If you are a salaried person and looking to buy a home, then this news is for you as the Indian government recently changed Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) withdrawal rules.
What are the new EPF rules?
According to revised EPF rules in Para 68-BD of the EPF Scheme, 1952, EPFO members can withdraw up to 90 per cent of their lying EPF corpus for housing needs. This includes down payment, construction, or EMIs. They can withdraw the money after completing three years from the date of account opening. Earlier, this was only allowed after five years.
With this change, EPFO aims to slow down payment barriers, unlock dormant savings, and provide more flexibility for its members to buy a house. Notably, a member can avail of this facility only once lifetime.
The EPFO has also introduced instant withdrawal of up to Rs 1 lakh through UPI and ATM from June 2025. This is for emergency fund requirements.
It has also increased the automatic claim settlement threshold from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for faster processing.
EPFO has also decreased the verification parameters from 27 to 18. In 95 per cent of the cases, claims are being settled in 3-4 days.
Simultaneously, withdrawal rules have been eased for education, medical, and marriage purposes.
Recently, Cabinet approved the Employee-Linked Incentive scheme for informal sector employees who join EPFO. Under this scheme run by the Labour Bureau, if employees of the informal sector join the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the government will give them incentives. Read More