When Can You Withdraw EPF Savings? Age 55, 60, or 65 Explained

When Can You Withdraw EPF Savings? Age 55, 60, or 65 Explained

EPF says it’s 55 years old yeah

Despite all the news, as at today, November 2025, it’s still full withdrawal at 55 years old. You can keep your job, keep contributing but yes you can withdraw in full when you reach 55 years old. Wah… for me that’s just another 7 years to go. Haha. Looking forward? Well, take a look at the below for some ideas of what you could decide to do. Everyone has own prerogative and perspective too. Choice is yours to make.

“When you turn 55, all your savings from your retirement, Sejahtera, and flexible accounts are consolidated into Akaun 55.

You can then withdraw either all or a portion of your savings from this account.

Any new contributions made after age 55 will be moved to Akaun Emas, which can be withdrawn at age 60. .”

Info source: www.kwsp.gov.my

What about that news about withdrawal only at 65?

This was supposedly the news but actually the news merely said that the withdrawal and the retirement should be aligned. It makes sense too because there is every chance that the person could use up all the savings even before he / she retires. Sometimes when we still have income, we may forget to save and instead spend everything we withdrew. Just need to look to the credit card for some clues. Sometimes, we just happened to forget.

Read here: thestar.com.my “The World Bank has recommeded that the withdrawal age from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) retirement account should ideally be aligned with the minimum retirement age to strengthen the adequacy of retirement savings.

The World Bank stated that its previous analysis highlighted how access to retirement savings before retirement can lead to premature depletion of those funds.

“We note that in most countries globally, retirement savings are only accessed at retirement age. This is also important in the context of non-contributory social pension design, as exhausting retirement savings can leave people needing state support,” the World Bank said in a statement on Sunday.” Read here: thestar.com.my

What’s an extra 5 years going to do to the savings?

What happens if the withdrawal is indeed pushed to 60 from current 55? What can 5 years give us anyway? Is it a lot of money? Well, if we assume by 55, we have RM300,000 versus the RM390,000 which EPF says members should have by the time they are 60, then this RM300,000 will turn into RM393,000. So, in 5 years, the amount we have would have risen by over 30 percent! Amount wise, it’s very close to an extra RM100,000 and we did not yet include the contributions from both the worker and the employer. In other words, the amount is actually bigger than RM100,000!

What about an extra 10 years then?

Let’s assume we stop working and stop contribution at 55 years old. EPF says we should have RM390,000 by the time we reach 60. Let’s be conservative and assume we have reached just RM300,000 when we reach 55 years old and we decided enough of working life and we want to start enjoying life. We chose to retire at 55. A life which is something like the below?

Wake up without the need for alarm clocks. Walking around the neighborhood with no worry if the chit-chat with anyone at the coffee shop becomes too long. Driving to a supermarket which is further away than the one nearby. Many more things but let’s say we stop working life at 55. We have a little savings which we could use without the need to touch the EPF yet.

RM300,000 in our EPF savings when we are 55. We assume the return from EPF stays steady at 5.5 percent. We assume we have no additional contributions since we have stopped working at 55. Well, this RM300,000 would turn into RM512,000 by the end of 10th year. The difference, just for these 10 years would be RM512,000 minus RM300,000 = RM212,000 and this is an increase of RM21,200 per year or an increase of RM1,767 per month if we take a simple average. Quite crazily amazing don’t you think?

At peak savings with EPF returns

Yes, the difference is very noticeable because our savings when we reach 55 years old is already at its peak. Thus, any returns based on that peak savings will be a very significant number. This is why unless we really need the money, it may be more prudent and financially viable to leave the savings to continue its rise. The extra money will really come in handy because when our income has stopped, it’s very scary to see the amount inside the bank reducing every month…

Happy knowing that nothing has changed. It’s still 55 and we can withdraw the full amount if we so wish.

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