The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has decided to increase the auto claim limit for PF withdrawals to Rs 5 lakh. The current Auto Settlement of Advanced Claim (ASAC) limit is Rs 1 lakh which is set to be increased five times.
The auto-settlement of advanced claims allows the active EPFO members to withdraw money from their provident fund (PF) quickly and without manual verification if the claim amount is within the defined limit and the member’s request meets the eligibility criteria. The system automatically processes the withdrawal request and the funds are disbursed to member’s bank account within 3-4 days.
The proposal to raise the auto settlement claim limit was presented during the 113th meeting of Executive Committee (EC) of Central Board of Trustees (CBT), EPF, held in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir on March 28, 2025. Sumita Dawra, Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment and Ramesh Krishnamurthi,
Central Provident Fund Commissioner, EPFO were present at the meeting among other senior officers of EPFO and Ministry of Labour & Employment.
“The Executive Committee welcomed and appreciated the proposal as it will improve the ease of living of EPF subscribers”, a press note by the Ministry of Labour & Employment noted.
The proposal to enhance the auto settlement claim limit to Rs 5 lakh from existing Rs 1 lakh was approved by Sumita Dawra, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, and will now be sent for the approval of Central Board of Trustees (CBT), according to a report by ANI News. If approved, EPFO members will be able to withdraw up to Rs 5 lakh from their PF through auto-settlement. The PF claim limit was last raised in May 2024 to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 50,000.
EPFO introduced the Auto Settlement of Advanced Claim (ASAC) facility in April 2020 for members withdrawing PF funds for medical expenses. EPFO members will now be able to claim auto settlement of funds for education, marriage and housing along with medical emergencies.
The claim settlements under ASAC facility are processed automatically, removing the need for human intervention and making the whole process faster.
Around 95% of the claims are now being automated and processed within 3 days, as per EPFO and the rejection of claims ratio is also down to 30% from 50% last year. During the financial year 2024-25 up to March 6, 2025, EPFO processed highest ever 2.16 crore auto-settlement of claims, close to three times of the 89.52 lakh in 2023-24.
EPFO has taken several steps recently to improve services for its 7.5 crore active members including streamlining its digital infrastructure and fast auto-settlement of claims. In a bid to make its services more ‘banking-like’, the EPFO is working to enable PF withdrawals through UPI and ATMs up to Rs 1 lakh. This facility is expected to be launched by May/June 2025.
The EPFO members must ensure that their KYC details are updated in the ‘EPFO Member portal‘ and their reason for fund withdrawal falls under eligible categories i.e., illness, housing, marriage or education, for approval and processing of auto-settlement of claim. The claim settlement takes 3-4 days under the Auto Settlement of Advanced Claim (ASAC) system and the funds are directly deposited into the member’s bank account registered with EPFO.