How to claim unclaimed dividend from the IEPF
This guide walks an investor or a legal heir through reclaiming a dividend, and where applicable the underlying shares, that have been transferred to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) after seven years of remaining unclaimed. The claim is made through Form IEPF-5 on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal. The process is broker-neutral; for the broker-specific variant using a Zerodha demat account see how to claim unclaimed dividends through IEPF via Zerodha , and for mutual fund units see how to claim IEPF mutual fund units .
Conflict-of-interest disclosure. This guide is published by WebNotes Editorial Team for informational purposes. WebNotes is not affiliated with the IEPF Authority, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, any registrar and transfer agent, or any company. No commercial relationship exists with any intermediary named here. The procedure documented reflects the IEPF rules current as at June 2026.
How the dividend reaches the IEPF in the first place
Under the Companies Act 2013 , a declared dividend that an investor does not collect does not vanish; it follows a fixed escalation. Section 124(1) requires the company, within seven days after the 30-day payment window lapses, to move the unpaid amount into a separate Unpaid Dividend Account. Section 124(5) then requires that any amount sitting in that account unclaimed for seven years from the date of transfer be moved to the IEPF established under Section 125.
Section 124(6) extends the transfer to the shares themselves: all shares on which no dividend has been claimed for seven consecutive years are transferred to the IEPF as well. There is a protective exception, if the holder has encashed any dividend warrant during those seven years, the shares are not transferred even if some individual warrants went uncashed. The transfer to the IEPF is custodial, not a forfeiture; a 2019 High Court reading confirmed that Section 124(6) does not vest ownership in the IEPF, and the proviso lets the rightful claimant reclaim the shares from the Authority at any time, even after the seven years.
The practical consequence is that there are two things to claim back: the dividend amount and, separately, the shares. Form IEPF-5 covers both in one consolidated claim per company per financial year.
Step-by-step procedure
The procedure infobox above carries the canonical step list. The detailed expansion of each step follows, with the document and timing notes that the infobox cannot hold.
1. Confirm the holding is with the IEPF
Search the IEPF portal’s unclaimed-amounts database, or the company’s own list of shares transferred to the IEPF, using the name, folio number, or PAN. Companies are required to maintain and publish these details. Confirm both whether a dividend amount is recoverable and whether the shares have been transferred under Section 124(6), because the documents differ slightly between a pure dividend claim and a shares claim.
2. Obtain the entitlement letter from the company
For a shares claim you must hold an entitlement letter issued by the company or its registrar and transfer agent before you file Form IEPF-5. Approach the company secretary or the RTA with proof of holding, the folio number, and your KYC. The entitlement letter records the number of shares and the dividend the company has verified as due to you and is the document the IEPF Authority cross-checks against the form. A pure dividend claim with no shares involved may not need a separate entitlement letter, but the company’s verification report still drives the refund.
3. File Form IEPF-5 online and capture the SRN
Open the IEPF portal, go to IEPF Services, and complete the web-based Form IEPF-5. Enter the company details, the folio or demat number, the shares and dividend claimed, your demat account for receiving restored shares, and the Aadhaar-linked bank account for the dividend. On submission the portal generates a Service Request Number (SRN). There is no filing fee. Save and print the acknowledgement; the SRN is how every later step is tracked.
4. Send the physical documents to the company nodal officer
Post a self-attested printout of the submitted Form IEPF-5 and acknowledgement, with the supporting documents, to the company’s IEPF nodal officer, not to the IEPF Authority directly. Label the envelope “Claim for refund from IEPF Authority”. Enclose the original dividend warrants or share certificates if held, a self-attested copy of PAN and Aadhaar, the Client Master Report for your demat account, a cancelled cheque, and the entitlement letter. For a deceased holder add the death certificate and the succession or legal heir document.
5. Company verification within 15 days
On receiving your physical claim the company must prepare a verification report and submit it to the IEPF Authority within 15 days, confirming your entitlement to the dividend and the shares. If your documents are incomplete the company can revert for clarification, which restarts this clock, so completeness in step 4 is what controls the timeline.
6. Refund and share restoration by the IEPF Authority
After the IEPF Authority is satisfied with the company’s verification, it credits the dividend to your bank account and transfers the shares back into your demat account. A claimant of shares is entitled only to the amount the Authority received on the shares without interest, and any dividend declared on the shares while they sat with the IEPF is credited to the Fund, not paid out separately.
Consolidated-claim and document rules
A claimant can file only one consolidated Form IEPF-5 per company per financial year. If you have several folios with the same company, aggregate them into the single claim rather than filing one per folio. Different companies need separate claims, each routed to that company’s own nodal officer.
The demat account on the claim must be live and in the claimant’s name, because restored shares are credited there. A stale or mismatched name, address, or bank detail on the supporting Client Master Report is the most common cause of rejection; reconcile your demat KYC before downloading the CMR you attach. Keep the bank account Aadhaar-linked and the same one named in the form, so the dividend credit does not fail.
See also
- Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF)
- How to claim unclaimed dividends through IEPF via Zerodha
- How to claim IEPF mutual fund units
- Unclaimed redemption and dividend in mutual funds
- Client Master Report (CMR / CML)
- How to request a CMR / CML from Zerodha
- Companies Act 2013
- Mutual fund transmission
- Forgotten folios and MITRA
- MITRA mutual fund investment tracing
- Investor Protection Fund (mutual funds)
- Nomination in mutual funds
- Consolidated Account Statement
- Investor grievance escalation matrix
- SEBI SCORES
- How to claim TDS on mutual fund dividend in the ITR
- How to fill Schedule OS for mutual fund dividend
- Demat account
- CDSL
- NSDL
- SEBI
- AMFI
- How to convert mutual fund folio to demat
- How to dematerialise mutual fund SoA holdings
- How to convert physical shares to demat
External references
References
- Companies Act 2013, Section 124(5) and 124(6) (transfer of unpaid dividend and underlying shares to the IEPF after seven years) and Section 125 (establishment of the Fund), mca.gov.in.
- Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Rules 2016, Rule 7 (refund to claimants) and Form IEPF-5, iepf.gov.in.
- IEPF Authority, claim filing instructions and the company verification report timeline (15 days), iepf.gov.in, accessed June 2026.
- Ministry of Corporate Affairs, IEPF Services on the MCA portal, mca.gov.in, accessed June 2026.