EPFO retains employees' provident fund interest rate at 8.25% for 2025-26

This is the second year in a row that the EPF interest rate has been kept unchanged at 8.25%

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Monday recommended keeping the interest rate on employees’ provident fund unchanged at 8.25 per cent for 2025-26 (FY26). This is the second year in a row that the EPF interest rate has been kept unchanged.

 

In FY24, the rate was last revised to 8.15 per cent. In FY22, the interest rate had plunged to a four-decade low of 8.1 per cent.

 

The EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees (CBT), its apex decision-making body, made a decision on the interest rate in its 239th meeting on Monday, chaired by Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

 

 

The proposal will now be sent to the Ministry of Finance for final approval, after which the interest will be credited to the accounts of its over 70 million active subscribers.

 

In its meeting, the CBT also cleared a one-time amnesty scheme to regularise income tax-recognised trusts not yet covered under the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, offering a six-month compliance window with waiver of damages and penalties for eligible establishments.

 

The Board cleared a simplified, tech-enabled standard operating procedure (SOP) on EPF exemption under the EPFO, merging four SOPs and the exemption manual into a single digital framework to ease compliance, enable paperless processing and streamline audits and exemption cases.

 

The CBT also approved new social security schemes under the Code on Social Security, 2020. The newly approved EPF Scheme, 2026, Employees’ Pension Scheme, 2026, and the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme, 2026 will replace the existing schemes.

 

The retirement fund manager also approved a pilot project for auto-initiation of claim settlement in inoperative EPFO accounts with unclaimed balances of ₹1,000 or less. In the first phase, around 133,000 such accounts, amounting to nearly ₹5.68 crore, will be covered under this initiative.

 

The Board also cleared SOPs to formalise a transparent, time-bound response protocol for corporate actions, such as buybacks and call/put options, and for equity exchange-traded funds and liquid mutual fund investments to streamline fund management.