The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority has issued a circular dated January 23, 2026, expanding the scope of reinvestment of returned or pending National Pension System (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) withdrawal amounts into subscribers’ PRANs. Building on earlier guidelines that allowed reinvestment where bank credits failed due to incorrect details, the Authority has now extended eligibility to multiple additional scenarios. These include unsuccessful bank credits due to account or IFSC issues, annuity cancellation proceeds (including free-look cancellations and non-NPS cases), amounts kept on hold for quality checks, legal disputes, or pending clarifications, and returned transactions across Tier II, partial, and death withdrawals. The Central Record Keeping Agency will reinvest such amounts after 30 days if required documents are not received, while proactively communicating with subscribers and nodal offices. Future claims on reinvested amounts will be subject to market fluctuations.
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
Circular No. PFRDA/2026/06/SUP-TB/01 | Dated: January 23, 2026
To: All NPS/APY Stakeholders
Subject: Expanded guidelines on reinvestment of returned & pending transaction amounts into the respective PRANs
In order to offer subscribers, the benefit of market-linked returns on returned transactions, the Authority had issued Circular No. PFRDA/2023/07/SUP-TB/01 dated 07th February 2023. This circular allowed the reinvestment of returned amounts into the same PRAN, based on the investment choice and pension fund allocation prevailing at the time of exit. This policy was implemented to ensure subscribers benefit from market-linked returns.
2. Initially, only those NPS/APY funds which could not be credited to the subscriber’s bank account due to incorrect bank account details were eligible for reinvestment into the subscriber’s PRAN. However, there are other scenarios where transactions remain pending in the NPS system following the authorization of exit/withdrawal and which prevents the NPS/APY subscribers from receiving the benefits of market returns.
3. To further enhance subscriber benefits, and in continuation of the previous circular, it has now been decided that the following transactions will also be eligible for reinvestment into the subscriber’s PRAN by the Central Record Keeping Agency (CRA):
a. Returned or unsuccessful transactions which have failed to be credited to the subscriber’s or nominee’s bank account due to specific reasons (e.g., account closed, invalid IFSC, frozen/dormant status etc).
b. Annuity cancellation proceeds returned by ASP due to Free Look Period Cancellation (FLC) exercised by the subscriber.
c. Annuity cancellation proceeds due to Non-NPS cases (OPS or Family pension).
d. Amount kept on hold by CRA due to quality monitoring or pending clarification.
e. Amount withheld by CRA due to ongoing legal matters or disputes related to withdrawal requests.
f. Returned transactions pertaining to Tier II withdrawal, Partial withdrawal and Death withdrawal cases.
4. The CRA will reinvest the returned amount into the subscriber’s PRAN after a period of one month (30 days) from the date the funds are credited to the NPS Trust withdrawal account, in cases where required documentation or clarifications are not received from the subscriber, nodal office or ASP.
5. During this 30-day period, the CRA shall communicate with subscribers and nodal offices through SMS, email, and other modes of communications about the requirement for submission of requisite documents to remit funds to the correct bank account. CRA will also notify the subscriber or nodal office regarding the proposed reinvestment of the funds into the PRAN if no response or documents are received within the 30-day window. Additionally, in the communication the CRA will provide detailed instructions on the process for reclaiming the reinvested amount.
Please note that any future claims concerning the reinvested amount will be subject to market fluctuations.
6. This circular is issued in exercise of powers conferred under sub-section (1) of Section 14 read with clause (e) of sub-section (2) of Section 14 of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 2013.
Yours sincerely
Ashish Kumar Bharati
Chief General Manager
