The government is planning changes to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) rules, aimed at giving subscribers greater freedom over their hard-earned savings.
According to Moneycontrol, officials are considering easing withdrawal limits for key needs such as housing, marriage, and education. While no timeline has been fixed, the changes could be rolled out within a year. “It’s their money, members should have the freedom to use it as per their needs,” a senior official said.
Currently, EPFO rules allow full withdrawal only at retirement (58 years) or after two months of unemployment. Partial withdrawals are tightly regulated: up to 50% for marriage or education (after seven years of service) and up to 90% for housing (after three years of service).
The proposed framework could allow members to access their entire corpus, or part of it, once every ten years. Experts say this flexibility would particularly benefit lower and middle-income workers, provided safeguards remain to protect EPF’s core purpose: retirement security.
