Finally, the Guangzhou Housing Provident Fund can now be withdrawn on a monthly basis.

Major adjustments have been made to the housing provident fund withdrawal policy in Guangzhou.

On November 10, Guangzhou officially issued the Notice on Optimizing the Housing Provident Fund Withdrawal Policy, which has greatly expanded the usage scenarios of the housing provident fund. The notice shall take effect as of the date of issuance and be valid for 5 years.

It is worth noting that this document further quantifies the detailed rules on the basis of the newly revised *Regulations on the Administration of Housing Provident Fund* in September this year. Guangzhou has significantly increased the withdrawal quota, lowered the threshold for withdrawal for house decoration, and relaxed the standards for withdrawal for property management fees.

This means that the geographical scope for contributors to use the housing provident fund to purchase houses has been further expanded, and purchasing houses in other regions is also included in the support scope.

Specifically, the geographical restrictions are relaxed, and the restriction that off-site house purchase must be within the "province where the household registration is located" is cancelled. Contributors can apply for withdrawal in accordance with regulations when purchasing self-occupied housing across the country.

The time limit for withdrawal application is standardized. For the purchase of self-occupied housing in Guangzhou without a mortgage, contributors can apply for withdrawal immediately after paying the house purchase price; for the purchase of off-site self-occupied housing without a mortgage, contributors can apply for withdrawal 6 full months after paying the house purchase price; for the purchase of self-occupied housing with a mortgage, applications can be submitted from the date the housing purchase loan is issued to before the loan is fully repaid.

In terms of withdrawal for renting, the total monthly withdrawal amount of Guangzhou contributors shall not exceed the monthly rent and shall not exceed 8,000 yuan.

In addition, Guangzhou has newly added withdrawal scenarios for independent renovation of old housing, house decoration, and property management fees. The total withdrawal amount of property management fees for each housing unit is calculated as the building area of the house × 3 yuan / ㎡ × 12, and no property management fee invoice is required.

Besides, the withdrawal frequency is increased. The frequency of withdrawing housing provident fund for house purchase and renting has been adjusted from once every 3 months to once per calendar month, which further improves the flexibility of capital use.

In the past, the vast majority of funds withdrawn from Guangzhou's housing provident fund were used to repay housing loans, while the proportion of funds used for renting and house maintenance was relatively low, resulting in a large amount of precipitated funds. This reform is to revitalize this part of the stock funds.

Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of the Guangdong Provincial Urban and Rural Planning Institute, said that after the increase of the housing provident fund withdrawal quota for renting in Guangzhou, it can cover the actual rental expenses of many families. This policy connects the whole chain of house purchase, renting, decoration and maintenance, with the purpose of revitalizing the stock funds of the housing provident fund, releasing the consumption potential of residents' housing, which is in line with the reform direction of the housing provident fund serving the whole life cycle of housing.

Li Yujia provided a set of very practical reference data: the rent of ordinary commercial residential buildings in Guangzhou is about 47 to 50 yuan per square meter per month, the monthly rent for a 50-square-meter apartment for a single person is 2,000 to 2,500 yuan, and the monthly rent for a 100-square-meter apartment for a family is about 5,000 yuan.

His judgment is that this increase in the withdrawal quota for renting and the increase in withdrawal frequency "can cover the actual rental expenditure of a considerable number of families"; the policy covers multiple links of residents' housing consumption, which helps to improve the use efficiency of housing provident fund funds, and further release residents' housing consumption potential by supporting renting, decoration and house maintenance.

Li Yujia also mentioned that this is consistent with the direction proposed by the state to establish an integrated comprehensive platform for housing consumption covering "purchase, rent, decoration and maintenance" to serve the whole life cycle of housing.

Industry analysts believe that the new policy enriches the usage scenarios of the housing provident fund, extends the support chain of housing consumption, improves residents' cash flow and stabilizes their expectations for housing consumption. This year, many regions across the country have continued to optimize the housing provident fund policy, expanding the withdrawal scope and adding new withdrawal scenarios for decoration and property management fees, which is a major trend.

Insiders in the home decoration industry said that the withdrawal for renting and property management fees are small and continuous expenditures, while decoration is a large one-time expenditure. Lifting the restriction on withdrawal for decoration can directly release the consumption capacity of home decoration and drive the upstream and downstream demand of building materials and home furnishing.

On September 20 this year, the *Decision of the State Council on Amending the Regulations on the Administration of Housing Provident Fund* (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") was officially implemented, marking that the usage scenarios of China's housing provident fund have officially expanded from the traditional "exclusive for house purchase" to the whole living chain.

Subsequently, many regions across the country intensively introduced supporting implementation rules. So far, 10 trillion yuan of dormant funds have been gradually awakened.

Statistics show that since 2026, there have been more than 520 optimized policies related to housing provident fund across the country, and expanding the scope of withdrawal and use and adding new withdrawal scenarios for decoration and property management fees are the key focus of various regions.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Leju Finance", written by Wang Min, and published with authorization from 36Kr.