Gazette Notification G.S.R. 847(E), effective retroactively from 17 September 2026. Here's what changed and who it affects.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment has issued Gazette Notification G.S.R. 847(E), dated 25 September 2026, amending the Employees' Pension Scheme, 2026 (the principal Scheme published as G.S.R. 527(E) on 29 June 2026). The amendment inserts a new clause into Paragraph 7(1), the paragraph that governs who qualifies for EPS membership. It takes effect from 17 September 2026, the same day the EPF wage ceiling moved to ₹25,000, even though it was only published eight days later.
The new clause adds a category of employee who now qualifies for EPS membership:
An employee who has been a member of the EPF Scheme, 2026, but was not a member of EPS, and whose wages on 17 September 2026 (the date the new wage ceiling was notified) are at or below the notified wage ceiling (₹25,000), now qualifies for EPS membership.
In plain terms: this targets people who have PF (provident fund) accounts but were never enrolled in the pension scheme, most commonly because they joined a company at a starting wage above the old ceiling and were excluded from EPS under the ordinary rules at the time.
Our earlier note on the wage ceiling hike flagged that raising the EPF ceiling does not automatically decide who must be enrolled in EPS, since "excluded employee" status is a separate legal question governed by the Scheme itself. This notification directly answers part of that question for one specific group: EPF members currently outside EPS whose wage is now within the new ceiling. It does not, by itself, address every excluded-employee scenario, only this one. See our EPF wage ceiling update for the fuller picture.
The notification is silent on contribution arrears. It took effect from 17 September but was only published on 25 September, and it does not say whether employers must back-pay EPS contributions for that gap, or from when exactly the pension contribution obligation actually starts for a newly-qualifying employee. Treat this as an open question until EPFO issues operational guidance, rather than assuming a retroactive contribution liability.
Source: Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II Section 3(i), No. 777, G.S.R. 847(E), Ministry of Labour & Employment, 25 September 2026.