EPF Enrolment Campaign 2026: what to declare before 31 October

Summary

The Employees' Enrolment Campaign 2026 lets an employer declare workers who should have been EPF members at any time between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2026 and never were, paying only the employer's share and interest, with the employee's share waived where it was never deducted and damages fixed at ₹100 for the whole establishment. Declarations are accepted from 1 July to 31 October 2026, and as at 22 September 2026 EPFO has announced no extension.

The situation

A rice mill outside Raipur has sixty people on the muster roll and forty-nine on the ECR. The other eleven are "casual" — they have been casual for six years. On the ordinary route, an inquiry under section 7A of the EPF Act (now section 125 of the Code on Social Security, 2020) recovers both shares of contribution for every month since each of them joined, 12% interest on top, and damages that until June 2024 ran up to 25% a year and are capped only at the amount of the arrears. The mill owner knows this, which is why the eleven have stayed casual.

EPFO reported 7.66 lakh contributing establishments for 2023-24. How many carry this skeleton is not published, but the government has notified a seventeen-year look-back to clear it, and the national press ran the 31 October date in the first week of September. The reader who most needs it is the one who does not yet know they are an EPF employer at all — more on that below.

The rule

The Employees' Provident Funds Scheme, 2026 was notified under the Code on Social Security, 2020 on 29 June 2026, and with it three windows. The Enrolment Campaign is the largest and the first to close.

Four conditions sit behind the table, and each one removes workers from the list:

• The worker must be alive and in service on the date of declaration. A worker who has left cannot be declared; for them the campaign offers an undertaking route — the employer declares that every eligible worker has been declared, and no proceedings follow for those who have already ceased employment.
• A worker already covered by a concluded determination under section 7A (section 125) is outside the campaign.
• The campaign does not override the Scheme's own membership conditions. A person who joined on or after 1 September 2014 on wages above the ₹15,000 ceiling, and was not already a member, was an excluded employee and is not "left out".
• The waiver of the employee's share applies only where that share was never deducted. Where PF was cut from wages and not remitted, the waiver does not reach it.

Contributions for a declared worker run from the month of declaration. More than one declaration may be filed inside the window. A declaration obtained by misrepresentation is void from the start. The procedure runs through the employer portal: a UAN for each declared worker (face authentication through UMANG), an ECR for them, and the declaration linked to that ECR.

The two sister windows are different schemes for different problems. VISHWAS 2026 recomputes section 14B (section 128) damages on defaults before 14 June 2024 at 0.25% to 1% a month in place of paragraph 32A's 5% to 25% a year, once the 12% interest is cleared; EPFO's release of 3 September 2026 says it runs to 28 December 2026 and "the closing date will not be extended". AMNESTY 2026 gives a PF trust that was never formally exempted its exemption retrospectively, also to 28 December 2026, and its own terms allow a six-month extension. Neither shares the Enrolment Campaign's date.

Where people go wrong

Reading "waiver" as a waiver of everything. Two things are relieved: the employee's share and the damages. The employer's own share for every month since each worker should have joined, 12% interest on it and the administrative charges are all payable. On eleven workers over six years that is still a real number — smaller than the inquiry, but not small.

Declaring workers who have already left. The campaign is for people in service today. The employer with the largest historical gap and the highest turnover has the least to declare, and the undertaking is what closes the door on the rest.

Treating an above-ceiling joiner as left out. A supervisor hired in 2016 on ₹18,000 who was never a member was excluded, not omitted. Declaring him buys nothing and, because a false declaration is void from the start, may cost the whole declaration.

Not knowing you became an employer for EPF on 21 November 2025. The Code on Social Security commenced on that date and dropped the EPF Act's Schedule I, which had confined coverage to listed industries. Every establishment with 20 or more employees is now within EPF whatever its activity — trading houses, professional firms, coaching institutes, clinics. Workers in such an establishment should have been enrolled from 21 November 2025, which falls inside the campaign's period. On my reading, a newly covered establishment that enrols now can declare those four months under the campaign, cheaply; one that waits past 31 October answers for them on the ordinary route. I have not seen EPFO say this in a circular either way, and it is the question to put to your regional office before the date, not after.

Running the 14B notice through the wrong door. Damages on late remittance for workers who were already members are a VISHWAS matter; the ₹100 cap attaches to the non-enrolment being declared. An establishment with both problems files in both windows, on both timetables.

What to do

1. Pull the muster roll for 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2026 against the ECR and list everyone who has worked for you and never had a UAN under your establishment code.
2. For each name record the joining date, the wage at joining, whether they are in service today, whether any section 7A (section 125) order covers them, and whether PF was ever cut from their wages. Strike the excluded, the departed and the already-adjudicated.
3. Generate UANs for the rest, file the ECR for them, and file the declaration linked to that ECR before 31 October 2026, with the employer's share, 12% interest and administrative charges funded.
4. If a section 14B (section 128) notice or recovery is also pending for defaults before 14 June 2024, clear the section 7Q (section 127) interest and apply under VISHWAS separately, before 28 December 2026.
5. Keep the undertaking, the declaration and the ECR reference in the file. Contributions run from the month of declaration, so the next ECR must carry the declared workers.

The tool

I built a small router for this because three windows opened on the same day with three sets of exclusions, and every explainer I read described one of them. You answer three questions — never enrolled, a damages notice, an unexempted trust — and it tells you which windows apply, each with its closing date, a countdown, its exclusions and its first step. A second tab takes the Enrolment Campaign worker by worker — joining date, wage at joining, in service, adjudicated, deducted from wages — applying the tests above, including the wage ceiling in force on the day each person joined, with an indicative employer-share-and-interest figure and a printable working paper. A third compares paragraph 32A damages against the VISHWAS recomputation on arrear blocks you type. It does not compute your dues — it holds one wage constant, prices no administrative charges or EDLI and reads no payroll; it does not file anything or touch the EPFO portal; and it does not know who has left. The worker list stays in your browser's own storage on your device.

See which EPF window applies

Sources

1. PIB, Ministry of Labour & Employment — launch release, Employees' Enrolment Campaign 2026 (PRID 2300475) — https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2300475&reg=48&lang=2
2. PIB — launch release, VISHWAS 2026 and AMNESTY 2026 (PRID 2291296) — https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2291296&reg=48&lang=2
3. PIB — Code on Social Security, 2020: Towards Universal and Inclusive Social Protection (22 Nov 2025) — https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2025/nov/doc20251122702601.pdf
4. KPMG GMS Flash Alert 2026-199, India — EPF Scheme 2026 and the three special schemes (29 Jul 2026) — https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/gms-flash-alert/2026/flash-alert-2026-199.html
5. TaxGuru, reproduction of the Ministry of Labour & Employment release of 3 Sep 2026 on VISHWAS 2026 — https://taxguru.in/corporate-law/epfo-vishwas-2026-scheme-offers-reduced-epf-damages-long-pending-disputes.html
6. Nexdigm, EPF special initiatives 2026 — https://www.nexdigm.com/insights_post/epf-special-initiatives-2026/
7. Corporate Professionals, Decoding EPFO's Employees' Enrolment Campaign 2026 and VISHWAS 2026 — https://www.corporateprofessionals.com/articles/trust-settlement-and-a-clean-slate-decoding-epfos-employees-enrolment-campaign-2026-and-vishwas-2026/
8. Business Standard, Left out of PF? Check if you qualify by Oct 31 (2 Sep 2026) — https://www.business-standard.com/finance/personal-finance/epfo-enrolment-campaign-left-out-of-pf-check-if-you-qualify-by-oct-31-126090200515_1.html
9. SCC Online, EPFO launches VISHWAS 2026 (15 Jul 2026) — https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2026/07/15/epfo-launches-vishwas-2026-damages-settlement-scheme/
10. TaxGuru, EPFO launches Amnesty Scheme 2026 — retrospective PF trust regularisation — https://taxguru.in/corporate-law/epfo-launches-amnesty-scheme-2026-retrospective-pf-trust-regularisation.html