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Every employee registered under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) scheme is given a unique 12 digit number called UAN (Universal Account Number) by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). All PF accounts of an individual are unified under one UAN.

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Can a person have more than one UAN?

Every employee will ideally have only one UAN. However, sometimes due to certain mistakes on the part of either the employee or the employer, the employee might have more than one UAN. This will happen in the following situations:

• Employee does not share his/her existing UAN with a new employer on changing a job. This happens when an employee doesn’t want to show past work history, or has some issues with the previous employer. In this case, the employer generates a new UAN. And so the employee ends up with two UANs.
• The previous employer does not update the employee’s exit date from the job. In such a case, after joining a new company, a new UAN gets generated.

How to merge two UAN accounts?

It is not advisable to have more than one UAN for ease of operating. In fact the whole purpose of UAN was to simplify things. So if an employee has two (or more) UAN accounts, he/she can merge them by following either of these two ways:

1. Report the Matter:

• The employee can inform the employer or EPFO (via email to uanepf@epfindia.gov.in) about having two UANs.
• He/she must mention both the previous UAN and the current UAN.
• After verification, the previous/old UAN will be blocked and deactivated. The new UAN will be active.
• After that, the employee will have to submit a claim for transferring the service and the fund to the current UAN.

2. Automatic Online Method.

• This is a newer method,and it is faster and easier.
• Log onto the EPFO website for member claims.(The employee should be registered on the member portal to avail this facility.)

• Request for EPF transfer from old UAN to new UAN. (Both UANs must have updated KYC details for ease of receiving updates.)

• The EPFO system will automatically find the duplicate UANs from where the request generated.
• It will then deactivate the old UAN, and link the old EPF account to the current UAN.

• The employee will receive a SMS regarding the same on his/her registered mobile number.
• In case there are any arrears remaining from previous employers, they will be remitted against the new UAN by punching in the old UAN or EPF number.
• The EPFO periodically checks for multiple UANs for a single employee, whether or not a request has been made. And then deactivates old UANs.

You can use these methods for merging two or more UAN accounts. And in the future, make sure to tell the new employer about the existing UAN!