EPF Balance Enquiry

EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund) is a government saving scheme by the EPFO. As an employee, if your monthly income is less or equal to Rs. 15,000, then opening an EPF account is mandatory. You can make EPF balance enquiry for past organizations as well as that from the current employer. A prerequisite to check PF balance is to have an activated Universal Account Number (UAN). It can take at least 24 hours for your EPF balance to get updated and reflect in your PF account.

• You and the employer have to contribute 10% or 12% of the basic monthly drawn as deposit to the EPF account.
• You will earn an interest on the deposited amount. The current EPF interest rate is 8.50%.
• The rate of interest for 2018-19 and 2017-18 was 8.65% and 8.55%, respectively.

In this post we will discuss about ways to check EPF balance online and offline through methods such through the EPFO portal, an SMS, a missed call, on UMANG app, and for inoperative account and exempted organization, and frequently asked questions.

6 Ways to Check EPF Balance Online and Offline

You can make an EPF balance enquiry online through the EPFO portal, SMS, missed call, and Umang App. You can also make EPF balance enquiry for inoperative accounts and exempted establishments or private firms. Below mentioned are the detailed steps for each of these options.

1) Check EPF Balance on EPFO Portal

If as an employee you have an activated Universal Account Number (UAN), then you can enquire for your EPF balance on the EPFO portal. Here are the steps for the same:

• Visit the EPFO employer login page, and click ‘For employees’ under the service tab.
• On this page, click on the Member Passbook option.
• You need to enter your credentials such as user name and password on the EPFO website, and click ‘Login’ button.
• You can check the member IDs of all the accounts from past organizations as well as the current on after login.

2) EPF Balance Enquiry by Sending an SMS

If you wish to check PF balance offline, then you can do so by sending as SMS. For this purpose, you should have completed the KYC process for your UAN number. It means you should have the UAN number linked to your Aadhaar, PAN, and bank details.

• To view the EPF status, send an SMS to 7738299899.
• The SMS body should be ‘EPFOHO *UAN* *Lang*’.
• Here, ‘UAN’ us the Universal Account Number, and ‘Lang’ is the selected language in which you wish to check PF balance.
• As for now, you can make EPF balance enquiry in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, and Gujarati.
• For instance, if you wish to know the PF balance details in Kannada, then the SMS body should be – EPFOHO UAN KAN.

3) EPF Balance Check Through a Missed Call

To enquire for EPF Balance through missed call, you should have an activated Universal Account Number. Your KYC for UAN should also be completed beforehand.

• You need to give a missed call from your registered mobile number.
• To check the EPF balance, the missed call should go to the number 011-22901406.
• You will then receive a text message with details about the PF balance.

4) Check EPF Balance on Umang App

You need to download UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) App. This mobile application was launched by the Indian government in 2018. Several government services are available on this application. You can make EPF balance enquiry online on this app besides raising EPF claims and tracking the same. But to avail these facilities, you need to do a one-time registration using the mobile number that you have registered with the UAN.

• After installing the app on your mobile phone, open it and click the EPFO option.
• Select ‘Employee Centric Services’.
• Click ‘View Passbook’.
• Provide your UAN. You will receive the OTP on your registered mobile number.
• Click on login.
• Now you will be able to see all your EPF transactions from previous and current employment.

5) Check EPF Balance of inoperative Accounts

Inactive or inoperative EPF accounts are the ones where no contributions have been made in the last 36 months. But you can still view the balance in such accounts by following the below given steps.

• Go to the EPFO portal. Here under the tab ‘For Employees’ click the option for Inoperative Account Help Desk.
• Click ‘First Time User’ and then click ‘Proceed’.
• In the provided space, describe the issue at hand, and click ‘Next’.
• Provide details of the previous company such as the company address, date of joining, PF number, etc, and click ‘Next’.
• Enter other information such as your personal details (name, date of birth, PAN, mobile number, Aadhaar, email ID, etc).
• Click ‘Generate PIN’. This will be the reference number that you have to keep for future use.
• Now you have registered a complaint. This will be forwarded to the EPFO’s field officer.

6) Check EPF Balance of Exempted Establishments/Private Trusts

The contribution of EPF goes towards the company managed trusts and not the EPFO organization for an exempted establishment or private trust. The PF balance in this case is revealed by the company managed trust to the employee. There is no passbook facility for EPF for members of exempted establishments. Also, there is no specific method to check the PF balance following any of the above given steps. As per the Employee Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, particular employers are allowed to handle their own PF schemes for employees.

Some of the exempted establishments include HDFC, TCS, Godrej, Infosys, Nestle, etc. These are basically large organizations that have an in-house EPF trust, and also exempted from EPF contribution set up by the EPFO. These companies can manage their own EPF corpus trusts, but the same could provide higher returns than the EPFO-managed fund. The EPF contribution rules are however applicable to these organizations as well.

Here are the ways you can check PF balance for exempted establishments:

• Check the employee’s portal by the company: The big companies also maintain own website with facility for employees to check their EPF account balance from relevant section on the portal. So, you can login to your company account and do the needful.
• Check PF slip or salary slip: Usually large organizations provide employees with salary slips on official email address. So, you can check your salary slip for the PF account balance. You may also receive an EPF slip with the salary slip. This slip will contain details related to the EPF balance and monthly contributions.
• Keep a check on the contributions: You can also keep a track of your monthly contribution by checking your salary slip, and then calculating the monthly or annual EPF balance. Check for the offered interest rate by the EPFO or company, and calculate the interest earned on the fixed sum of monthly contribution.
• Talk to the HR person: Check with your company’s HR department for details about your EPF balance, ask for the PF statement, or relevant details as required, and you will receive the necessary help.

Frequently Asked Questions about EPF Balance Enquiry Online

Here are FAQs on EPF balance check online and offline: