MITRA: How to Trace Mutual Fund Folios Your Family Forgot About

Mutual fund units do not expire. A folio opened in 2004, forgotten after a job change and a house move, still holds its units. AMFI data puts about ₹2,638 crore in unclaimed mutual fund money — roughly ₹1,659 crore of unclaimed dividends and ₹979 crore of unclaimed redemptions.

What MITRA is

MITRA — Mutual Fund Investment Tracing and Retrieval Assistant — was introduced by SEBI through a circular dated 12 February 2025. It is a single search across the industry for inactive folios, hosted by the two large registrars, CAMS and KFintech, and reachable through MF Central, AMFI, the AMCs’ own sites, the registrars and SEBI.

What counts as an inactive folio

A folio with no transaction, financial or non-financial, for ten years, but still holding a unit balance. That is a precise definition, and it matters: a folio you last touched eight years ago will not appear, even though you have forgotten it just as thoroughly.

How to use it

• Search under the investor’s name and PAN
• Check variants — folios were often opened with initials, or in a maiden name
• Where a folio is found, you complete KYC afresh with the AMC or registrar and the units are brought back under your active records

A faster route if you have a PAN

Before searching anything, pull a Consolidated Account Statement. NSDL and CDSL each issue a CAS against a PAN, listing demat holdings and mutual fund folios in one document. For many families that single statement answers most of the question. How to check what you hold using your PAN.

If the investor has died

Transmission for mutual funds runs through the AMC and its registrar, not through the IEPF, and each AMC publishes its own document list — typically the death certificate, the claimant’s KYC, a bank mandate, and an indemnity or NOC depending on value. The paperwork overlaps almost entirely with a share transmission, so assemble it once and use it everywhere. What legal heirs need.