EPFO 3.0: EPFO May Soon Allow EPF Withdrawals Using ATM, UPI

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is likely to roll out EPF withdrawal through ATM by the end of this month. Lately, EPFO has undertaken several modernisation efforts in terms of digitisation, faster services, and subscribers’ convenience. Under the EPFO 3.0 initiative, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) had approved the digital overhaul of the IT infrastructure and other related reforms in 2025. Some of them have already been implemented, such as auto claim settlement up to Rs 5 lakh. However, a few other approved reforms are yet to take place. 

At present, EPF withdrawal through ATM and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) are a few of the pending features that are expected to be rolled out by the end of May, according to a report in ET Now. Once implemented, these operational features will benefit subscribers by providing seamless withdrawal with no paperwork, no follow-ups, and no manual intervention from the EPFO.  

How Will EPF ATM Withdrawal Work?

Reportedly, EPFO will issue separate ATM cards to its subscribers for fund withdrawal directly from bank ATMs. Similar to the debit card of a bank that is linked to the bank account, the EPF ATM card would be linked to the EPF account, and withdrawal will be allowed in accordance with the prescribed limit. However, no such withdrawal limit has been fixed yet. 

With a wide presence of ATMs (over 200,000), the integration of the EPF account with ATMs will immensely ease the operational burden related to withdrawals from the EPFO, and at the same time, will make the EPF fund immediately available for subscribers to use in financial exigencies. First-time integration may require the subscribers to link their Universal Account Number (UAN) with the ‘know your customer’ (KYC) documents and IFSC of the bank.

EPFO allows partial withdrawal for certain purposes. According to the new labour codes, a subscriber is allowed to withdraw funds partially after 12 months of service. Previously, withdrawal could be made under 13 categories, but in October 2025, EPFO simplified it by merging these into three categories and removing a few. These include essential needs (illness, education, wedding), housing needs (homebuying, construction, and renovation), and special circumstances (natural calamity, outbreak of epidemic, closure of establishments, continuous unemployment, etc.).

In FY25-26, of the total 83.10 million claims for advance withdrawals, 55.10 million were for partial withdrawal. According to the government’s reply in Lok Sabha, a total of 35,220,199 claims of up to Rs 5 lakh have been settled through auto-settlement mode as on February 25, 2026, in the financial year 2025-26. 

There are over 80 million EPF subscribers, who are expected to benefit from the withdrawal reforms and ATM and UPI withdrawal features.  

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