Employer of Record in India: 20 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in India: key facts

India has no single national labour code rate — pay floors, leave and notice are set state by state, so the figures below give the national baseline plus Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu wherever a rule diverges.

Minimum wage

India has no single national minimum wage. The only national figure, an advisory floor of INR 178/day (~INR 4,628/month), was fixed in 2019 and has never been revised; under the Code on Wages, 2019 it’s designed to become legally binding once the Central Government notifies a new floor, but as of 2026-09-30 no new floor had been notified (simpliance.in, checked 2026-09-30). Actual pay floors are set state by state, by zone and skill level.

Karnataka’s 2026 figure isn’t a normal annual increase: the state replaced its old per-category schedule with a uniform 81-scheduled-employment grid, lifting some categories up to roughly 60% in one step (dlapiper.com, checked 2026-09-30). Delhi’s rate has stayed flat since April 2025: the Delhi Labour Department publicly confirmed on 2025-10-14 that a circulating October-2025 wage-revision order was forged, and no genuine 2025 or 2026 revision has followed (teamleaseregtech.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Employer contributions

EPF/EPS, ESI and the statutory bonus all stop applying once pay exceeds their ceiling — an employee who joins above the EPF ceiling is an “excluded employee” for whom EPF membership isn’t statutorily mandatory. An employer may still enrol them voluntarily, usually capped at 12% of the ceiling (up to INR 36,000/year), so check whether an EOR quote includes it.

Working hours and overtime

• Standard hours: 9 hours/day, 48 hours/week under the Factories Act, 1948, mirrored in state Shops & Establishments Acts (ruralindiaonline.org, checked 2026-09-30).
• Overtime: 2x the ordinary rate beyond 9 hours/day or 48 hours/week, carried into the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (bhattandjoshiassociates.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Annual leave and public holidays

• Earned/privileged leave (Karnataka pattern): accrues 1 day per 20 days worked, about 18 days for a full year, carry-forward capped at 30 days (wisemonk.io, checked 2026-09-30).
• Sick leave (Karnataka): 12 days/year, no carry-forward (wisemonk.io, checked 2026-09-30).
• Karnataka has no separate statutory “casual leave” category — it’s employer discretion only (wisemonk.io, checked 2026-09-30).
• Public holidays: only 3 are mandatory nationwide (Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti); states add their own — Karnataka requires at least 10/year (indiankanoon.org, checked 2026-09-30).

Probation

• No general statutory “probation” category or maximum/minimum duration in central law; market-standard contractual probation is 3–6 months (outlookmoney.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, a “fixed-term employee” separately accrues pro-rata statutory benefits — including gratuity after just 1 year — regardless of any contractual probation clause (outlookmoney.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Notice and severance

Collective retrenchment (workman-category employees, Industrial Relations Code, 2020) needs 1 month’s notice under 300 workers, or 3 months plus prior government permission at 300+ workers — raised from a 100-worker threshold before the 2025 reform (ksandk.com, checked 2026-09-30).

• Retrenchment compensation: 15 days’ average pay per completed year of continuous service, workman-category only (businesstoday.in, checked 2026-09-30).
• Gratuity: 15 days’ wages (basic+DA) per completed year of service — after 5 years for permanent staff, or after just 1 year for fixed-term/contract hires since the Labour Codes took effect on 2025-11-21 (businesstoday.in, checked 2026-09-30).

13th salary and bonuses

• Not mandatory anywhere in India (taxmann.com, checked 2026-09-30). The closest analogue is the Payment of Bonus Act’s 8.33–20% minimum bonus, but that only applies below the INR 21,000/month eligibility ceiling — irrelevant at typical EOR salary levels.

Mandatory benefits

• EPF (retirement, mandatory below the EPF ceiling), ESI (medical/sickness/maternity/disability cover, mandatory below its own lower ceiling), gratuity (lump sum on exit) and the statutory bonus below its ceiling (esic.gov.in, checked 2026-09-30).
• No mandated private health or life insurance, though group health cover is de facto market-standard for salaried staff and is typically bundled into EOR packages.

Work permits

• Foreign nationals need an Employment Visa sponsored by the India-based employer, with a minimum salary threshold of USD 25,000/year (mha.gov.in, checked 2026-09-30).
• Visa holders staying over 180 days must register with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) within 14 days of arrival.
• An Employer of Record — as a properly registered Indian entity that is itself the legal employer — can act as the sponsoring employer for an Employment Visa; there’s no rule excluding EORs from sponsorship.

Currency and payroll

• Currency: Indian rupee (INR); the RBI reference rate was about 1 USD = 95.968 INR as of 2026-09-28 (ceicdata.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Monthly pay is universal market practice; under the Payment of Wages Act, wages must be paid before the 7th of the following month (or the 10th for establishments with 1,000+ employees) (labour.gov.in, checked 2026-09-30).

Is Employer of Record legal in India?

Allowed, with a real but manageable risk. No statute names, licenses or separately regulates “Employer of Record” arrangements in India — using a properly registered Indian entity as the legal employer on behalf of a foreign client is a widely used, broadly lawful way to hire without opening a subsidiary. The risk is recharacterization, not a ban: if the arrangement in practice looks like a labour-supply arrangement — the client directs and integrates the worker, the EOR just supplies bodies — rather than genuine employment, it can be pulled into a licensing regime with liability attaching to the client.

• Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (CLRA) applies once an establishment has engaged 20 or more contract workers on any day in the preceding 12 months. The contractor supplying the workers needs a licence; the principal employer (where the work is actually done) must separately register. No 2025/2026 labour code creates a distinct licence category for “Employer of Record” as such — courts apply a control-and-integration test on the facts, not the contract’s label (mondaq.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Misclassification. If a worker is found to be misclassified — treated as an independent contractor while working exclusively, on the client’s schedule and under its direction — authorities can impose back-dated EPF, ESI and gratuity liability plus penalties on whichever entity is the real employer (ahlawatadvisory.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Two client risks follow directly:

• If the EOR/client arrangement is recharacterized as unlicensed contract-labour supply, the client can be treated as principal employer and step into the contractor’s shoes — including wage and social-security shortfalls — under CLRA s.21(4) (mondaq.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Permanent establishment risk. An EOR removes the worker from the client’s own payroll, but it isn’t an automatic tax shield: if the India-based person habitually negotiates or concludes contracts binding the foreign client, or the client otherwise runs a de facto fixed place of business through that person, India can tax the client’s attributable profits — at an effective rate cited around 38.22% for a foreign company — plus PAN/TAN/audit/transfer-pricing compliance and penalties of 100–300% of unpaid tax (asanify.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Who actually employs your hire in India

Vendors describe their entity model globally (“130+ owned entities,” “mixed network”) far more often than they confirm it for India specifically. Here’s what each vendor’s own India-facing page, a Ministry of Corporate Affairs registry record, or independent reporting actually shows:

Five of these 20 don’t say whether India is served by their own entity or a partner’s — Oyster, Papaya Global, RemoFirst, Native Teams and Boundless. That matters because it decides who’s actually on the hook if EPF filings, gratuity payouts or a termination go wrong. Before signing, ask directly: “Can you name the Indian entity that will employ my hire, and is it registered under your own corporate group?” A vendor that answers with a company name and a Ministry of Corporate Affairs registration is a different risk profile from one repeating a global “owned + partner network” line.

How to choose an EOR in India

Need the clearest registry evidence of who’s employing your hire? Deel, Multiplier, RemotePass and Playroll all have an India entity confirmed in the MCA registry, not just a vendor statement.

Bringing in a foreign national who needs a work visa? Any EOR with a genuine Indian entity can sponsor an Employment Visa here — no rule excludes EORs — but the hire still needs to clear the USD 25,000/year salary threshold.

Weighing price against disclosed terms? Skuad’s official list price starts lowest at $199/month; Playroll discloses its refundable one-month-salary deposit upfront rather than leaving the deposit unstated like most others in this set.

Already have an Indian entity and just need payroll compliance? Skuad runs a separate PEO-in-India product alongside its EOR for exactly that case.

What it costs to employ someone in India through an EOR

At the salary levels EOR clients typically hire at in India, cash payroll tax is close to nothing — the real cost driver is an accruing exit liability, not a monthly contribution.

Both salaries sit far above the EPF ceiling (INR 25,000/month from 2026-09-17), the ESI ceiling (INR 21,000/month) and the statutory-bonus eligibility ceiling (INR 21,000/month), so EPF/EPS, ESI and the bonus are all zero — an employee joining at this pay is an “excluded employee” for EPF purposes, meaning EPF membership isn’t statutorily mandatory at all (an employer could still enrol them voluntarily, capped at 12% of the INR 25,000 ceiling, up to INR 36,000/year, but that’s optional and not counted above). Gratuity isn’t a payroll contribution — it’s an accruing exit liability of 15 days’ wages (basic+DA) per completed year of service, shown here as an annual provision rather than a monthly cash outflow. Professional tax (up to INR 2,500/year) is deducted from the employee’s own pay, so it’s excluded from the employer figure above (mercans.com, checked 2026-09-30).

The EOR’s own fee is on top of the above. Published figures in our data range from $99/month (Native Teams’ global list price) to $699/month (Remote and Oyster, also global list). On an India-specific page, Borderless AI states $579/month with no setup fee or deposit, Atlas HXM $599/month, and Remote People a $199–599/month range; G-P quotes a flat $599/month across all 180+ countries it covers, explicitly including India. Most other vendors here — Rivermate, Playroll, RemotePass, Multiplier, Pebl, Safeguard Global, Rippling — publish only a global list price, an unconfirmed range, or nothing at all.

Hidden costs, where actually published: Playroll charges a fully refundable security deposit equal to one month’s salary per employee, on top of its $399/month flat fee. Borderless AI and Justworks both state no setup fee; Playroll and Rivermate state the same for setup and offboarding generally. No vendor in this set discloses a termination fee specifically for India — where a field is blank above, treat it as unpublished, not zero.

Figures assume Karnataka; a different state would change only the Labour Welfare Fund line, since EPF, ESI and the statutory bonus are already zero at these salary levels.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. Cheaper and closer to the real relationship if the person sets their own hours and tools and can serve other clients. See how to pay contractors in India and our hiring guide for the classification factors.
• Your own Indian entity. Makes sense once headcount grows, or where you want full HR control without any CLRA recharacterization exposure at all.
• A PEO. Co-employment alongside an entity you already have, rather than the EOR standing in as sole legal employer. Skuad runs a dedicated PEO-in-India product alongside its EOR; see our PEO glossary entry and EOR vs PEO for how the liability split differs. A related setup, co-employment, splits statutory responsibility between the two parties rather than placing it solely on the EOR.
• Direct hire without any local entity isn’t a lawful option in India the way it is in some jurisdictions — a foreign company can’t run Indian payroll without a registered entity of some kind, whether its own or an EOR’s.

What changed in 2026

• 2025-11-21 — All four Labour Codes brought into force nationally, consolidating 29 prior central labour laws: “wages” redefined so basic+DA must be at least 50% of CTC, the retrenchment/layoff government-permission threshold rises from 100 to 300 workers, and fixed-term/contract employees become eligible for gratuity after just 1 year of service instead of 5.
• 2026-01-07 — Karnataka’s Labour Welfare Fund applicability threshold cut from 50+ employees to 10+, widening which establishments must register and contribute.
• 2026-05-22 — Karnataka notifies a uniform minimum-wage schedule across 81 scheduled employments, effective retroactively from 2026-04-01.
• 2026-07-01 — Maharashtra’s revised zone-wise minimum wage / VDA rates for shops & establishments take effect.
• 2026-09-17 — The EPF/EPS statutory wage ceiling rises from INR 15,000/month to INR 25,000/month (Gazette notification S.O. 5109(E)), expanding mandatory EPF/EPS coverage.
• 2026-11-13 — Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 provisions on “consent managers” take effect.

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

• Deel’s own pages disagree with each other: its blog states 24-hour onboarding against 3 days on its country-hiring page, and cites employer ESI at both 0.75% and 3.25% in different places — the current rate is 3.25% (mercans.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Remote People’s India page states the EPF wage ceiling as “INR 15,000 basic” — the rate that applied before 2026-09-17; the current ceiling is INR 25,000/month.
• Remote’s own India tax table shows employer PF at 0%, inconsistent with the 12% EPF rate the same page describes elsewhere — unresolved on Remote’s own site.

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-09-30, against government and primary sources where reachable (labour codes gazette notifications, state minimum-wage orders) and secondary legal/HR trackers where a primary document was paywalled or blocked. Vendor entity claims were checked against India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs registry (via zaubacorp.com and similar mirrors) where a matching entity could be found; where only a vendor’s own statement exists, this page says so rather than treating it as confirmed. The ranking above puts registry-confirmed entities first, then vendor-claimed entities, then providers that don’t disclose an India entity model at all. Nobody pays for placement on this page.