The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has revised National Pension System (NPS) registration charges, according to a circular issued on February 04, 2025. Now, anybody looking to invest in the retirement scheme may have pay lower charges as compared to what they would have paid earlier. Along with the NPS registration charges, the authority has also revised fees of various other services. The pension regulatory body has revised the charges of various services in such a way that now citizens will have to pay a higher amount on higher contributions and vice-versa. No more minimum ₹200 registration charges: Eg, earlier, citizens were required to pay a minimum of ₹200 and maximum of ₹400 NPS registration charges. But, now, the PFRDA has removed the minimum requirement of ₹200. The banks are allowed to levy service charge according to their own will subject to maximum of ₹400 on the upside. This can result in reduction of the registration charges. The financial institution (FI) can allow the depositor to pay lower than the earlier requirement of ₹200. NPS A/C Service Charges Levied On Investments May Also Reduce: On the other hand, earlier, the minimum charges that were levied on investments made in the NPS account was 0.50% of investment amount within a price band of ₹30 and ₹25,000. Now, the pension regulator has removed the lower limit of the minimum charges and left it on the bank to decide the service charge but the condition of 0.50% of contributions and the upper limit of ₹25,000 service charge is still applicable. This is expected to reduce the charges imposed on NPS contributions made. Earlier, what used to happen, since, the NPS’s minimum investment amount in the tier-1 account is ₹1,000 annually. So, 0.50% of ₹1,000 amounted to only ₹5. But, because of the lower limit the investor was charged a minimum of ₹30. Thus, he was unjustifiably required to pay higher charges. But thanks to the PFRDA’s latest move, now subscribers can pay only ₹5 minimum charge on annual NPS contributions of ₹1,000. NPS subscribers can bargain service charge with bank: PFRDA According to the rules and regulations of the pension regulatory, subscribers have all the right to negotiate the service charges levied on different services within the set band with the FI with which he would open his NPS a/c. While, withdrawal charges have also been revised. The new rate mechanism dictates higher withdrawal levies on higher corpus, and, lower charges on lower corpus. Find below how much service charges have changed for NPS subscribers: The above levies apply to NPS Corporate and All Citizen models. Government employees are not required to pay any service charge.Original Article