How to Onboard an Employee in India: Steps and Legal Deadlines

You have chosen a candidate in India and need to know what happens before their first payroll. How to onboard an employee in India follows one fixed sequence. Onboarding employees in India means you choose the legal route and agree the terms. The employer issues the appointment letter and contract, registers the employee for PF and ESI, then runs the first payroll. Skip a step and the start date slips, or a filing gap turns up months later.

Versatile Club is an India-only Employer of Record (EOR). Its Employer of Record (EOR) service employs your hire on its own Indian company, Foo Falcon Technologies Pvt Ltd. With us as the employer, the sequence takes five business days, from the signed service agreement to your hire being active on payroll.

If you lead People Ops and your first India hire starts next month, this page is your map. It lays out every stage in order, what Indian law requires at each one, and the guide that covers it in depth.

How to onboard an employee in India: the sequence at a glance

Stage	What happens	Who acts
Before Day 1	You choose the hiring route, the salary and the start date	Your company
Day 1	Service agreement signed, with the five-day onboarding written into it	Your company and the EOR
Day 2	India-compliant offer letter sent to your candidate	The EOR
Day 3	Employment contract signed with the EOR's Indian company, documents collected	Your hire and the EOR
Day 4	PF, ESI and professional tax started for the employee	The EOR
Day 5	Employee active on payroll	The EOR
Every month after	One USD invoice, a payroll summary, a compliance status, challan confirmations and TDS receipts	The EOR, to you

So the short answer is five business days of onboarding, plus whatever notice your candidate owes a current employer. The five-business-day onboarding guide walks through Days 1 to 5 one at a time, with a dated example.

Before day one: what only you can decide

Before the EOR can start, you settle three things: the route, the salary, and the place and date. Onboarding starts from your decisions, not from a form.

Choose the hiring route

Three routes exist: hire through an Employer of Record, set up your own Indian entity, or engage a contractor. Our comparison of hiring in India without an entity sets the routes side by side. If you're unsure, the hiring option router quiz points to one.

If the person already works for you as a contractor, check the classification first. The misclassification risk quiz flags the warning signs.

Shape the salary

Next comes the salary structure. The wage base for PF follows Basic plus DA, so the split of the offer matters from the start. The CTC offer optimizer helps you shape a structure before Day 2.

Fix the place and the start date

Versatile Club holds registrations across all 28 states, and the India city picker compares hiring cities. The state matters because professional tax follows it. Your candidate may also owe notice to a current employer, and our India notice period data shows what's typical.

Versatile Club's add-a-team-member form with fields for full name, job title, where they will work, city, state for professional tax, preferred start date, personal email, monthly gross salary, and probation and notice. — Every field on this form is a decision you make before Day 1: the role, the state, the start date, the monthly salary and probation. The salary figures shown are sample data.

The five business days

Once you sign, the work moves to us. The service agreement on Day 1 carries the five-day commitment as a contract term, not a target. We send the offer on Day 2, and your hire signs the employment contract with our Indian company on Day 3.

The employment contract guide covers what that contract contains and which clauses Indian law limits. Day 4 starts the statutory registrations, and Day 5 puts your hire on payroll.

What the law says

Four duties under India's labour codes shape the onboarding sequence. Each one falls on the employer, which under an Employer of Record arrangement is the EOR's Indian company, not yours. The Labour Ministry's handbook for employers lists the first of them plainly: "Issue appointment letter to every new recruit".

Duty	Deadline in the law	Instrument
Appointment letter	Before the employee is employed	Central OSH Rules, 2026, rule 6, under OSH Code, section 6(1)(f)
ESI registration	Before or on the first day of employment; the declaration follows within thirty days	Social Security (Central) Rules, 2026, rule 18
PF membership	From the date of joining; new members reported within fifteen days of the month's close	EPF Scheme, 2026, paragraphs 9(2) and 24(2)
First monthly wages	Before the seventh day of the following month ends	Code on Wages, section 17(1)(iv)
Wage slip	On or before the day wages are paid	Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2026, rule 52

An appointment letter before work starts

The OSH Code requires the employer to "issue a letter of appointment to every employee on his appointment in the establishment" (OSH Code, 2020). The Central OSH Rules settle the timing: nobody may be employed until the letter is issued. The rules' format covers designation, date of joining, wages and whether PF and ESI apply. As your Employer of Record, Versatile Club issues the letter as the employer, before your hire's first day. What to check: confirm the letter is issued before your hire's first day, because nobody may be employed until it is.

Government sourceegazette.gov.in

ESI registration on or before the first day

For an employee covered by ESI, the employer must register them "before or on the day of taking any person into employment" (Social Security (Central) Rules, 2026). The portal issues an insurance number straight away, valid for thirty days while the declaration form is completed. ESI covers employees below a wage ceiling, which the ESIC guide explains. What to check: confirm the registration is made on or before your hire's first day of employment.

Government sourcelabour.maharashtra.gov.in

PF membership from the date of joining

Under the EPF Scheme, 2026, a covered employee joins the Fund "from the date of joining the establishment" (EPF Scheme, 2026). The employer uploads the new member's details within fifteen days of the month's close, then files contributions the same way. If your hire can't generate a Universal Account Number (UAN) on the portal, the employer must help them do it. What to do: if your hire is stuck on the UAN, ask the employer to help.

Government sourceegazette.gov.in

First wages and the first wage slip

For a monthly wage period, the Code on Wages requires payment "before the expiry of the seventh day of the succeeding month" (Code on Wages, 2019). The wage slip goes out, on paper or electronically, on or before the day wages are paid. The statutory rates and thresholds reference lists the figures that apply once pay starts. What to check: confirm the first salary and the wage slip are both ready by the day wages are paid.

Government sourcelabour.gov.in

Registrations and documents

Indian law expects paperwork from the employer. In an establishment covered by the OSH Code, the employer must issue a letter of appointment to every employee. The offer and contract both come from Versatile Club as the employer.

Schedule 1 of Versatile Club's master agreement, the India employer of record addendum, describing the written contract and appointment letter each employee receives, the wage structure and the statutory amounts Versatile Club computes. — The appointment letter and contract sit on the EOR's side of the agreement, so the letter the law requires is never left for your team to draft. This is a sample view of the addendum.

Your hire supplies the details that PF needs. The EPF Scheme asks each new member for their Aadhaar number, an Aadhaar-seeded bank account, their PAN and their UAN. A Labour Ministry document also records the direction to activate the UAN through Aadhaar when it is created.

The new hire's What happens next panel, showing their own onboarding steps, document checks by Versatile Club, PF and statutory registration with UAN activation, being added to payroll and the first payday. — Your hire sees the same order you do: documents first, then PF and UAN, then payroll. The dates in this view are sample data, not a promise for your hire.

We start PF, ESI and professional tax on Day 4, under our own registrations. Our ESIC employer registration is published, along with the company's other numbers, on the Indian entity and registrations page. The Provident Fund page covers the PF side in depth.

Clause 6 of Versatile Club's master agreement, headed Compliance, registrations and misclassification protection, listing the shops and establishments, provident fund, employees' state insurance, professional tax, TAN and GST registrations Versatile Club holds. — This clause is why your company needs no Indian registrations of its own to onboard someone. The employer registrations are held in the EOR's name. Sample view of the agreement.

After payroll goes live

Day 5 hands your hire to the monthly cycle. From the first payroll, your hire receives a wage slip each month, as the Code on Wages rules require. Each month we send you:

One USD invoice with a cost breakdown for each employee.
A payroll summary with gross pay, deductions and net pay per employee.
A compliance status showing what's filed and what's coming up.
PF and ESI challan confirmations and TDS deposit receipts.

An employee's payslips list with one row for September 2026, showing gross pay, total deductions, net pay and a Published status. — Each month's wage slip appears for the employee once payroll runs, which is the slip the law requires. The rupee figures are sample data.

The monthly payroll page shows the full run behind those documents. For the PF deposits in particular, the employer PF contribution guide explains the monthly proof. The India payroll compliance calendar lists every recurring deadline after the first month.

Why onboarding employees in India needs a sequence

Onboarding employees in India mixes legal, tax and payroll steps that depend on each other. The contract has to exist before registrations start, and registrations have to start before the first salary carries PF and ESI. Done out of order, a first payroll can run without statutory cover.

A People Ops lead with a first India hire starting next month needs every step visible before it happens. Seeing the sequence in one place makes it plain what's yours to decide, what the EOR does, and on which day. Our guide for HR leaders hiring in India explains how that split works day to day.

A new hire's onboarding checklist, one of nine done, listing personal details, bank account, PAN and Aadhaar copies, UAN, offer letter approval, the signed employment contract, PF enrolment, payroll and company policies. — The nine steps run in a fixed order, so you can see which ones wait on your hire and which wait on the EOR. Sample data.

Guides in this section

Onboard an employee in five business days. What happens on each day, the legal deadlines around it, and how to set a firm start date.

Planned guides on new-joiner documents and registrations, a client onboarding checklist and what can delay onboarding will join this section. Until then, documents you and your employees receive lists every document from offer to exit. For your hire's first week, our playbook to equip remote employees in India covers laptops and access.

How Versatile Club compares for onboarding employees in India

Versatile Club's EOR service employs your hire on its own Indian company and starts PF, ESI and professional tax on Day 4. It also commits to five business days from agreement to payroll. Other providers document parts of that sequence. Versatile Club is the only platform in this table that does all three.

Onboarding steps for employees in India, from each platform's public documentation:

Platform	Hire employed on the provider's own Indian entity	PF and ESI enrollment during onboarding	Fixed business-day count to first payroll
Versatile Club	Yes	Yes	Yes
Deel	Yes (owns its Indian entity)	Yes (registers and remits PF and ESI)	Partly (SLAs shown in an onboarding tracker)
Remote	Yes (contract with Remote's local entity)	Partly (EPF passbook reviewed at onboarding)	Partly (India average, in working days)
Oyster	Partly (own entity in some countries)	Yes (EPF and ESI enrollment is step two)	Not in docs
Rippling	Yes (hires through Rippling EOR's entities)	Yes (registers hires with EPFO and ESIC)	Not in docs

Yes: documented and built in. Partly: documented with a limit, shown in brackets. Not in docs: not found in the vendor's public documentation.

Why Versatile Club is the stronger choice for onboarding employees in India

One count from signature to salary. The onboarding runs five business days, from the Day 1 agreement to Day 5 payroll. Deel's help center shows onboarding SLAs for each stage in a tracker. Compare Versatile Club vs Deel.
Registrations under the employer's own codes. We start PF, ESI and professional tax on Day 4, under our own registrations. Rippling's India guide tells employers to register new hires with EPFO and ESIC. Compare Versatile Club vs Rippling.
The employer is known before Day 1. We name Foo Falcon Technologies Pvt Ltd as the employing company. Oyster's help center says it has established its own entity in some countries. See Oyster alternatives in India.

Competitor details checked against each vendor's public documentation on 23 October 2026. Features and plans change, so confirm with the vendor before you decide.

What goes wrong and what to check

The salary split is settled late. The wage base for PF follows Basic plus DA, so the split of the offer decides what PF is based on. Shape the structure before Day 2.
The notice period is forgotten. The five business days do not include any notice your candidate owes a current employer, so the start date moves later. Ask about notice before you fix the start date.
The steps run out of order. The contract has to exist before registrations start, and registrations have to start before the first salary carries PF and ESI. Otherwise the first payroll can run without statutory cover. Check that the signed contract is in place before Day 4.
The PF details are not ready. The EPF Scheme asks each new member for an Aadhaar number, an Aadhaar-seeded bank account, a PAN and a UAN. Versatile Club collects documents on Day 3, so ask your hire to have these ready then.
The first salary is late. The Code on Wages requires payment before the seventh day of the next month ends. A hire who joins in January is paid for January by 7 February at the latest. Check your payroll date against that deadline.

Common questions

How long does it take to onboard an employee in India?

With Versatile Club as your Employer of Record, five business days from the signed service agreement to your hire being active on payroll. The five days are written into the service agreement. Any notice your candidate owes a current employer comes on top.

What do I need before onboarding starts?

A chosen candidate, a salary, the city your hire will work in and a start date that allows for any notice they owe. Someone at your company also needs to sign the service agreement on Day 1.

Do I need an Indian entity to onboard an employee?

No. Versatile Club's Employer of Record (EOR) service employs your hire on its own Indian company, Foo Falcon Technologies Pvt Ltd. Their filings run under its registrations.

Is an appointment letter mandatory in India?

Yes, in an establishment covered by the OSH Code. The Central OSH Rules say no employee may be employed until the letter is issued. Under an EOR, the offer and contract come from the EOR as the employer.

What documents does a new employee need to provide?

Their PAN, their Aadhaar number, a bank account for salary and their UAN if they already have one from an earlier job. We collect the documents on Day 3, after the contract is signed.

When are PF and ESI set up?

On Day 4. We initiate PF, ESI and professional tax for the employee, so the first payroll on Day 5 already carries them.

When must the first salary be paid?

For a monthly wage period, the Code on Wages requires payment before the seventh day of the next month ends. A hire who joins in January is paid for January by 7 February at the latest.

Can I onboard someone who already works for me as a contractor?

Yes. Contract-to-Hire is one of our established services: a person starts as a contractor and converts to a full-time employee when you're ready. The conversion runs through the same five days.

What do I receive once payroll starts?

One USD invoice with a line per employee, a payroll summary, a compliance status, PF and ESI challan confirmations and TDS deposit receipts, every month.

Who do I contact while onboarding runs?

Reach the team through the Versatile Club contact page. We handle client communication directly.