Housing Provident Fund New Year Regulations: Support decoration, property fee benefits, and flexible employment of over 200 million people
2026-08-05
Recently, the executive meeting of the State Council approved the draft decision of the State Council on amending the Regulations on the Administration of Housing Provident Fund.
The draft requires better utilization of the housing provident fund function, expansion of the scope of extraction and use, expansion of institutional coverage, improvement of management and service efficiency, and better meeting the diverse housing consumption needs of residents.
In the view of Yan Yuejin, Vice President of Shanghai E-house Real Estate Research Institute, the core orientation of this revision of the housing provident fund system is to better meet the diverse housing consumption needs of residents, especially new citizens, young people and other groups, strengthen the supporting role of provident fund in expanding domestic demand and promoting housing consumption, and better meet the needs of urban construction and the development of existing housing for the people.
Yan Yuejin analyzed that from the perspective of policy logic, the triple background of this revision is worth paying attention to. Firstly, China's urban development has shifted from large-scale incremental expansion to the stage of improving stock quality, and residents' housing consumption has expanded from "buying" and "renting" to "repairing" and "maintaining" houses. The original scope of use of the regulations can no longer meet new needs. Secondly, the scale of flexible employment has exceeded 200 million people, and there are obvious shortcomings in the inclusiveness of the original system. Thirdly, over 60 cities have already adjusted their housing provident fund policies in the first half of the year, accumulating local practical experience and laying the foundation for nationwide revisions.
Li Yujia, Chief Researcher of Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, believes that this revision conforms to the trend of frequent population mobility, requires strengthening digital capacity building, and promoting cross regional, cross departmental, and cross level business collaboration. This not only lays the foundation for information technology to facilitate future operations such as mutual recognition and mutual lending, purchasing houses in different locations, and local withdrawals, allowing "more data to travel and fewer people to run errands", but also effectively ensures business security and the convenience of default recovery.
It is worth mentioning that the smooth progress of the reform of the housing provident fund system is closely related to the current abundant foundation of fund operation.
According to statistics from E-house Research Institute, the average personal loan rate of housing provident fund in 26 key cities in the first half of 2026 is 65%, which is in the central position of the "golden range" generally considered by the industry to be between 60% and 80%. From the perspective of distribution structure, about 77% of the 26 cities have a personal loan rate in the "golden range" of 60% to 80%, and about 19% of the cities have a personal loan rate in the range of 50% to 60%.
The average level of 65% indicates that the overall operation of housing provident fund funds in key cities across the country is stable and orderly. It achieves a good balance between supporting residents' housing consumption, promoting stable development of the real estate market, and ensuring fund security, and also provides a good financial foundation for deepening the reform of the housing provident fund system in the future, "Yan Yuejin said.
Yan Yuejin also stated that there is still a large amount of accumulated funds in various housing provident fund centers across the country that have not been efficiently utilized. Expanding the extraction scenarios can help transform "passive savings" into housing consumption funds that residents can flexibly dispose of, thereby directly reducing the cost of housing for residents.
The reporter found that since this year, in addition to the central government's repeated optimization and adjustment of provident fund policies, many core cities have also adjusted provident fund policies, which has played a positive role in driving market activity.
The upper limit of Shanghai's housing provident fund loan limit has been raised to 3.24 million yuan, Shenzhen has been raised to 3.51 million yuan, Guangzhou has been raised to 3.6 million yuan, and Suzhou has been raised to 4 million yuan. According to data from the Zhongzhi Research Institute, the maximum loan amount for housing provident fund in Guangzhou and Suzhou has exceeded the median total price of their new houses in 2025. Chen Wenjing, Director of Policy Research at Zhongzhi Research Institute, analyzed that this effectively reduces the pressure and cost of housing for residents, and drives the market activity to rebound. In addition, some cities support the withdrawal of housing provident fund for the purpose of paying property fees, decoration fees, etc., which effectively alleviates the consumption pressure related to residents' housing.
According to incomplete statistics from the China Index Research Institute, over 680 policies have been introduced in various regions since 2026, with a high frequency of over 100 policies issued in July. From January to July this year, more than 360 housing provident fund policies were introduced in various regions. Compared with the same period last year, the frequency of housing provident fund policies has significantly increased this year. The adjustments mainly focus on raising the upper limit of housing provident fund loans, expanding the scope of housing provident fund withdrawals and uses, optimizing flexible employment deposit policies, and housing provident fund use policies for employees in other places.
In Yan Yuejin's view, the approval of the revised draft of the housing provident fund and the formal implementation of subsequent regulations mark the transformation of the housing provident fund system from a "single purchasing tool" to a "housing life cycle livelihood security account". Such institutional reforms further release the space for fund efficiency.
Li Yujia believes that with the basic solution of housing demand, urban development will shift towards the stage of stock improvement. Faced with the maintenance funding gap caused by nearly 80% of the existing housing entering the "middle-aged and elderly" stage in the future, as well as the housing needs of a large flexible employment group, the housing provident fund urgently needs to strengthen its inclusive financial attributes and expand its coverage to increase the scale of provident fund funds. (Outlook New Era)
Edit:Luoyu Responsible editor:Wang Xiaojing
Source:China Internet Finance
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