Checking EPF Balance

Provident fund is the sum of money contributed by an employer and employee to the Employees Provident Fund Organisation. All entities with 20 or more employees must register for PF and contribute to the employee’s provident fund. In this article, we discuss the process of checking EPF balance online

UAN Number

The EPFO has recently unveiled the concept of Universal Account Number and Unified Portal. UAN is a 12 digit number assigned to the employees by the respective employers. UAN is unique for each employee and independent of the employer. Hence, while changing jobs, the employee must provide the new employer with the UAN to transfer PF balance from old employer. An employee must necessarily obtain UAN before he/she wishes to check the EPF account. UAN has been allotted by the EPFO for all employees who have made a contribution to the EPF since 2014. In addition to facility to check EPF balance online, employees having UAN can avail a wide array of services like KYC update, PF claim status, etc., through the EPF portal.

Tagging of Account with UAN on Unified Portal

Prior to checking EPF balance on the Unified Portal, the employee is required to complete the following formalities to tag his/her account with the UAN:

As soon as the UAN is assigned to the subscriber, he/she has to ensure its activation and create a password to access the EPF account information.
Know Your Customer (KYC) must be verified for the UAN. Here, the subscriber needs to seed his/her UAN with details such as Aadhar, PAN, mobile number and bank account details.

Checking Account Balance

An employee can check his/her EPF balance at anytime through one of the following methods:

Unified Portal

The official website of EPFO is one of the sources that a subscriber can utilize to check the EPF balance. To check the balance online using the EPFO portal, the subscriber must do the following:

Login to the Unified Portal using the UAN login and password.
After logging in, the subscriber must choose ‘Our Services’ option from the ‘For Employees’ tab.
From the various options in the ‘Our Services Tab’, ‘Member Passbook’ must be selected.
This will lead the subscriber to another page where he/she needs to submit the EPF credentials.

By following the above-mentioned procedures, the subscriber can check his/her EPF account easily on the Unified Portal.

SMS

The subscriber can use the facility of SMS to know the exact balance in his/her account. To do that, the concerned person must send an SMS to 7738299899. The SMS must contain the words “EPFOHO UAN”. It must be suffixed by the first three letters of the language preferred by the subscriber; for example – ENG for English. The facility can be availed in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Guajarati, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Bengali.

Missed Call

We live in a Nation that is increasingly getting digital, but the recipient of services isn’t in any way deprived of utilizing the most simplest of methods; a prime example being the facility of missed call. As simple it may sound, a mere missed call to the authorized number, which is 011-22901406, can provide you the necessary account details. Missed calls must be made from the subscriber’s registered number.

EPFO Mobile APP

EPFO has come up with a mobile app, thereby extending the service of checking the EPF balance to almost all the working-class citizens. To check EPF balance through android, iOS or Windows phone, the subscriber must:

Download the UMANG app.
Click ‘member’ on the app’s homepage.
On clicking the ‘member’ option, his/her PAN must be entered.
Enter the registered mobile number.
If the mobile number is displayed as incorrect, enter other relevant details like mobile number, Aadhar card, etc.
Once the necessary details have been submitted, the mobile app will display the balance in the employee’s PF account.