrawal Rules 2026: 3 Categories, 25% Minimum Balance
Partial withdrawal categories have been consolidated from 13 to 3:
- Essential Needs – illness, education, marriage
- Housing Needs – purchase, construction, loan repayment
- Special Circumstances – natural calamities, prolonged unemployment, other emergencies
All three require 12 months of service and carry a 25% minimum balance rule: members must always keep at least a quarter of their total accumulated balance in the account during active service.
Important clarification: Several articles describe this as "100% withdrawal," which has confused a lot of readers, including some of our own. Per the Ministry of Labour & Employment's own press brief (October 15, 2025), the actual mechanism is: 75% of the eligible amount is withdrawable at any time without documentation, with full withdrawal allowed only under specific closure situations. In practice, for any in-service partial withdrawal, plan around 75% of the total balance as the working ceiling.
Full access to 100% of the corpus, including the protected 25%, applies on account closure, which includes: retirement, permanent disability, retrenchment, voluntary retirement, permanent migration abroad, or death. On job loss specifically, members can access up to 75% of their balance immediately, with no waiting period, while the remaining 25% unlocks after 12 months of continuous unemployment. This is itself a change worth knowing: the waiting period for full settlement was extended from an earlier 2-month rule to 12 months, specifically to prevent erosion of retirement savings from premature full withdrawals.
A dating note for accuracy: These withdrawal changes were approved by EPFO's Central Board of Trustees at its 238th meeting on October 13, 2025, not by this week's notification. The June 29 scheme carries them forward rather than introducing them fresh. If your team already updated withdrawal communication late last year, nothing further changes here.
Three Transition Schemes: EEC, VISHWAS, and AMNESTY 2026
Alongside the new scheme, three time-bound compliance programmes are open:
| Scheme | Who it's for | What it offers |
|---|---|---|
| EEC 2026 (Employees' Enrolment Campaign) | Employers with historically unregistered or omitted workers | Employee's share is officially waived (if not previously deducted); a flat ₹100-per-establishment penalty applies instead of full Section 14B damages; completely protects against suo motu audits or prosecution for the declared period. This campaign strictly ceases on October 31, 2026. |
| VISHWAS 2026 | Employers with pending penal-damage litigation | Resolves past PF defaults for periods prior to June 14, 2024. Offers a 6-month window (extendable by 6 more) to settle legacy disputes with reduced damages. |
| AMNESTY 2026 | Employers operating exempted PF trusts | Provides a digital transition path for private and un-notified PF trusts to migrate to the new electronic filing standards. Offers a 6-month compliance window (extendable by 6 more) to regularize operational status without losing exempt status. |
If your organisation has any legacy compliance gaps, these windows are worth reviewing with legal counsel now rather than after they close.
EPS 2026: What Changed for Pension
The Employees' Pension Scheme, 2026 replaces EPS-95 and the 1971 Family Pension Scheme, effective the same day. For most members, nothing changes:
- Pension formula stays the same: (Pensionable Salary × Pensionable Service) ÷ 70
- Minimum pension remains ₹1,000/month
- Existing pensioners continue without interruption
What's new is accountability on EPFO's side. Pension claims must be settled within 20 days. If a valid claim is delayed without cause, EPFO owes 12% annual interest on the delay, recovered from the responsible officer's salary.
Extended EPS Withdrawal Window:
The waiting period to withdraw accumulated pension (EPS) components following unemployment has been extended from 2 months to 36 months (mirroring the new 12-month job-loss constraint on the remaining 25% PF balance). This intentional delay acts as a critical circuit breaker: Ministry data shows that 75% of members currently cash out their pension within 4 years, failing to ever reach the 10-year mark required for a lifetime pension.
There's a family-benefit angle too: if the pension fund is left unwithdrawn, the member's family stays eligible for family pension for up to 3 years after contributions stop, even in the event of the member's death. That benefit is lost the moment the pension is withdrawn early, worth mentioning to employees who might not realise the family-side implication of an early pension withdrawal.
What Hasn't Launched Yet
A quick note on naming before you read this section: you'll see PF withdrawal changes referred to elsewhere as "EPFO 3.0." It's closely related to EPF Scheme 2026 but not identical. EPFO 3.0 is EPFO's broader digital modernisation drive, approved by the Central Board of Trustees in October 2025, covering withdrawal simplification, auto-settlement, and the UPI/ATM access described below. EPF Scheme 2026 is the legal notification that carries several of those reforms forward. The UPI/ATM feature discussed next is an EPFO 3.0 rollout, not something introduced by this week's notification.
One more thing worth flagging before you brief your team: UPI and ATM-based PF withdrawal has not officially launched, despite several reports suggesting it has. As of July 3, 2026, EPFO has completed testing but has not announced a launch date. If employees ask, the accurate answer is that it's expected soon, with no confirmed date yet.
Quick Reference: Old Scheme vs New Scheme
| Change Area | 1952 Scheme | EPF Scheme 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Governing law | EPF & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 | Code on Social Security, 2020 |
| Withdrawal categories | 13 purpose-wise provisions | 3 categories (Essential Needs, Housing, Special Circumstances) |
| Minimum balance during service | Not standardised | 25% of total balance |
| VPF contribution changes | Locked for the financial year | Can be changed anytime |
| Consolidated return | Not required in this form | Form V, due within 15 days, including Aadhaar-seeded bank account |
| Contractor liability | Less explicitly defined | Explicit: unregistered = employer liable; registered = employer liable on default |
| Exempted trust governance | Basic periodic audits | Mandatory demat investments, annual audits, online disclosure |
| Pension claim settlement | No standard deadline | 20 days, with 12% penal interest on delay |
| Contribution during national crisis | No standing mechanism | Central Government can defer/reduce contributions up to 3 months |
HR Compliance Action Checklist
| Action Item | Owner |
|---|---|
| Verify UAN, Aadhaar, and PAN seeding is complete for all employees before the first Form V filing | Payroll / HRMS Admin |
| Confirm Aadhaar-seeded bank account details are accurate for every employee; this is the most common point of failure for auto-settlement | Payroll / HRMS Admin |
| Confirm registration status of all third-party contractors and staffing vendors | HR / Compliance |
| Update employee communication on VPF flexibility (no more annual lock-in) | HR Comms |
| If operating an exempted PF trust, begin dematerialisation and audit prep | Finance / Compliance |
| Review eligibility for EEC 2026, VISHWAS 2026, or AMNESTY 2026 with legal counsel | Legal / Compliance |
| Brief employees on the realistic 75% in-service withdrawal ceiling, not 100% | HR Comms |
| Verify opt-in paperwork is on file for any above-ceiling employees enrolled in EPF | HR / Compliance |
| Hold off on communicating UPI/ATM withdrawal as live; monitor for the official launch | HR Comms |
| Update policy documents and offer letters referencing the old 1952 Act by name | HR / Legal |
Automate and Stay Compliant with greytHR
Tracking which EPF change applies from which date, across contribution rules, withdrawal categories, and contractor liability, is exactly the kind of compliance work that gets missed when it's handled manually.
greytHR runs field-level validation on UAN, PAN, and Aadhaar entries and can verify PAN-Aadhaar linkage directly within your employee master data, catching format errors and linkage mismatches before they become a filing problem.
Want to know how greytHR can help you stay compliant with EPF Scheme 2026?
FAQs
What is the EPF Scheme 2026?
It's the new legal framework for provident fund administration in India, notified June 29, 2026, replacing the EPF Scheme, 1952, under the Code on Social Security, 2020.
Is EPF Scheme 2026 the same as EPFO 3.0?
Not exactly, but they're closely linked. EPFO 3.0 is EPFO's digital modernisation programme, approved by the Central Board of Trustees in October 2025. EPF Scheme 2026 is the legal notification that replaces the 1952 Act and carries several EPFO 3.0 reforms, like the withdrawal category changes, into force.
When is EPF Scheme 2026 effective from?
June 29, 2026. It applies immediately and replaces the EPF Scheme, 1952 with no transition period for existing members.
Do I need to do anything to my existing PF account?
No. Existing accounts, balances, UAN, and service history carry over automatically under EPF Scheme 2026. No re-enrolment or employee action is required.
Did the mandatory PF contribution rate change?
No. It remains 12% of wages from both employer and employee, capped at the ₹15,000 wage ceiling, unchanged from before.
Is the ₹1,800 mandatory contribution cap a new rule?
No. Mandatory PF has been capped at 12% of the ₹15,000 wage ceiling since September 2014. Contributions above that have always been voluntary.
How much of my PF can I withdraw now?
For in-service partial withdrawals (illness, education, marriage, housing, special circumstances), plan for up to 75% of your total balance, withdrawable without documentation. Full access to 100% is available on account closure: retirement after age 55, permanent disability, incapacity to work, retrenchment, voluntary retirement, or permanently leaving India / migrating abroad.
On job loss, 75% is accessible immediately with no waiting period, while the remaining 25% unlocks after 12 months of continuous unemployment. This is confirmed directly in the Ministry of Labour & Employment's official press brief. (Note: Full access to the PF is not possible while being actively employed).
When did the 13-to-3 withdrawal category change actually happen?
It was approved by EPFO's Central Board of Trustees on October 13, 2025. The June 29, 2026 notification carries it forward; it didn't introduce it.
What is Form V?
Form V is a one-time, initial electronic return that every establishment must file within 15 days of the 2026 scheme first applying to them. It acts as a baseline database setup, requiring HR to upload critical identity and salary details for all current employees, specifically their UAN, Aadhaar, PAN, and wage structures. Once this initial setup is complete, all future ongoing payroll data is handled via standard monthly electronic returns, not Form V.
Who is liable for a contractor's PF default?
The principal employer, in both cases. If the contractor isn't independently registered, the employer is directly responsible for their PF. If the contractor is registered but defaults, EPFO recovers from the principal employer, who then recovers from the contractor.
Can I still change my VPF contribution mid-year?
Yes. This is new under EPF Scheme 2026. Previously, VPF contributions were locked for the full financial year once started.
Is PF withdrawal via UPI or ATM live now?
Not yet. Testing is complete, but EPFO has not announced an official launch date as of July 3, 2026.
Does this affect my pension?
The implementation of EPS 2026 (replacing EPS-95) does not alter your core retirement benefits. The calculation formula, eligibility rules, and the ₹1,000 monthly minimum floor remain completely unchanged for existing and new members. The primary change is structural accountability: the EPFO is now bound by a strict 20-day deadline to settle fully completed pension claims, with any unjustified delays carrying a 12% annual penal interest recovered directly from the responsible official's salary.
Do employees earning above the wage ceiling have to join EPF?
Not automatically. Employees earning above the statutory wage ceiling at the time of joining remain outside mandatory EPF coverage unless both the employer and employee jointly opt for coverage. This isn't new; it carries forward a provision from the 1952 scheme.
What are EEC 2026, VISHWAS 2026, and AMNESTY 2026?
These are three time-bound schemes launched alongside EPF Scheme 2026: EEC helps regularise unregistered workers, VISHWAS offers relief on legacy litigation, and AMNESTY gives exempted PF trusts a transition path to the new compliance standards.
Summing Up
The EPF Scheme 2026 changes the legal foundation of India's provident fund system more than it changes what happens on payday. Of the eight changes above, here's where to start:
- Get Form V filing-ready by confirming Aadhaar, PAN, UAN, and Aadhaar-seeded bank account data
- Check contractor registration status across your vendor list
- Update employee-facing communication on VPF flexibility and realistic withdrawal limits
- Review EEC, VISHWAS, and AMNESTY eligibility if you have legacy compliance gaps
- Confirm opt-in paperwork is on file for any above-ceiling employees
The Form V and VPF automation covered above are already part of how greytHR handles this notification. Contractor registration status isn't part of that automation; check with your account team on whether vendor or contractor tracking fits your specific setup.
Want to know how greytHR can help streamline PF and payroll compliance?
Disclaimer: This blog is intended for informational purposes only and reflects the EPF Scheme 2026, EPS Scheme 2026, and related notifications as understood at the time of publication (July 3, 2026). Compliance requirements are subject to further EPFO circulars and clarifications. Readers are advised to consult their legal and compliance advisors for specific guidance.
