Help & contact
VerifiedReaching a person is the easy part. Knowing what to say is not.
Four ways to raise this, what each one can actually do, and what to have in your hand first.
Where to take it
Member helpline
1800 000 000
Good forQuick questions about status. They can read your file but cannot change it.
CannotCannot approve KYC, correct a name, or overrule a rejection.
Mon–Fri, 9:30–18:00 IST
EPFiGMS grievance
Online, against your establishment code
Good forGetting a dated reference number on your complaint.
CannotNo enforceable deadline. Can be closed with a reply that resolves nothing.
Any time
Regional office
The office holding your establishment code
Good forJoint Declarations and anything needing a physical signature.
CannotWill not discuss another member's file, or accept a declaration signed only by you.
Working hours, in person or by post
RTI to the CPIO
Written application, ₹10 fee
Good forThe only route that legally compels an answer about your own file.
CannotNot a complaint channel — it obtains information, which is often what unlocks the rest.
Reply due in 30 days
Have these ready
- Your UAN, and your establishment code if you have it
- The claim ID and the date you filed
- The exact rejection remark, copied not paraphrased
- Any EPFiGMS or CPGRAMS reference number already raised
- A pen — you will be given a reference number and it is said once
What to say
Opening line
“My claim under Form 19 against UAN [number] was rejected on [date]. The remark says [exact words]. I need to know which specific field failed and what value it was compared against.”
Ask for a reference number before the call ends, and write down the name of the person you spoke to. A call with no reference number did not happen as far as the file is concerned.
Questions people actually ask
The service commitment is twenty days. It restarts every time a desk marks your file incomplete, so elapsed time and counted time are rarely the same number. Only the RTI reply period — thirty days under section 7(1) — cannot be restarted.
You are not stuck, and this is a bigger question than one answer here can hold — nine of the fifteen documented rejection reasons contain a step only the establishment can perform. The short version: what an employer attests, they already filed with EPFO every month, so the office is holding the proof. Several routes round it need nobody's agreement at all.
When there is no employer left to askNot a final settlement. An advance under Form 31 is available for specific purposes — illness, housing, education, marriage — each with its own limit. Filing Form 19 while in service is one of the most common avoidable rejections.
No. It is recorded separately from claim processing and does not send your file back to the start. The fear that it will is common and costs people months of silence.
No fee for claims, corrections or grievances. An RTI application costs ₹10, and nothing else. Anybody asking for a payment to release your provident fund is not from EPFO.
If you are calling on behalf of somebody who has died
Three things are owed, and most families claim one.
The fund balance, a monthly pension and an insurance payment are three separate claims with three separate forms. The ten-year service rule does not apply to a death in service, whatever you may have been told.
What a family is owed, and how to claim itIf reading this is hard
- Make everything biggerA− and A+ at the top of every page. Four sizes, and it moves the tables and forms too, not only the paragraphs.
- Black on white, or a typeface built for slow reading“Reading options” at the top right — high contrast, Atkinson Hyperlegible, looser lines, wider letters, marked links.
- Have a page read out to youThe listen button beside long explanations, or the command palette on any page. It reads in Hindi where the passage is in Hindi.
- Read in your own languageThe globe at the top. Eight languages; two carry everything and six carry the menus and the rejection names.
- Speak instead of typingThe microphone inside the longer boxes — a grievance, an RTI. It writes what you say, and you can correct it before sending.
- Search, or reach any setting, from the keyboardOpens a box you can type into: a page, a rejection reason, an office, or a command like “high contrast” or “Tamil”.CtrlK
- Keep it working without signalAdd it to your home screen. Every page you have opened stays readable when the connection drops.
Every setting is kept on this device and applies to every page, including the tables and the forms. Nothing here needs an account, and none of it is sent anywhere.
Still not sure what your problem is?
Answer three questions and we will name it, then point you at the screen that fixes it.