How you can nominate EPF beneficiaries online

From mid-September, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) offers the facility of submitting your nomination details of your employee’s provident fund (EPF) account via its official website. Earlier, you could submit your nomination details only through the offline mode by providing the details to your employer.

If you have an EPF account, you must nominate family members as beneficiaries. In the event of sudden demise, the nominated members can withdraw the EPF savings from your account easily. You can nominate more than one person and also fix the share for each nominee online.

According to EPF rules, a male account holder can nominate his wife, children, dependent parents and deceased son's widow and children. A woman EPF account holder can nominate her husband, children,  dependent parents, husband's dependent parents and deceased son's widow and children.

Making online nominations

You must have your Universal Account Number (UAN), allotted by the EPFO. It should be activated in the EPFO website. Make sure your UAN is linked with your Aadhaar number. And, the Aadhaar number must be linked with your registered mobile number to receive a one-time password (OTP) during the online nomination process.

While updating your nomination details online, you must have the Aadhaar number, bank account details, date of birth, address, mobile number and scanned photographs of all the EPF nominees.

First, you need to log in to your EPF account using your UAN number and password. Then upload your profile photograph (size under 100 KB) if not done before. The photograph of the account holder is mandatory to proceed further in the nomination process.

Then, select the e-nomination option on the EPF website. In the “Have Family” tab, the system will allow you to fill family details for nomination and save them online in your account. You need to provide the Aadhaar number, full name, date of birth, the relationship with EPF account holder, address, bank account details and upload photograph of the nominee(s). You can nominate multiple family members in similar way.

You will have to provide the percentage share of your nominees. If you have only one nominee, you can allocate 100 per cent of the EPF amount to her. If there are several nominees, you can divide the EPF amount equally or as per your desire. Check whether the total percentage shares of the nominees add up to 100 per cent before proceeding.

After providing the EPF nominee details, you will have to e-sign the nomination made to complete the process. You will automatically be directed to a new web-page after saving the details of the nominees. Here, you will need to log in using your Aadhaar number and one-time password (OTP) sent on the registered mobile number. Then click on ‘verify’ and give your consent for the e-KYC services from Aadhaar to sign on the document.

Subsequently, after completing the e-signature process using Aadhaar e-KYC services, your nominations will be saved in EPFO’s records and you can view them in the e-nomination tab of your EPF account.

Lastly, you should download a copy of the EPF nomination form in pdf format from your EPF account, save the file with your employee code and mail it to your human resource/finance department for their records.