 "NPS, UPS, APY charges revised from Oct 1: Here's how much you'll pay now")
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has announced a revision in the charges levied by Central Recordkeeping Agencies (CRAs) for subscribers of various pension schemes, including the National Pension System (NPS), NPS-Vatsalya, Unified Pension Scheme (UPS), NPS-Lite, and the Atal Pension Yojana (APY).
The revised charges will apply from 1 October 2025 and will cover both online and offline account maintenance. Importantly, PFRDA has capped the charges, but CRAs may choose to offer lower rates if they wish.
Charges for government sector NPS and UPS subscribers
For government sector subscribers, the revised cost remains relatively modest:
- PRAN opening charge: Rs 18 for an e-PRAN kit (default option) and Rs 40 for a physical PRAN card
- Annual maintenance charge: Rs 100 per account
- Transaction charge: Nil
- Accounts with a zero balance will not attract annual maintenance fees.
- Charges for APY and NPS-Lite subscribers
- For APY and NPS-Lite subscribers, the charges are uniform and minimal:
- PRAN opening charge: Rs 15
- Annual maintenance charge: Rs 15
- Transaction charge: Nil
Charges for private sector NPS and NPS-Vatsalya subscribers
Private sector subscribers will continue to pay for PRAN creation at Rs 18 for the e-kit and Rs 40 for the physical card. The annual maintenance charge (AMC) is linked to the subscriber’s corpus size:
- Nil – for corpus up to Rs 1 lakh
- Rs 100 – for Rs 1–2 lakh
- Rs 150 – for Rs 2,00,001–10 lakh
- Rs 300 – for Rs 10,00,001–25 lakh
- Rs 400 – for Rs 25,00,001–50 lakh
- Rs 500 – for corpus above Rs 50 lakh
There are no transaction charges for these accounts.
Key takeaways
The revised structure offers a slab-based approach for private sector subscribers, ensuring smaller investors do not bear a high cost.
PFRDA has clarified that the charges mentioned are upper caps, CRAs can offer lower charges if they choose.
Charges for the payout phase of UPS subscribers will be issued separately.
The regulator has also instructed CRAs to display the charge structure prominently on their websites and apps for subscriber convenience.