What is EPF account and how to check EPF balance?

The Employee Provident Fund (EPF) is the cumulative funds across a person’s working life that are accumulated through regular contributions made by the employee and employer(s) as a part of the employee’s pension fund scheme.

As recently as a decade ago, you could access your provident funds with your PF member ID that was issued by your employer. However, if you were to change your job, your new employer would provide you with a new PF member ID. 

This system entailed that you needed separate PF member IDs to access different parts of your provident fund and you necessarily needed your employer’s authorization to access your provident fund as such. However, the process is much easier now.

Since 2014, when the central government issued the UAN (Universal Account Number) to employees, it works as a standard provident fund ID throughout your employment in the organized sector. With the UAN ID, you can now access your entire EPF account history online at the EPFO portal. 

Today, you can check your EPF balance either through the online EPFO portal or through mobile applications such as the Umang mobile application. Below, we will see how you can check your EPF balance through either of these portals.

Checking your EPF Balance on the EPFO Portal

Now, you can check your EPF balance on the EPFO portal through your UAN ID through a few steps as illustrated below:

1. Visit the EPFO website https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in/memberinterface.
2. Click on the section ‘Our Services’ and go to the ‘For Employees’ section.
3. From the ‘For Employees’ webpage, go to ‘Member Passbook’ from the ‘Services’ menu.
4. When you click on the ‘Services’ tab, you will be navigated to the login page.
5. Here, you will need to enter your UAN ID and password. 
6. After logging in, you can access all your PF member IDs provided by your present and past employers.  
7. Click on the member ID hyperlink, of whichsoever account that you wish to access and check the balance for. From here, you will have access to your EPF passbook and history of all the transactions related all your EPF accounts.

The EPFO portal offers a comprehensive source of all your EPF-related information and allows to access your provident fund without the need for authorization from your employer. All you need to access your PF account on the EPFO portal is your UAN number. 

Checking your EPF Balance with the Umang Mobile Application

You can check your Employee Provident Fund balance with the Umang mobile application that is available on iTunes or Google Play Store. Using Umang, you can check your EPF balance, download your EPF passbook and even modify your EPF-related details. You can access your EPF balance through the Umang application through the following steps:

1. Firstly, you will need to download the Umang mobile application from iTunes or Google PlayStore.
2. On the home screen of the Umang application, you need to click on ‘EPFO’ to access your PF account and related information.
3. On this page, click on ‘Employee Centric Services’ and from here you will be re-navigated to links that give access to various PF-related information portals.
4. Here, you can access your EPF passbook to check your EPF balance by clicking on ‘View Passbook’.
5. On this page, you will need to enter your UAN ID and request for an OTP, which will be sent to the mobile number that you have registered in association with your PF account.
6. From here, you have access to your member IDs which are each associated with the respective employer.
7. If you have followed the above steps, you will finally be redirected to your passbook which will contain all your EPF transactions.

Provident funds offer a crucial lifeline to individuals who have retired or are temporarily unemployed. However, with increasing costs of living, provident funds alone may not be enough to fulfill your post-retirement dreams. To supplement your provident funds, you can invest in fixed deposit schemes such as those offered by Bajaj Finance that offer great flexibility and attractive premature withdrawal facilities for unforeseen circumstances.