Employees' Enrolment Campaign, 2026 — the 31 October Deadline
Bundled into the same notification that overhauled PF withdrawals is a one-time amnesty window for employers who should have enrolled employees in PF but didn't. It closes on 31 October 2026 — about ten weeks from now.
EPF Scheme 2026 Withdrawal Calculator
See how the 25% lock rule applies once an employee is properly enrolled.
The short answer
The Employees' Enrolment Campaign, 2026, set out in the Annexure to the EPF Scheme, 2026 notification, lets employers retroactively enrol employees who should have become PF members before 31 March 2026 but weren't — at a flat ₹100 in damages per employee, instead of the usual escalating penalty. The window to use it closes 31 October 2026.
Who this actually applies to
This isn't a general PF amnesty — it's narrowly aimed at a specific compliance gap: employees who crossed the threshold for mandatory PF membership before 31 March 2026 but were never enrolled by their employer, for whatever reason (a missed threshold check, an oversight during a hiring surge, informal employment later regularised, and so on). The campaign gives employers a low-cost route to fix that retroactively, rather than waiting for it to surface during an inspection or audit and face the standard damages structure.
Why the flat ₹100 figure matters
Ordinarily, delayed PF contributions attract escalating damages under the Code's own rate table (a monthly-tiered structure ranging up to 1% per month of the amount due, depending on the length of delay). The Enrolment Campaign replaces that with a flat ₹100 per employee for enrolments made within the campaign window — a meaningful reduction for an employer with a backlog of unenrolled employees, but only if they act before the deadline.
The deadline is the whole story here
As of this post's publish date, the 31 October 2026 closing date is roughly ten weeks out. Unlike most of the constants on this site — contribution rates, wage ceilings — this is a hard calendar cutoff, not a figure that drifts with notifications. After it closes, an employer with the same unenrolled-employee gap faces the Code's standard damages structure instead, with no flat-rate option. We're flagging this specifically because a "PF withdrawal rules" article published in October or later would be too late to be useful for anyone weighing whether to use this window.
Two related schemes in the same Annexure, not yet independently dated here
The same notification bundles two further schemes worth knowing about, though we haven't independently pinned down their exact start/end dates from the primary text with the same confidence as the 31 October deadline above, so we're naming them without asserting specific dates:
- VISHWAS, 2026 — a time-limited settlement scheme reducing damages for pre-14-June-2024 defaults, using the same tiered damages table as the Code's standard provision.
- AMNESTY, 2026 — a window for informally-exempted PF trusts to retroactively regularise their status with EPFO.
If either applies to your situation, confirm the exact window directly with EPFO rather than relying on a date we haven't verified as precisely as the Enrolment Campaign's.
Related reading
FAQ
A one-time scheme in the Annexure to the EPF Scheme, 2026 notification, letting employers retroactively enrol employees who should have become PF members before 31 March 2026 but weren't, at a flat ₹100 in damages per employee instead of the usual escalating penalty.
31 October 2026. After that date, the standard escalating damages structure applies to the same compliance gap, with no flat-rate option.
Employers with employees who crossed the mandatory PF membership threshold before 31 March 2026 but were never enrolled — not a general amnesty for other kinds of PF non-compliance.
The Code's standard damages structure is tiered by how long payment was delayed, escalating up to roughly 1% per month of the amount due — considerably more than the campaign's flat ₹100 per employee.
Yes — VISHWAS, 2026 (a damages-settlement scheme for older defaults) and AMNESTY, 2026 (for informally-exempted PF trusts to regularise). We haven't independently confirmed their exact windows with the same confidence as this campaign's 31 October date.
Last verified: 21 Aug 2026
Sources: Employees' Provident Funds Scheme, 2026 (G.S.R. 525(E), notified 29 June 2026), Annexure (Employees' Enrolment Campaign, 2026), read directly from the Gazette notification text.
This is general information, not compliance or legal advice. Confirm your specific enrolment gap and the campaign's exact terms with EPFO or a qualified professional before relying on this for a compliance decision.