EPFO reaches out to subscribers with unclaimed balances

NEW DELHI: The Employees Provident Fund Organization is working on letting subscribers withdraw unclaimed funds in idle accounts.Nearly a quarter of Aadhaar-verified inactive accounts may soon be cleared of idle balances, as the EPFO ​​is developing an automated settlement tool that will allow account holders to receive unclaimed funds in their bank accounts without filing claims, an official told TOI. The facility is expected to handle nearly 8.10,000 Aadhaar-verified inactive accounts amounting to Rs 5,200 crore, of which nearly 14,000 accounts have unclaimed funds of more than Rs 5 lakh. Another 38,000 Aadhaar-verified inactive accounts have Rs 1-5 lakh unclaimed and 41,000 accounts have funds between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh. “In its last meeting, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) automatically settled inactive accounts with unclaimed balances of Rs 1,000 or below to registered bank accounts. Based on the lessons learned from the project, a separate initiative is planned to design a strategy for other accounts. Members joining after October 2017 will be given priority,” the official said. Invalid accounts in EPFO ​​refer to accounts that have stopped earning interest and mainly belong to members who have retired after the age of 55 and have not made contributions within three years. However, for those under 55, the account will continue to earn interest until the subscriber reaches age 58. As of February 2026, there were 3.18 million inactive accounts, of which Rs 10,181 crore was unclaimed. Among them, nearly 700,000 accounts are over 20 years old, and 180,000 accounts are between 10 and 20 years old. Nearly 1.3 million inactive accounts are between 5 and 10 years old.