AMNESTY 2026 for PF trusts and exempted establishments: who it is for and what it lets you regularise

What changed

The Employees' Provident Funds Scheme, 2026, notified as G.S.R. 525(E) on 29 June 2026, carries three special provisions. Part C is AMNESTY 2026. According to the gazette text, it is for a specific kind of establishment: one that has been operating a PF trust on the basis of recognition under the Income Tax Act, 1961, but does not have a formal notification granting exemption under the old EPF Act or the Code on Social Security. Such establishments can apply to have the exemption granted retrospectively, from the trust's inception to a cut-off date.

An exempted establishment is one allowed to keep its employees' PF in its own trust rather than with EPFO, on conditions: the investment pattern, interest credited to members never below EPFO's rate, audited accounts, returns to the regional office, and the make-up of the board of trustees. A trust that has run for years on income-tax recognition alone has been in a legal grey zone, because without the formal exemption it is, strictly, an un-exempted establishment in default.

The amnesty closes that gap on conditions. It is valid for six months from 29 June 2026, extendable by up to six months on the Central Board's recommendation. It does not waive money owed to members.

Who is affected

The gazette defines two categories, both limited to establishments running a trust on income-tax recognition without a formal exemption notification:

• Category I: establishments that want the past regularised and have already started complying as un-exempted, or opt to do so from a cut-off date. Sub-divided into trusts for excluded employees and trusts for non-excluded employees under the 1952 Scheme.
• Category II: establishments that want the past regularised and intend to continue as exempted under the Code. They must also meet every condition the Code and the 2026 Scheme set for exemption going forward.

What Category I gets: retrospective exemption and recognition of the trust from inception to the cut-off date; the three-year compliance condition deemed satisfied; the minimum employee-number and corpus conditions waived; transfer of PF balances to the pension scheme for non-excluded employees in service who should have been pension members; no assessment of dues, damages or interest merely for the lack of a formal exemption, provided members received contributions and interest at or better than the statutory rates; pending proceedings on that ground withdrawn, and completed orders on that ground void from the start with recovered amounts adjusted against future dues.

What it does not get: dues, damages and interest still apply for left-out employees and for delays in transferring funds to the trust, and a surcharge applies for any deviation from the prescribed investment pattern since the trust began.

If you are not sure which category you are, the trust's income-tax recognition letter and the absence of an exemption notification from the appropriate Government are the test. An establishment that holds a formal exemption order is outside this scheme; its lapsed conditions are handled under the Code's own exemption rules.

What to do

1. Decide the route. Category I (regularise and comply as un-exempted from a cut-off date) or Category II (regularise and continue as exempted under the Code). The choice turns on whether you can meet the Code's exemption conditions going forward.
2. Fix the cut-off date. For Category I it is the date from which you comply, or will comply, as un-exempted; it cannot be beyond the scheme's validity.
3. Audit to that date. The gazette requires the trust's accounts, including every member's ledger, to be audited by a chartered accountant as on the cut-off date.
4. Build the lists. Members contributing or in service on the cut-off date; leavers whose accounts are unsettled, with their balances; and the trust's investments and transactions from inception, for EPFO's expert verification.
5. Count the money. Any shortfall against statutory contribution or interest rates, losses on securities, and surcharge for investment-pattern deviations are yours to make good. There is no fee in the gazette text, but the special audit EPFO directs is at your cost.
6. Apply inside the window through the route the Central PF Commissioner specifies (EPFO has publicised an email route to the regional office), and complete any compliance audit or special audit within three months of applying. EPFO is to issue final orders within six months of a complete application.

What this does not change

• Members' money is still members' money. Nothing in an amnesty reduces what the trust owes them.
• Dues for left-out employees, and damages and interest for late transfers of funds to the trust, are assessed as usual.
• Retrospective pension membership is not granted except in cases eligible under EPS-95, though diversion of the employer's PF share to the pension fund is allowed for them.
• Category II trusts must meet the Code's exemption conditions and the EPF Scheme 2026 governance requirements going forward; KYC of every participating employee must be updated.

What you can do yourself for free

When specialist help may be useful

• The trust has several years of returns outstanding and nobody in the company remembers why.
• Interest credited to members has been below EPFO's rate in some years and you need the shortfall worked out.
• You are weighing regularising against surrendering the exemption.
• A cancellation notice has already arrived and you want to know whether the amnesty still applies.

For an ongoing view of where your PF compliance stands, see my compliance health check and PF / EPFO compliance pages. The eligibility checker tells you in a few questions which 2026 window, if any, fits your establishment.

Need help deciding whether AMNESTY 2026 fits your trust?

The hard part with an exempted trust is rarely the filing. It is working out which conditions you are actually behind on, whether the gap is a reporting lapse or a money lapse, and what the regional office will expect to see before it accepts the declaration.

I help exempted establishments read their exemption order against the current rules, list the gaps, and prepare the filing in the order that makes sense. If the scheme does not cover your situation, I will say so before any work starts.

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I never ask for your OTP, UAN password or bank login.