During your job tenure, 12% of your salary is deducted every month as a contribution towards Employee Provident Fund (EPF). Additionally, your employers will also match this exact amount from their end, and the accumulated amount is submitted to the EPF organisation.

Consequently, a substantial amount of the fund is deposited towards the Employee Pension Scheme or EPS. When you retire from this job, you can either carry forward the account to the next job or withdraw the amount using EPF Form 10C. Let’s learn about this in the underlying sections.

The submission from your employer to the Employee Provident Fund Organisation is divided into two sections – 3.67% to EPF and 8.33% to EPS, matching the aforementioned 12% deduction on your end. As a crucial means of post-retirement wealth management programming, the EPF fund is segmented into several aspects.

When you are willing to withdraw from this latter portion of the fund, filling out the PF withdrawal Form 10C adequately becomes the need of the hour. This form is a four-page document that you can download from the official EPFO website without any hassle.

Kindly note that there are three different sets of eligibility criteria applicable for individuals claiming a fund withdrawal via Form 10C. These include:

Criteria I

This is applicable if:

• You have left your job without completing 10 years of being in this service.
• You’ve turned 58 years before completing a decade of active service in your current placement.

Criteria II

This is applicable if you:

• Have done ten years of active service before turning 50.
• Are above 50 years of age but below 58.

Criteria III

This is applicable for family members, nominees, or legal heirs of employees who had passed away at the age of over 58 years but were unable to complete a decade at their service.

Some of the crucial documents that you must be able to produce during the withdrawal procedure include:

• A blank or cancelled cheque.
• Your birth certificate if you are a child of an EPFO member applying for a Scheme Certificate.
• A death certificate if the employee had passed away.
• Succession certificate if you are applying as a legal heir of the employee.
• A revenue stamp of ₹1.

If you are looking to submit this form via an offline method, downloading it is the primary course of action. PF Form 10C download can be done without any hassle by following a few simple steps as described below:

Step 1: Get the form from the link here, procure it from the EPFO office nearby. Fill it up with your data.

Step 2: Visit your nearest EPFO office with the filled form and other required documents. Submit them in person.

However, remember that any kind of overwriting in the form is prohibited. So, if you are making any corrections over an erroneous detail, you must also get that attested too before the submission.

On the other hand, if you are looking to fill out this form online, you will need to adhere to these steps:

Step 1: Navigate to the official portal of EPFO.

Step 2: Enter your Universal Account Number or UAN in the portal.

Step 3: Input the password and display captcha code properly in order to sign in.

Step 4: Locate the ‘Online Services’ tab on the menu bar and click on it.

Step 5: From the shown drop-down menu, you will need to select ‘Claim (Form-31,19,10C & 10D)’.

Step 6: Subsequently, you will be redirected to the ‘Member Details’ page where all your personal information will already be auto-filled. Recheck to ensure the displayed details are accurate.

Step 7: Next, you will need to input the last four digits of your bank account number which is linked with your Employee Provident Fund.

Step 8: A dialogue box regarding a certificate of undertaking will be displayed on your screen. Click on “Yes”.

Step 9: Click on ‘Proceed for Online Claim”.

Step 10: In the following screen, information like your mobile number, PAN and UAN will be auto-filled. After checking these thoroughly, navigate to the claim type section.

Step 11: Select any one of the two options shown:

• Withdraw Pension Only.
• Withdraw PF Only.

Step 12: Fill out the claim form properly.

Step 13: Confirm the submission with the help of a one-time password [OTP] that you will be receiving on your registered mobile number.

Consequently, after adequate processing, the amount you have requested for will get transferred to your bank account.

When you are getting the necessary documents attested regarding the withdrawal procedure, please keep in mind that:

• If you have collected the EPF Form 10C from an Employee Provident Fund Organisation Office [EPFO], it has to be attested by the employer from your previous place of work.
• On the other hand, if you have downloaded this form, both you and your employer will need to attest to it.
• If the employer or the authorised signatory is not available due to the closure of the previous organisation or for any other reason, the required documents can be attested by the following individuals:
  • A gazetted officer
  • Your local district board’s secretary or chairman
  • The magistrate
  • Village union/Panchayat president
  • Manager of a bank where you have a savings account
  • Postmaster or a sub-postmaster
  • Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies

As mentioned before, there are four pages of Form 10C. The contents of these pages have been discussed below:

First Page

On this page, there are:

• Your name
• The date of birth
• Name of the spouse or parent, as necessary
• An address of your employer
• Your Provident Fund account’s number
• Date when you joined the previous job
• The date of leaving your job
• Reason for leaving your job
• Your complete residential address

Second Page

This page contains:

• Details about an EPFO member’s nominees or family
• A method of payment
• Account details
• Signature and date

Third Page

You will only need to feel this page if you have taken out an advance against this account in question. So, the details available here include:

• The amount which has been received
• Detail about wages
• Information regarding the EPFO member’s non-contributory service period
• Date
• Signature

Fourth Page

The fourth page is used for administrative purposes, and therefore an applicant will not need to fill it up. However, some of the contents of this page include:

• Cheque number
• Scheme Certificate control number
• Debt Item number
• Date

• If you meet certain parameters, you can avail a substantial PF withdrawal before your permanent retirement.
  
• When you are receiving a scheme certificate, you can utilise it to carry forward your earlier service period as you become a part of a different employment opportunity.
• There is a significant withdrawal benefit in receiving back the money from the pension fund if you are younger than fifty years and applying before spending a decade at your current job.

Suffice it to say, EPF Form 10 can become a quintessential tool when you are in-between jobs to mitigate any risk of economic burden. Additionally, as you continue to be a member of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation, you can adequately plan out your long-term goals of post-retirement wealth management.