A Complete Guide on EPF UAN Unified Portal

Many of the employees (and so do the HRs) have a tough time meddling with errors on EPF (UAN) Unified Portal. Here’s a short guide to various options on the portal.

If you are a fresher and never worked before

That means, this is your first job. Congratulations! Your payslips normally will bear the Universal Account Number (UAN), which is a unique EPF identification number. Whenever you change an organisation, your EPF number may change, but the UAN will (and should) be the same. If you don’t get it, please contact your HR, who can help you find it.

You should use your UAN number for logging into the UAN Portal. First, you will need to activate the UAN, instructions for which are given in the ‘Activating the UAN’ section.

If you previously worked, and have a UAN already

If you have work experience, and already possess a UAN, you MUST inform the HR within a week of your joining. The HR will not, in that case, generate a UAN for you. You should not have more than one UAN in your name (if you have more than one, you should link them).

So, you now have a UAN. As you’re new to Current Company, the company will generate a PF number for you (which will be different from your previous company’s PF number). And then, the new PF number will be linked to your existing UAN.

But now you have two PF numbers (old company’s and Current Company’s) though both are linked to a single UAN. You should in that case, transfer the funds from previous PF account to the new PF account. This will help you in easier PF withdrawal in future. How to do this? Read the ‘Online Services’ section.

Activating the UAN

Probably, you have already activated the UAN in the past. Forget this step in that case.

If you had previously activated the UAN, but forgot the password, click on the ‘Forgot Password’ link on the UAN portal. This will help you reset your password using OTP. When you set the new password, please make sure that it is as per the directions given in bullet point 10 below.

If you have never activated your UAN or you just got your UAN for the first time, you should activate it first before starting to use the UAN portal. The following steps will help you do the same:

1. Visit https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in/memberinterface
2. Click on the ‘Activate UAN’ link
3. You can see four radio buttons there. Click on ‘UAN’ and enter your UAN. Alternatively, you can give any other three options (Member ID, Aadhaar or PAN). Out of the four options, you need to give only one.
4. Give your name as in the payslip
5. Enter your date of birth as in the official records (DD/MM/YYYY format)
6. Give your mobile number
7. Give your email ID (optional)
8. Enter the captcha image shown, and click ‘Get Authorisation Pin’
9. You will get an OTP on your mobile number. Enter the OTP and click Submit.
10. You will be prompted to set a password. Give a password.
11. The password should start with a small letter.
12. The password should have at least one capital letter.
13. The password should have at least one digit.
14. The password should have at least one special character (@#$%&)
15. Your UAN is activated
16. Now you can login to the portal using UAN as your username, and the password you just set as your password.

UAN Card

Up on login to the UAN portal, click on the ‘UAN Card’ link on the homepage. This will open a PDF, which is your UAN card:

1. Save the PDF and keep it somewhere in your personal digital space for future access/reference.
2. Verify that your name appearing on the UAN Card is correct. If not, contact the HR.
3. Verify that your father’s name appearing on the UAN Card is correct. If not, contact the HR.
4. The KYC status shown there should be ‘Yes’. If not, it means that you have not provided some KYC (Know Your Customer) information. How to update it? Read on!

Profile

Click on ‘View’ link on the UAN portal, which will give you the following options:

Profile

1. You can see your basic profile information here
2. You can change your mobile number and email ID

Service History

1. This page will show your previous work history, plus the existing one.
2. If you do not have previous work history (where you made EPF contribution), only Current Company’s record will appear on this page.

UAN Card

1. This will also lead you to the UAN Card page

Passbook

1. For now, the passbook which shows the amounts credited, withdrawn, transferred, interests, etc. are not shown on the UAN portal.
2. Instead, you should go to https://passbook.epfindia.gov.in/MemberPassBook/Login.jsp and login using the UAN and the same password that you use at UAN portal
3. Note that the passbook will be available only after six hours of activating the UAN.

Manage Your Account

Click on ‘Manage’ link on the UAN portal, which will give you the following options:

Contact Details

1. You can change your mobile number and email ID.
2. You will need OTPs to change the existing details.

Modify Basic Details

1. Before proceeding to the ‘KYC’ section, click on ‘Modify Basic Details’ section.
2. This is the place where you can modify your details to what’s on the Aadhaar card.
3. Before giving Aadhaar details, please make sure that:
4. Your Aadhaar card shows your full date of birth (not just year). If not, please contact an Akshaya Centre (if in Kerala), who can help you add your full date of birth.
5. Your Aadhaar is seeded with a mobile number and an email ID. If not, please contact an Akshaya Centre (if in Kerala), who can help you add a mobile number and email ID to your Aadhaar.
6. You can give your Aadhaar number, name, date of birth, and gender
7. If you have previously seeded Aadhaar to the UAN portal, the ‘Modify Basic Details’ option will lead you to a page which shows ‘Aadhaar is already verified. Your details aren’t editable’. This means that Aadhaar is already seeded and you cannot change the basic details any longer.

KYC

1. This is a very important activity. On this page, you can give your KYC information.

You must provide the following information

1. Bank Account: Give your personal bank account details (your Current Company Salary account may also be given if you are sure you will use the account even after separation from the company. If you’re not sure, it is recommended that you give any of your personal bank account details here).
2. PAN: If you have PAN, give the details. This is highly recommended, and will be helpful when (if) you intend to withdraw PF money in future. Sometimes, the portal may show ‘information mismatch’ error. This is because your name on the UAN card and the name in the PAN database do not match. A probable solution would be to change the name in the PAN database to what’s there in your Aadhaar. This change can be done at the PAN website online or by visiting an Akshaya Centre (if in Kerala).
3. Aadhaar: This is highly recommended. Giving Aadhaar will ensure that you have a smooth withdrawal and other transactional processes in the future. If you have provided Aadhaar in the “Step 2: Modify Basic Details” above, you need not give Aadhaar again.

Other details

1. Update of other details like Passport, Election ID, Driving License, etc. are recommended, but not mandatory.

E-nomination

1. This is a mandatory activity.
2. Make sure that you have added minimum KYC (Aadhar, Bank details) before you attempt this option.
3. E-nomination is a facility through which you nominate one of your family members to receive the benefits upon your unfortunate death.
4. First, you will need to add the Family details. The family includes your spouse, children, dependent mother, dependent father, deceased son’s widow, deceased son’s children.
5. Note that in-laws, friends, and other relatives are not allowed to be added.
6. You will need to provide each family member’s Aadhaar number, Name, Date of Birth, Gender, Relation and Address.
7. Click on ‘Add row’ to add more family members.
8. Click ‘Save’ when you’re done.
9. Once the family members are added, you can proceed to choose your nominees. Of the family members, you can choose whom you want your nominee to be. You can split the nomination by percentage. For example, you can choose to give 25% to your mother, 25% to your father, 30% to your spouse, 20% to your daughter. The total should be 100%.
10. Click ‘Save EPF Nomination’
11. You will then need to provide authorisation on the page that appears, for the nomination to take effect. This step is important.
12. Click on the button shown below ‘eSign’
13. Select your name in the pop-up window that appears and click on ‘Generate OTP’
14. Enter the OTP that you receive in your mobile and click ‘Sign Document’
15. You can add more family members later, as the case may be, and create new nominations which will nullify existing nominations.

Account Operations

You can use this link to change your login password. Make sure you conform to the password norms mentioned in bullet point 10 of the ‘Activating the UAN’ section.

Online Services

This is the place where you can process certain transactions such as:

One Member — One EPF Account (Transfer Request)

1. If you earlier had a PF number (in previous companies you worked at), this link will help you transfer the amounts in such accounts to your present PF account.
2. This step is highly recommended, as it will smoothen the PF withdrawal processes in the future.
3. Note that you can transfer amount from a previous PF account to the present one, only if your previous company has marked your exit date (last working day) at the EPF portal.
4. You can know whether your date of exit (DoE EPF) has been marked by previous company or not, by visiting the Service History.
5. If this has not been marked, transfer request will not work. Highly recommended that you contact the HR department of your previous company and request them to mark the last working day at the EPF portal. This is a mandatory step, ignoring which may cause delay in future claims.
6. Click on the ‘One Member — One EPF Account (Transfer Request)’ link
7. On the screen that follows, under the section titled ‘Step 1’, do the following:
8. Choose ‘Present Employer’ or ‘Previous Employer’ against the ‘Attestation through’ field.
9. Give your UAN against the ‘Member ID / UAN’ field.
10. Click on ‘Get Details’
11. You will be shown all the companies you have worked for, including Current Company.
12. Choose the company’s name from which you want to transfer the money (old company). You can choose only one at a time, in case you have more than one companies you have previously worked with.
13. Click on ‘Get OTP’. Enter the OTP received on your mobile, and click ‘Submit’
14. It can take up to 1 month for the transfer to reflect on Passbook.

Track Claim Status

1. You can track the status of the claims and transfer requests that you have previously applied for.
2. The status ‘Approved by Employer’ means that the request by you has been approved by Current Company. ‘Pending Field Office Approval’ status means the request is now being verified at the EPF office. ‘Approved’ or ‘Completed’ status means that the claim/transfer request has been successfully completed.

Claim (FORM 31,19 & 10C)

1. Note that the EPF department encourages online applications. Offline applications tend to take a lot of time to be approved, while online applications are recommended and fast.
2. For making a claim/withdrawal request, you should have completed the following processes:
3. Aadhaar is seeded to UAN portal.
4. You have successfully transferred all previous PF account amounts to the latest PF account (the status of transfer request should be checked to ensure that the amounts have been successfully transferred; this process can take up to 1 month and hence it is recommended that the transfer process be initiated when you are still on the job, in advance).
5. Your Aadhaar has a mobile number and an email ID linked to it. If you do not have them linked, please visit an Akshaya Centre (if in Kerala) who can help you complete this process. Without the mobile number and email ID having been linked to Aadhaar, online claim will not succeed.
6. ‘Claim (FORM 31,19 & 10C)’ is the link for submitting online applications for claims and PF withdrawals.
7. Give the last four digits of your bank account to which the claim amounts should be transferred for verification. Click ‘Verify’.
8. Note that only previously added Bank Account details can be used at this stage. That’s why it’s highly recommended to add a personal bank account in the KYC section, while you’re still on the job, in advance, since the approval of your bank account addition might take a few days to reflect.
9. Click on ‘I agree’ on the pop-up window that appears.
10. Proceed for giving OTP.
11. You can come back to the ‘Track Claim Status’ section to see the progress of your transfer at any point of time.

Additional Information

• An EPF member can withdraw the PF amounts if s/he has been without a job for at least 2 months after separation from the company. There are certain other situations where you can withdraw the PF amounts, which are available at: https://www.epfindia.gov.in/site_docs/PDFs/MiscPDFs/OCS_FAQ_Eligibility_102017.pdf
• There’s a mobile app for availing various services and passbook of EPF: https://web.umang.gov.in/web/#/

Originally published at People First.