Articles

EPF and PPF when you live outside India

9 October 2026 · 5 min read

Many Indians who now work in Singapore, the Gulf, the UK or elsewhere left a provident fund account behind them in India, and some also hold a Public Provident Fund account opened years ago. Both can be large, both keep their own rules after their owner leaves the country, and both are easy to forget in a plan made abroad. This article explains what each is and what changes with a move, and points to the official pages for the details, which change from time to time.

What EPF is

The Employees’ Provident Fund is a retirement savings scheme for people employed in India, run by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) under the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Each month the employee and the employer each pay in a share of pay. Part of the employer’s share goes not to the provident fund but to a separate pension scheme, so the EPF balance grows from the employee’s share, the rest of the employer’s share, and interest.

The interest rate is set one year at a time. EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees proposes a rate for each financial year, and the Government of India notifies it. The rate declared for the year from April 2024 is 8.25% (Press Information Bureau, read 3 October 2026). When the release was posted, the Board had proposed the same rate for the year from April 2025, still to be notified. A rate for a later year is not known in advance.

Contributions follow work in India

Contributions come from employment that the scheme covers, so they stop when that job ends. A move abroad to work for an employer there usually means nothing more goes in. The balance does not disappear: it stays in the member’s account, and it can go on earning interest for a time.

An account that stops earning

An account that receives nothing for long enough can be treated as “inoperative”, and an inoperative account stops earning interest. When that happens depends on the member’s age, on whether the member has retired, and on whether the member has moved abroad permanently; the rules have been changed and clarified more than once, and press reports have summarised them differently. The rules that apply are those EPFO states on its own website, which is the place to check for a particular account. A balance that has stopped earning is still the member’s, and it can still be claimed.

Taking the money out

EPFO allows a final settlement of the account in the cases its scheme sets out, such as retirement, and allows part withdrawals for some purposes before then. Which cases apply to someone living abroad, the waiting periods, the forms and how the claim is paid are set by EPFO and can change; this article does not restate them. It also says nothing about tax, which depends on the member’s residence and the length of service, and is a matter for the Income Tax Department’s rules and, where relevant, those of the country the member now lives in.

For a plan, the question is simpler: from what age will this money be available to spend, and will it earn anything until then? A household can write down its own answer, and change it when it checks the official pages.

PPF for someone who moves abroad

The Public Provident Fund is a long-term savings scheme of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Finance. It runs for a fixed term of years, can be extended by a resident in blocks of years, takes a yearly deposit between a minimum and a maximum, and pays an interest rate that the government sets each quarter. The rate and the limits are published by the Ministry of Finance and the National Savings Institute; this article does not print them.

What happens when a holder becomes non-resident has changed more than once in recent years, through notifications that were issued, put in abeyance and followed by later guidelines. As the rules are commonly read today, a non-resident cannot open a new account, and an account opened while resident can be kept until it matures; whether it can be extended after that, and the interest it earns in particular cases, are less settled. The Ministry of Finance’s Department of Economic Affairs publishes the notifications, and the office that holds the account applies them.

Seeing it in one plan

In FinWise365, EPF and PPF are items on Money, in rupees, next to whatever the household holds in other currencies. An EPF item takes the balance, the monthly amounts going in, the rate (the rule book’s rate unless changed), a month in which contributions end, and an age from which the balance can be drawn. Because no official page stating that age could be read when the rule book was written, the app does not assume one: with no age entered, the plan never draws on the balance, and says so. This is a basic picture of EPF: one balance at one rate for the whole plan, with interest added once a year.

A PPF item takes the balance, the year it matures, the yearly deposit and whether the account is paid out or extended at maturity, and flags a deposit outside the published limits; once matured, it is held as money that can be drawn on. For a household abroad with money in India, the NRE, NRO and FCNR account types are there too, each in its own currency, with what each leaves out said plainly. The Moving country what-if ends EPF contributions in the month of a move. The article on retirement across Singapore and India covers the rest of a two-country plan.

Illustration, not advice. Written 9 October 2026; checked 9 October 2026.

Sources

1. Press release on the EPF interest rate, posted 2 March 2026, Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Labour and Employment, read 3 October 2026.
2. Retired, migrated or unemployed? Here’s when your EPF account quietly stops earning interest, Business Today, 28 July 2026, read 9 October 2026.