EPFO opens six-month amnesty for PF trusts without exemption orders

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation on 2 September asked eligible private PF trusts to use a one-time amnesty that runs until 28 December 2026. The window sits in the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme 2026, notified on 29 June. Operational rules went out in a circular on 11 July. Tuesday's PIB note and follow-up coverage were a fresh push, including outreach to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Income Tax Department to find trusts that still have not applied.

The target group is narrow and technical. A trust may be recognised under the Income Tax Act, 1961, so that employer and employee contributions get tax treatment, yet never have received a formal exemption under Section 17 of the EPF Act, 1952, or Section 143 of the Code on Social Security, 2020. Finance Act 2026 aligned the tax definition of a recognised provident fund with EPFO's administrative map. Trusts that lived in the gap now have a deadline.

If a trust is regularised retrospectively, the establishment can then choose to stay exempt or to move into the unexempted EPFO fold. Category I covers shops that already comply as unexempted or plan to do so. Other categories cover those that want to keep running their own trusts under a cleaned-up exemption.

Benefits listed in the scheme go beyond a stamp on old papers. Minimum employee headcount and minimum corpus size under the 2020 Code are waived. The three-year prior-compliance rule is treated as met. Pending assessments for dues, damages and interest can be withdrawn if member accounts received interest and contributions at least at statutory rates. Finalised past orders can be treated as void from the start under the same condition.

EPFO has also asked income-tax authorities to consider withdrawing recognition from trusts that do not obtain a formal exemption. That is the stick behind the December date. A trust that stays in the tax-recognised, EPFO-invisible gap after 28 December risks losing the tax status that made the structure worthwhile.

A separate Employees' Enrolment Campaign 2026, open until 31 October, lets workers who should have been on the books between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2026 get enrolled. The two windows are easy to confuse. One is for trusts. The other is for left-out employees.

For company secretaries and PF consultants the practical step is the 11 July circular on the EPFO site: form, annexures, and which category to tick. For workers the test later will be whether regularisation changes contribution rates or only the letterhead on the annual slip.