Before anything else
VerifiedYou cannot do any of this without a UAN. Here is how to find yours.
Every screen in a provident fund portal, including this one, begins by assuming you have your Universal Account Number. It was allotted by an employer, printed on a payslip you may no longer have, for a job you may have left years ago.
One question first
Do you still have the mobile number that was registered when the account was opened?
क्या वही मोबाइल नंबर अब भी आपके पास है जो खाता खुलते समय दर्ज हुआ था?
Seven ways, and one question that rules out three of them.
Answer above and the list below shortens to the ones that can actually work for you.
7 ways, in the order worth trying them
01Look at any payslip
One old payslipकिसी भी सैलरी स्लिप पर देखें
Most employers print the UAN on the payslip, usually near the provident fund deduction. Any month will do — the number never changes, not between jobs and not across a lifetime.
Immediate
02Check your Form 16
Form 16 from any yearअपना फ़ॉर्म 16 देखें
Where a payslip cannot be found, the annual tax statement your employer issued often carries it alongside the provident fund figures.
Immediate
03Ask the member portal to tell you
The mobile number registered on the accountमेंबर पोर्टल से पूछें
The official portal has a lookup that returns your UAN from your Aadhaar, PAN or old member ID. It sends a one-time password to confirm it is you.
About four minutes
The OTP goes to the number registered when the account was opened — not to whatever number you use now. This is where most people stop.
04Give a missed call
The registered mobile, in your handमिस्ड कॉल दें
EPFO runs a missed-call service that replies by SMS with your details. You call, it rings off, the message arrives.
A minute or two
It answers only the registered number. From any other phone nothing comes back, and no error explains why.
05Send an SMS
The registered mobile, in your handएसएमएस भेजें
A short coded message from the registered mobile returns your balance and details by reply. It works on a feature phone with no internet at all, which is the reason it exists.
A minute or two
Same condition as the missed call: the registered number, and no other.
06Ask your employer, in writing
The employer still trading, and answeringनियोक्ता से लिखित में पूछें
The establishment allotted the number and holds it against your record. Ask HR or the accounts office in writing, and keep the reply — it is also the first document any later escalation will want.
Days
Where the establishment has closed or stopped replying, this is the point to go to the regional office instead rather than keep asking.
07Go to the regional office
A visit, and identity proofक्षेत्रीय कार्यालय जाएँ
The office holding your establishment code can look you up from your name, your father's name, your date of birth and the employer. Take identity proof and anything showing where you worked.
A day
This is the route that works when every other one has failed, including when the registered mobile is long gone. It is listed last because it costs a day's wages, not because it is least likely to work.
If you find more than one
Being allotted a second UAN by a later employer is common and it blocks claims on its own — the service is split across two accounts and neither shows the whole of it. It has its own fix.
What to do about two UANsThe missed-call and SMS services are real and the routes above describe them accurately. The digits are deliberately not here.
This build says plainly that it is not an official EPFO service and that the helpline in its own footer is invented. Printing a genuine government number in the same interface would be the one place a reader could not tell which kind of fact they were looking at — and a wrong number on a page about somebody’s money is worse than no number.
Knowing the route exists is the part almost nobody has. Take that to the official site for the current numbers.