Employee Provident Fund (EPF) is a fund in which a portion of your salary gets deposited every month for the purpose of building your retirement savings.
EPF balance is the total amount of your salary that is deposited in the EPF account, under your name, on a particular date. Each month a fraction of your salary is deposited into this retirement savings fund.
Following are the ways to check the EPF Balance-
You can check your balance on the EPF India website. UAN (Universal Account Number) helps you access your entire balance under one single window). It can easily be checked on the EPFO’s member portal.
The steps you need to follow for the same are:
Alternatively, you can also check your balance via UAN. Here's how to do the PF balance check with UAN number-
EPF balance can be checked through the PF missed call number. Simply give a missed call on 9966044425 from the registered mobile number to check the balance.
Note that an employee’s Aadhaar Card, PAN, and bank account number must be certainly linked with the UAN.
You can easily check your balance without any registered mobile number with the following steps-
If employees have activated their UAN, they can do the balance check on mobile number sms online by sending an SMS to 7738299899.
The format is SMS - EPFOHO UAN ENG. Note the last three letters are the preferred language in which the employee would like to obtain the details.
This facility is available in Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, and English. Also, for availing of these services, the Aadhaar, PAN, and bank details of the employee are required to be linked to the UAN.
The amount in your EPF balance will be determined on the basis of what percentage of your salary is deducted each month.
Under the Provident Fund scheme, the employer, as well as the employee, contribute 12% of the employee’s basic salary (plus dearness allowances, if any) into the employee’s EPF account.
The full 12% of the employee’s contribution goes into his/her EPF account. Additionally, 3.67% (out of 12%) of the employer’s contribution also goes into your EPF.
The remaining 8.33% of your employer’s contribution is credited to your EPS (Employee’s Pension Scheme). It is important to note that EPS is different from EPF.
The employer contribution to the EPF is tax-free. As far as the employee’s contribution to EPF is concerned, the employee can take the benefit of tax deduction under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act.
Simply put, for the employee, investment in EPF, the interest earned on the EPF balance, and the money withdrawn after the mandatory specified period (5 years) are all absolutely tax-free.