EPF, or Employee Provident Fund, is a mandatory retirement savings scheme that applies to most salaried employees working at companies above a certain size in India. Both you and your employer contribute a fixed percentage of your basic salary every month into this fund, which then earns an annual interest rate declared by the government, and compounds over your working years.
EPF contributions and the interest earned are largely tax-free, subject to certain conditions and limits, and the accumulated corpus is meant to be withdrawn at retirement or after a specified period of unemployment, though partial withdrawals are permitted for specific purposes like a medical emergency, home purchase, or education. Because contributions happen automatically from your salary, EPF quietly builds a substantial retirement corpus over a career without requiring any active effort from you.