PF partial withdrawal rules 2026: the 25% minimum balance, 12 months' membership and the new limits

What changed

According to Gazette notification G.S.R. 525(E) dated 29 June 2026, made under section 15 of the Code on Social Security, 2020, the Employees' Provident Funds Scheme, 2026 superseded the Employees' Provident Funds Scheme, 1952. Paragraphs 46, 47 and 48 are the partial withdrawal rules: what you can take out of the Fund while you are still a member, and the PF partial withdrawal rules 2026 that every advance claim is now tested against.

The old Scheme had a different ceiling for each purpose, each tied to your wages or to one share of the contribution. The 2026 Scheme replaces all of that with one formula. A fixed portion of your balance stays in the Fund; everything above it is available for any permitted purpose. What still differs between purposes is how many times you can claim.

Eligibility and definitions

A worked example. Your passbook shows ₹2,80,000 of your own contributions, ₹1,20,000 of the employer's, and the interest on both is already in those figures: ₹4,00,000 in total. The Minimum Balance is 25%, so ₹1,00,000 stays. Your Eligible Member Balance is ₹3,00,000, and that is the ceiling for every purpose in the table below.

Permissible withdrawals

Housing-related withdrawal (paragraph 46(3)) covers five things:

• purchase of a house or flat;
• purchase of a site for construction of a house;
• construction of a house;
• repayment of a home loan taken to buy or build a house or flat, or to acquire a site;
• additions, alterations, renovations or improvements to an existing house or flat.

Two sub-paragraphs matter in practice and are easy to miss:

• Left before 12 months? Paragraph 46(5): a member who exits employment before completing twelve months' membership may still take the partial withdrawal, limited to the Eligible Member Balance on that date.
• Old advances do not count. Paragraph 46(6): the permissible number of withdrawals is calculated afresh for every member from the date the 2026 Scheme commenced. Advances taken under the 1952 Scheme do not reduce the new allowance.

How membership is counted

Paragraph 47 says that, for partial withdrawal, the period of membership includes:

• your total service under the same employer before the Scheme applied to that establishment, excluding breaks;
• your earlier periods of membership of the Fund;
• membership of a private provident fund of an exempted factory or establishment;
• membership as an employee exempted under section 143 of the Code, immediately before your current membership.

The condition: the earlier period counts only if you did not sever membership by withdrawing your provident fund for that period. A job whose balance you transferred into your current member ID counts towards the 12 months. A job whose balance you settled in full does not.

This is where most "insufficient service" rejections come from. EPFO counts the membership it can see on the member ID you claim from. If an earlier job sits on a separate ID that was never transferred, the office sees only the current job. Transfer first, then claim; see PF transfer stuck if the transfer does not go through.

How the money is paid

Under paragraph 48 the sanctioned amount is paid, at your option, into:

• your account in any Scheduled Bank;
• a Co-operative Bank account, including an Urban Co-operative Bank;
• a post office account.

The account must already be seeded against your UAN and verified. A name, IFSC or account-number mismatch is still the single commonest reason an otherwise valid advance is rejected; see bank or IFSC mismatch before you file.

What you can do yourself for free

What has not changed

• EPFO still sanctions every claim; the formula tells you the ceiling, not the outcome.
• A missing date of exit, a KYC mismatch or an untransferred member ID blocks an advance exactly as before.
• The claim is still filed on the member portal or UMANG with Aadhaar-OTP; the forms keep their numbers.
• Final settlement after leaving service, and what happens to the Minimum Balance then, is governed by paragraph 49 onwards, not by this page.

When specialist help may be useful

• The portal shows less than 12 months' membership although you have worked longer, and a transfer is stuck or rejected.
• The advance was rejected with a remark that does not match what you see in your record.
• Your balance is split across a UAN you cannot access or a second UAN.
• You were a member of an exempted trust and the office is not counting that period.

In each of these the problem is the record, not the rule, and that is where the work is.

Advance rejected, or the balance looks wrong?

The new formula is simple, but it works on the balance and the membership EPFO can see. If an old job sits on a member ID that was never transferred, your membership looks short and the Eligible Member Balance is smaller than it should be. If an exit date is missing, the portal may not let you file at all.

I help members read the passbook and service history, find what is actually holding the advance, and fix it through EPFO's own routes before refiling. If the record is clean and the claim was wrongly rejected, I will tell you how to put it back in with the paragraph to quote. EPFO decides every claim; no outcome is guaranteed.

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