The government has approved an interest rate of 8.25 per cent on deposits made to the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) for 2025-2026, said sources on Thursday.
With this, more than 7 crore contributing members of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) are expected to receive the interest this month.
The EPFO provides the rate of interest on the EPF after it gets ratified by the government through the Finance Ministry.
According to a source, the Finance Ministry has approved the 8.25 per cent rate set by the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the EPFO’s highest decision-making body.
Earlier, in a meeting chaired by Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on March 2, the CBT agreed to set an interest rate of 8.25 per cent for the fiscal year 2025-2026. This is the third year in a row that this rate has been maintained.
Since the Government of India is the EPF’s guarantor, the plan was then forwarded to the Finance Ministry for approval.
The source said that the proposal had been okayed by the Finance Ministry after being reviewed, and the EPFO would likely credit the 8.25 per cent rate of interest for 2025-26 into subscribers’ accounts this month only at the Labour Ministry’s request.
In February 2025, the EPFO had maintained the 8.25 per cent rate of interest for FY 2024-2025. The interest rate was slightly raised by the EPFO in 2024 from 8.15 per cent in 2022–2023 to 8.25 per cent for 2023–2024.
The interest rate on post-retirement deposits for 2021-2022 was reduced by the EPFO in March 2022 from 8.5 per cent in 2020-2021 to an over four-decade low of 8.10 per cent.