At a glance
| In force from | Laws replaced | Codes | Central Rules | State rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 November 2025 | 29 central labour laws | Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions | Notified May 2026 | Several states yet to finalise |
What changed on 21 November 2025
All four labour codes took effect on that date. Between them they subsume 29 central labour laws, so the Factories Act, the Contract Labour Act, the Payment of Wages Act, the Minimum Wages Act, the Industrial Disputes Act, the EPF Act and the ESI Act no longer stand as separate enactments.
The design intent is fewer filings: a single registration, a single licence and a single return in place of the separate ones each old Act required.
What has not changed is the substance of what you owe your employees. Provident fund, insurance, gratuity, wages, hours and safety all survive inside the codes. What changed is where the provision lives, what the thresholds are, and which portal you use.
The four codes in plain words
Code on Wages, 2019
Wages, minimum wages, payment and deductions, bonus and equal remuneration. It gives every worker a statutory right to a minimum wage and provides for a national floor wage below which no state minimum wage may fall. It also makes timely payment of wages a statutory duty.
The floor wage amount has not been notified yet. Until it is, your state's minimum wage notification for the relevant skill category is the number to use. Ask us for the current rate for your state before you fix a salary structure.
Industrial Relations Code, 2020
Trade unions, standing orders, notice of change, layoff, retrenchment and closure, and dispute resolution. This is the code that governs how you change service conditions and how you end employment, and it recognises fixed-term employment as a category.
Code on Social Security, 2020
Provident fund, pension, insurance, gratuity, maternity benefit, employees' compensation and the new benefits for gig and platform workers. Two changes matter to most employers:
- Gratuity for fixed-term employees after one year of service, instead of five.
- Gig and platform workers. An aggregator contributes between 1 and 2 percent of its turnover towards the social security of gig and platform workers, capped at 5 percent of the amounts paid to those workers.
Employees' State Insurance now applies across the country. It is voluntary for an establishment with fewer than 10 employees, and compulsory even with one employee where a hazardous process is carried on.
Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020
Registration of establishments, licensing, working hours, leave, welfare facilities, safety, and contract and migrant labour. It repeals 13 central Acts, including the Factories Act, 1948, the Mines Act, 1952 and the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970.
Two provisions come up in almost every review: the written appointment letter for every employee, and a free annual health check-up for workers above 40. The contract labour chapter is covered on our contract labour licence page.
What the codes changed for every employer
Whatever your size or sector, these apply.
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Written appointment letter for every employee | Issue one to every worker, including workers already on the rolls when the codes commenced, within three months of commencement. See offer letter and appointment letter drafting |
| Statutory minimum wage and timely payment | A right for every worker, with the national floor wage as the eventual base. Pay on time as a matter of law, not policy |
| Gratuity for fixed-term employees after one year | Price it into fixed-term contracts and budget the provision |
| Free annual health check-up for workers above 40 | Build it into the annual HR calendar |
| ESI across the country | Voluntary below 10 employees, compulsory with one employee in a hazardous process |
| Single registration, licence and return | Fewer filings, but only once the rules that apply to you are in place |
The Central Rules of May 2026
The Central Government notified final rules under all four codes in May 2026. They apply to establishments in the central sphere, and in practice they also set the pattern that state rules follow. The points employers ask about most:
- Overtime is paid at not less than twice the normal rate of wages, and professional commentary on the rules puts a quarterly cap of 144 hours on overtime.
- A Grievance Redressal Committee is required where there are 20 or more workers.
- Crèche facilities are required at 50 or more employees.
- Registration of an establishment is made electronically, on the Shram Suvidha portal.
- The national floor wage has still not been notified.
We treat these as the working position and confirm the exact rule reference for your establishment before you rely on any of them, because the rules differ between the central sphere and the states.
State rules: what is still awaited
This is the part most pages skip. Labour is a subject on which both the Centre and the states make rules, and several states have not finalised their rules under the codes. A Big Four alert on the Central Rules put it plainly: while several states are yet to finalise their corresponding State Rules, organisations under central government jurisdiction may need to ensure compliance immediately.
What that means in practice:
- If you are in the central sphere, the Central Rules are your reference and you should already be compliant.
- If you are a state-sphere establishment in a state that has notified its rules, follow those.
- If your state has not notified rules, the code applies but the procedural detail, the forms and some thresholds are not settled. Keep the old registers and returns running, do not dismantle anything, and document the position you took.
We check the position for every state you operate in as the first step of a review, and we tell you where the answer is "not settled yet" rather than inventing one.
Registrations an employer needs
Which of these you need depends on headcount, state and activity. A review settles it in one pass.
| Registration | When it comes up | Our page |
|---|---|---|
| Establishment registration under the OSH Code | Registration is required for an establishment with 10 or more employees, applied for electronically | This page; we file it |
| Shop and establishment registration | State-level, for commercial establishments; still the practical starting point in most states | Shop and establishment registration |
| Trade licence | Municipal, activity and premises based | Trade licence |
| Provident fund | Employer registration and monthly contribution | PF registration |
| Employees' State Insurance | Employer registration and monthly contribution | ESIC registration |
| Professional tax | State levy on employers and employees | Professional tax return |
| Contract labour | Principal employer registration and contractor licence | Contract labour licence |
| POSH | Internal Committee, policy and annual report | POSH compliance |
Registers, records and the appointment letter
The codes and rules keep the register-and-return structure of the old Acts, in a consolidated form. In a review we build and then maintain the following set.
- Employee register, with the details each rule prescribes for your establishment
- Attendance and hours record, including overtime hours, because the overtime rate and the quarterly cap both work off it
- Wage register and wage slips, tied to the salary structure and the minimum wage for the state and skill category
- Appointment letters for every employee, issued and acknowledged
- Leave record, on the basis applicable to your establishment
- Statutory deduction records: provident fund, insurance, professional tax and tax deducted at source. For employees who leave, see PF withdrawal
- Committee records: the Grievance Redressal Committee where you have 20 or more workers, and the POSH Internal Committee where the POSH Act applies
- Contractor records, where you engage contract labour through a contractor
Retention periods and the exact register formats depend on the rules applicable to your establishment. We confirm both for your state before we hand the set over.
Your compliance calendar
These are the recurring dates we can state with confidence today. Code-specific returns depend on the rules that apply to your establishment, so we add them to your calendar once we have confirmed them for your state.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Within 15 days of the end of each month | Provident fund contribution and the electronic challan-cum-return |
| Within 15 days of the last day of the calendar month | Employees' State Insurance contribution |
| Monthly or as your state prescribes | Professional tax payment and return |
| Quarterly | Tax deducted at source on salary, and the salary return. See TDS filing |
| Annually | Form 16 to employees, gratuity provision review, and the health check-up for workers above 40 |
| Each calendar year | POSH annual report by the Internal Committee to the employer and the District Officer |
| As and when | New joiner and exit records, appointment letters, and any change in establishment particulars |
Track all of it on our compliance calendar.
What we do
A review first, then the fixes, then the running work.
- Applicability map. We list every location, headcount, activity and contractor engagement, and mark which code and which rules apply to each.
- Gap report. We compare what you have against what applies, and give you a written gap list with the risk on each item.
- Registrations. We file the registrations that are missing and correct the ones with wrong particulars.
- Documents. We draft or fix the appointment letters, wage structure, leave policy and committee constitutions.
- Registers. We set up the register and record set, in the format your state prescribes, and train whoever will maintain it.
- Running compliance. Monthly provident fund, insurance, professional tax and salary tax deduction, with the annual items on a calendar.
What we need from you
- List of locations with headcount at each, including contract and fixed-term workers
- Current salary structure and a sample payslip
- Existing registrations: shop and establishment, provident fund, insurance, professional tax, trade licence
- Current appointment letter or employment contract template
- Contractor agreements, where you engage contract labour
- Any inspection notice, show cause notice or outstanding demand
- Existing registers, in whatever form you keep them
Fees
Our professional fee for a labour compliance review is on quote after a free review, because the scope depends on how many locations and workers you have and how much already exists. Government fees, where a registration carries one, are paid at actuals and depend on the state.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Regikart professional fee: labour compliance review and gap report | Fee on quote after a free review |
| Registrations, document drafting and monthly compliance | Quoted on scope after the review |
| Government fees | At actuals, state-specific. We do not publish state fee figures we have not verified |
| Related services with a confirmed fee | POSH compliance set-up from ₹9,499; ESIC return filing from ₹1,499 a month |
Professional fees exclude GST at 18%. Government fees, where they apply, are paid at actuals to the department and are shown separately. Fees verified on 27 September 2026.
Where employers are exposed right now
These are the gaps we find in almost every first review since the codes commenced.
- No written appointment letter for staff who joined before the codes commenced.
- Fixed-term contracts priced without gratuity, on the old five-year assumption.
- A single registration treated as covering every location, when each location has its own position.
- Contract workers counted out of the headcount, which changes several thresholds.
- No Grievance Redressal Committee at 20 or more workers.
- Overtime paid at the normal rate, or overtime hours never recorded, so the quarterly cap cannot be evidenced.
- Registers dismantled early because "the codes replaced all that", in a state that has not notified its rules.
- Salary structures built to minimise contributions, without checking them against the wage definition in the codes.
- No health check-up for workers above 40.
Why employers use Regikart
Labour compliance sits between payroll, company law and state administration. We work in all three.
- Reviewed by a Chartered Accountant, with the payroll and tax side handled by the same team.
- A written gap report, so you can see the risk and decide what to fix first, rather than buying a subscription.
- Every connected service in one place: payroll services, PF registration, ESIC registration, professional tax, POSH compliance, shop and establishment registration and contract labour licence.
- We tell you what is not settled. Where a state has not notified rules, we say so and document the position you took.
- 250+ clients served from Kolkata, Delhi and Bengaluru.