Employer of Record (EOR) in India
India is the one market we cover where the employer of record fee, not the tax bill, is the largest line in your budget. On a mid-level hire at ₹24 lakh CTC (around USD 28,500 a year), a USD 599 a month platform fee takes roughly 25% of the employee's total compensation before a single statutory contribution lands.
That ratio has no parallel in our other country pages. In Germany the EOR fee is about 7% of total cost. In India it can exceed the employee's monthly take-home pay.
This page is about which EOR provider to use for India and what the local compliance environment will actually do to your costs. It assumes you have already decided that an EOR, rather than your own company, is the right route for now. If you have not made that call yet, the cost-stack comparison sits further down, because in India the break-even against setting up your own company arrives faster than anywhere else we cover.
India EOR: Quick Verdict
Pricing and coverage reviewed June 2026
| Best for | Your first 1 to 3 Indian hires, short pilots, and project roles under 12 months, where speed and compliance coverage matter more than unit cost. |
| Avoid if | You have 5 or more Indian hires planned, or hires across two or more states. At that point your own Private Limited Company pays back its setup cost within weeks. |
| EOR price range | From USD 399/employee/month (India-specific: Gusto, Velocity Global) to USD 599/month (Deel, Remote, standard tier). Multiplier sits near USD 400. |
| Key compliance risk | EPF is calculated on basic salary, not on full CTC. Providers that apply it to total CTC, or that skip the gratuity provision, understate your real cost. |
| Key provider pick | Gusto or Velocity Global for the India-specific rate; Remote where an owned-entity compliance chain has to survive a Legal review. |
| Bottom line | India has the worst EOR fee-to-salary ratio of any market we cover. Use an EOR to move fast on early hires, then plan the exit to your own company before the fee compounds. |
Best EOR Providers in India: The Master List
Our review weighed these providers on three things that decide your India outcome and that the marketing pages do not show: whether they run their own Indian Private Limited Company or route through a local partner, whether they calculate EPF on basic salary rather than full CTC, and how many states they hold Shops and Establishments registrations in. The order below reflects fit for India specifically, not our site-wide ranking.
Two terms to anchor before the list. A Private Limited Company (often written Pvt Ltd) is India's standard private company form, the local equivalent of a UK limited company. EPF is the Employees Provident Fund, the mandatory pension-style savings scheme that we explain in full further down.
Both come up in every provider description because both decide where your compliance risk sits.
India EOR providers worth shortlisting
Gusto
India-specific EOR pricing near USD 399/month. The rate that makes the fee-to-CTC ratio proportionate.
Velocity Global
USD 399/month India rate. Owned Indian entity. Strong on managerial-grade hires.
Deel
USD 599/month on India. Owned Deel India Technologies Pvt Ltd entity. Broadest country coverage.
Remote
USD 599/month. Owned Remote Technology Services India Pvt Ltd. Direct compliance chain, no partner network.
Gusto
Gusto carries the lowest India EOR fee, near USD 399 a month, and it calculates EPF on the basic salary component as the EPF Act requires rather than on full CTC. For a team hiring engineers in Bengaluru or Hyderabad, the USD 200 monthly saving against standard pricing is proportionally larger here than in any other market, because Indian salaries are lower and the fee is a bigger slice of them.
The limitation is reach. Its state coverage concentrates on the major technology hubs. If your hire sits in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city, get written confirmation that Gusto holds Shops and Establishments registration for that state before you sign, rather than assuming the hub coverage stretches.
Velocity Global
Velocity Global pairs the same India-specific rate near USD 399 a month with an owned Indian entity and broader platform reporting, which earns it the managerial-grade slot. If you need India alongside other APAC or Latin American markets on one platform, the consolidation is real.
Treat the USD 399 figure as a rate to confirm at signature, not a permanent tier. Promotional pricing has reverted to standard rates in some markets before, so pin the number in the contract.
Deel
Deel runs its own Indian entity, Deel India Technologies Pvt Ltd, and carries the broadest country coverage of anyone here, which is the reason to pick it. If India is one of fifteen markets you are consolidating onto a single platform, the breadth outweighs the per-hire premium.
For India as a standalone market it is harder to defend. At USD 599 a month with no India-specific tier, Deel is the most expensive option here on a proportional basis, and your procurement team will see the gap against Gusto over twelve months.
Remote.com
Remote employs through its owned Remote Technology Services India Pvt Ltd entity, which keeps the compliance chain inside Remote's own legal structure rather than a partner's. That is the cleanest answer to the legal-grey-area question we cover below, and it is the provider that survives a board-level concern about EOR legal basis most easily.
It costs for that certainty. At USD 599 a month with no India rate, Remote sits USD 200 above Gusto or Velocity Global, and over a year on several hires that is a line your Finance team will challenge.
Multiplier
Multiplier runs owned APAC entities including India and prices near USD 400 a month, which makes it the value option with genuine regional depth. Its Indian payroll handling is sound and the APAC strength is real if your hiring map is Asia-weighted.
The trade-off is that India is one market inside an APAC-first platform. If India is your only Asian hire, confirm the specific state registrations rather than relying on the regional footprint to cover your hire's location.
What Is an Employer of Record in India?
An employer of record (EOR) is a company that legally employs your worker on your behalf. The EOR's Indian Private Limited Company becomes the named employer on the contract, runs payroll, and files every statutory return, while your hire reports to you and does your work day to day. You get a working employee in India without opening your own company there.
We have read provider contracts, EPFO and ESIC documentation, and the relevant central statutes to map what the Indian version of this actually carries. In India the EOR takes on more moving parts than in most markets, because the compliance stack is split across central law and each individual state.
The practical effect for you is that the EOR absorbs a registration and filing burden you would otherwise need an Indian chartered accountant and a resident director to carry. That is most of what you are paying the fee for. When the fee looks high against the salary, this is the work it covers.
How Does an EOR Work in India Under the Contract Labour Act?
India has no single statute that defines or licenses the employer of record model. We checked this against the central labour statutes directly, and there is no Indian equivalent of a German hiring-out licence or the UK Agency Workers Regulations. The arrangement rests on ordinary contract law plus a reading of one older Act.
That makes India different from every other market on our site, and it changes what you should ask a provider for. The detail below is the part your Legal team will want before they sign anything.
Why EOR Relies on the Contract Labour Act in India
The legal scaffolding for EOR in India is usually traced to the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970. That Act governs the supply of workers through an intermediary, originally aimed at contractor-style staffing in factories and core production work, not at salaried engineers.
Because the fit is interpretive rather than purpose-built, the quality of the provider's Indian legal opinion matters more than its marketing. This is not a reason to avoid EOR. Every major provider operates in India and the model is widely used.
It is a reason to ask for the counsel opinion in writing, because that document, not the master services agreement, is what survives a Legal sign-off.
Why the Owned-Entity Question Is Non-Negotiable
The single most useful thing you can establish is whether the provider employs your hire through its own Indian Private Limited Company or through a local partner. With an owned entity, the compliance exposure stays inside the company you signed with.
With a partner model, the Contract Labour Act exposure runs through a counterparty you never contracted with directly. Ask for the legal name of the Indian Private Limited that appears on the employment contract and its Corporate Identification Number (CIN), the registration number every Indian company carries, then cross-check it on the government MCA portal at mca.gov.in before signature.
Why CTC Trips Up First-Time Buyers
Indian salaries are quoted as CTC, short for Cost to Company. CTC is the whole package: basic salary (usually only 40 to 50% of the total), house rent allowance, special allowances, the employer's EPF contribution, and sometimes a gratuity line. It is not basic salary and it is not take-home pay.
This matters because EPF and gratuity are both calculated on basic salary, not on CTC. When a candidate says ₹24 lakh, the EPF base on a 50% basic split is ₹12 lakh, not ₹24 lakh, which is why the headline 12% EPF rate works out closer to 6% of CTC in cash. Get the basic-to-allowance split into the offer letter, because if you model contributions off the full CTC your budget is wrong from day one.
Why Each State Is Its Own Compliance Unit
Most day-to-day employment terms in India are set by the state, not the centre, through each state's Shops and Establishments Act. That Act governs working hours, leave, holidays, and registration for office-based employment, and it differs from one state to the next.
So a Karnataka-based engineer and a Maharashtra-based engineer on the same EOR can sit under different leave ladders and different professional-tax rules. Each state where you have a hire is a separate compliance unit, and a remote worker can trigger a registration requirement in their own state. Confirm the EOR holds the registration for the state your hire actually works from.
EOR vs Setting Up a Private Limited Company in India
The maths runs harder against EOR in India than almost anywhere else, for one reason: setting up your own Private Limited Company is genuinely cheap here, while the platform fee is large against local salaries. The result is the lowest entity break-even of any market we cover.
Registering a Private Limited Company costs roughly USD 600 to USD 2,400 (₹50,000 to ₹200,000) and takes two to four weeks through the government MCA online portal. You need at least two directors, one of whom must be resident in India, and an Indian chartered accountant on retainer for the monthly and annual filings.
Run the arithmetic on a seven-person team over five years. On EOR at USD 599 a month that is around USD 252,000. Your own company runs the USD 600 to USD 2,400 setup plus roughly USD 8,000 a year in accountant, registrar, and payroll run-rate, totalling around USD 25,000 to USD 40,000 over the same period.
The crossover happens inside the first six months at any meaningful headcount.
The reason EOR still wins at one to three hires is the resident-director requirement and the monthly registrar and accountant cycle. Neither scales down to a single hire usefully, and the EOR absorbs both at no extra fee.
So the model holds for a small pilot even when the per-hire fee looks indefensible on a spreadsheet. Below four hires, the EOR is buying you a director and an accountant you do not yet need to recruit. At five or more, you are renting them at a steep markup.
What Does It Cost to Hire in India Through an EOR?
India is the market where you must hold two numbers apart: the EOR fee, and the total employment cost. They are not the same, and here the fee is usually the bigger of the two, which inverts the pattern of every other country we cover.
Statutory employer cost on top of CTC lands at roughly 13 to 17% on a ₹24 lakh hire, around ₹300,000 to ₹408,000 a year. The EOR fee of USD 399 to USD 599 a month then sits on top of that, and at the higher rate it alone is about 25% of CTC. Provider selection therefore moves your total cost more in India than in any market where statutory contributions dominate the bill.
Employer Social Security Contributions
The mandatory employer costs break down as follows. The percentages are deceptively small until you remember most of them apply to basic salary, not CTC.
- EPF, the Employees Provident Fund. A mandatory retirement-savings scheme. The employer pays 12% of basic salary, roughly ₹144,000 a year on a ₹24 lakh hire, plus about 1.6% of basic in EDLI insurance and admin charges that quick quotes often drop. Each employee gets a portable Universal Account Number (UAN) that follows them between employers.
- ESI, the Employees State Insurance. A state health-insurance scheme funded at 3.25% of gross wages, but only for employees earning under ₹21,000 a month. Most mid-level professional hires sit above that threshold and never trigger it, so it lands mainly on junior and support roles.
- Gratuity. A lump-sum loyalty payment of 15 days of basic salary per year of service, accruing at roughly 4.81% of basic, around ₹57,720 a year. It is owed only after five years of continuous service, but you must provision for it from year one. We explain the cliff below.
- Professional Tax. A small state-level tax on employment income, capped around ₹200 a month (about ₹2,400 a year) in the states that levy it. Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal charge it. Delhi and Uttar Pradesh do not.
- Labour Welfare Fund. A nominal state contribution, often ₹20 to ₹60 per employee per year. Trivial in cash, but flagged in any first Shops and Establishments inspection, so it is worth confirming the EOR remits it.
The trap is the base. A ₹24 lakh CTC with basic set at 50% gives an EPF base of ₹12 lakh, so the 12% headline rate costs about 6% of CTC in real cash. Apply the rate to the wrong base and you over- or under-state the bill materially.
EOR Fees and What They Usually Include
Standard EOR pricing for India is USD 599 a month from Deel and Remote. The India-specific rate is USD 399 from Gusto and Velocity Global, with Multiplier near USD 400. The difference is USD 2,400 a year per employee, so on five hires the India rate saves USD 12,000 a year.
The fee should cover EPF, ESI where applicable, TDS (Tax Deducted at Source, the Indian pay-as-you-earn income-tax withholding), professional tax, gratuity provisioning, and a contract compliant with the relevant state Shops and Establishments Act. The line to check is gratuity. A quote that gives you statutory contributions but no gratuity provision is a placeholder, not a budget.
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EOR Fee Comparison
Compare total employment costs across EOR providers for Indian hiring
Hidden Costs to Ask About
Three costs go missing from fast quotes. The EDLI and EPF admin charges at about 1.6% of basic are routinely dropped, so confirm both lines are in. The gratuity provision is the second, and skipping it is how a ₹290,000 liability arrives unfunded in year five.
The third is professional tax, which changes by state if your hire relocates mid-year.
The number that survives a CFO's post-hire review is the all-in monthly figure: platform fee plus EPF plus ESI if it applies plus accrued gratuity plus any 13th-month bonus the offer letter promised. Build that figure for the specific city you are hiring in, not a national average, because the basic split, the professional-tax line, and the leave ladder all flex by state. That single piece of work removes most of the budget surprises that surface three months later.
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Employer Cost Burden Calculator
Model the full statutory burden on an Indian hire before you sign
India Employment Law Every EOR Buyer Should Understand
India does not have one Employment Act. We mapped the rules across the central statutes and the state layer, and the picture is a stack: central laws like the EPF Act, the ESI Act, the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972, and the Industrial Disputes Act 1947, all sitting under each state's Shops and Establishments Act, with the new Labour Codes layering on top as they roll out.
You do not need to administer any of this yourself through an EOR. But you need to know which rules can become your problem, because several of them do not stay neatly inside the provider's remit.
Employment Contracts and Probation Periods
There is no statutory cap on probation, so contracts commonly set three to six months. Extending it unilaterally beyond six months invites a reclassification challenge, where an employee argues they are effectively permanent and entitled to the protections that brings.
The EOR issues the contract on its own entity, which means its default template, often a global standard, may not match the Indian norm on items like paternity leave. Read the template against local practice before it goes to your hire, rather than after.
Paid Leave and Public Holidays
Earned leave runs 15 to 21 days a year and varies by state, usually with separate sick and casual leave on top, though IT firms commonly bundle the lot into a single 18 to 24 day pool. Public holidays run 10 to 15 a year, of which three are national: Republic Day, Independence Day, and Gandhi Jayanti.
Because the leave ladder is state-set, your Bangalore and Mumbai hires can carry different entitlements on identical contracts. Confirm the EOR is applying the correct state's ladder to each hire, not a single house default.
Sick Pay and Parental Leave
Statutory sick pay flows through the ESI scheme, so it only reaches employees earning under ₹21,000 a month. Above that threshold, sick pay is whatever the contract grants, typically 7 to 12 days in IT roles, so check the EOR template covers it for your above-threshold hires.
Maternity leave is the one to watch. The Maternity Benefit Act, as amended in 2017, requires 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, paid by the employer, for firms with 10 or more employees, with a crèche obligation at 50. There is no central paternity-leave right, so anything from 5 to 15 days is contractual and the EOR's global default may not match what your Indian peers offer.
Termination Rules and Notice Periods
Termination splits on one classification, and it is the sharpest cliff on this market. The Industrial Disputes Act 1947 separates a "workman", broadly a non-managerial, technical, or clerical employee, from a managerial or supervisory employee, and the split is decided by the facts of the role and pay, not the job title.
For a workman, retrenchment needs one to three months notice or pay in lieu plus retrenchment compensation of 15 days average pay per year of service, and establishments with 100 or more workmen need government approval first, which is slow and uncertain. For a managerial employee, notice is contractual at one to three months with no statutory severance beyond gratuity. Most foreign hires sit on the managerial side, which is far cleaner, but misclassifying a workman role as managerial does not survive an Industrial Tribunal claim, so verify it at offer stage with Indian counsel.
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Severance & Notice Estimator
Estimate notice and retrenchment exposure for an Indian termination
The Gratuity Five-Year Cliff and the Labour Codes
Gratuity vests at exactly five years of continuous service under the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972, at 15 days of basic per year, capped at ₹2 million. The cliff is the trap: an employee at 4 years 11 months generates zero liability, and an employee at exactly 5 years generates the full balance, around ₹290,000 on a ₹24 lakh CTC. The fix is to provision from year one as an accrued liability, because the cash is real even though it does not feel real before year three.
Layered on top are the four Labour Codes, India's consolidation of 29 central laws into the Wage, Industrial Relations, Occupational Safety, and Social Security Codes. They are notified but roll out state by state, so the rules a given hire sits under depend on their state. The headline change is a redefinition of wages that forces basic to be at least 50% of total pay, which lifts the EPF and gratuity base and can raise effective employer cost by an estimated 5 to 12% on current CTC structures.
Model the higher-basic scenario into your 2026 and 2027 plans now.
How to Choose the Best EOR Provider for India
We weigh four questions when ranking India providers, and they sort the field faster than price does. Run them in order and the shortlist usually settles itself.
Owned Entity vs Partner Model
This is the first filter, because India's legal grey area makes it load-bearing. An owned Indian entity keeps the Contract Labour Act exposure inside the company you signed with. A partner model puts a counterparty you never contracted with into the compliance chain.
Remote and Deel run owned Indian Private Limited Companies; Velocity Global and Multiplier operate owned APAC entities including India. Where Legal has raised the grey-area question, the owned-entity providers answer it cleanly and the partner-model ones add a step you have to diligence yourself.
Local Compliance Depth vs Global Coverage
Breadth and depth are different products here. Deel's 150-plus country coverage is the reason to pick it if India is one of many markets. But for India specifically, what matters is how many of India's states the provider actually holds registrations in.
A provider strong on global coverage can still be thin on Tier 2 and Tier 3 Indian states. If your hire is outside Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, or the Delhi region, the depth question beats the coverage claim every time.
Payroll Accuracy, Support and Liability
The accuracy test that separates providers is whether EPF is computed on basic salary or on full CTC. Applying it to CTC overstates the contribution and signals a payroll engine that does not understand the Indian base. Ask the provider to show the calculation, not describe it.
On liability, read what the contract's cap actually covers. Many platforms limit it to fees paid rather than to a statutory penalty, so a gratuity or EPF shortfall can still land on you. That is the clause your Finance team should read before the price.
Questions to Ask Before Signing
Four questions cut through the marketing. What is the legal name and CIN of the Indian Private Limited on the employment contract, and can I verify it on the MCA portal? Which states do you hold Shops and Establishments registrations in?
The other two are about money. Do you calculate EPF on basic or CTC, and will you show me? And does your fee include gratuity provisioning, EDLI, and admin charges, or are those extra?
A provider that answers all four plainly has thought the structure through. One that deflects to marketing has not, and that is the signal you take into the procurement meeting.
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Before I let an India EOR onto a shortlist, I ask for one document: the provider's Indian counsel opinion on Contract Labour Act applicability, naming the Pvt Ltd and its CIN. India is the only market we cover where the EOR model rests on contractual interpretation, not statute, so that memo is what survives Legal sign-off, not the master services agreement.
If the provider routes through a partner instead of an owned entity, the exposure runs through a company you never signed with. And if a vendor claims a "fully compliant Indian operation" but cannot produce the opinion, I treat the claim as marketing, not assurance.
In my assessment, that single question separates the four providers we shortlist for India from the wider pool claiming Indian coverage.
Which EOR in India Is Best for Your Business?
We match providers to the situation you are actually in, because the right answer for a two-person pilot is the wrong answer for a funded APAC build. Here is how the field sorts.
Best for Startups
Gusto, pushing for the USD 399 India rate. For one to three early hires where every USD 200 a month matters against a low Indian salary, the lowest fee with EPF computed correctly on basic is the right call. You get operational in days without a resident director.
Best for Enterprise
Velocity Global or Deel. Velocity Global pairs the India rate with the enterprise reporting a larger Finance function expects; Deel earns the slot when India is one node in a 10-plus country consolidation and a single platform is worth the premium. Both give you the audit trail a board will ask to see.
Best for APAC-First Hiring
Multiplier. If India sits inside an Asia-weighted hiring map, its owned APAC entities and regional depth make it the value pick, near USD 400 a month. Confirm the specific Indian state registrations if India is your only Asian hire rather than one of several.
Best for Compliance-Led Teams
Remote. When the legal grey area is a board-level concern, Remote's owned Indian entity gives the cleanest compliance chain and the easiest answer to the question Legal raises first. You pay USD 200 a month over the India rate for that certainty, and where a misclassification finding would be material, that is a defensible line.
FAQs About Employer of Record in India
Is EOR legal in India?
Yes, in practice. India has no specific statute that defines or licenses the employer of record model, so the arrangement rests on ordinary contract law and on a reading of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970, which governs the supply of workers through an intermediary.
Every major provider operates in India and the model is widely used. The grey area does not make EOR illegal. It means the legal basis is less precisely defined than in Germany or the UK, so the quality of your provider's Indian legal structure matters more.
Before signing, ask for the provider's India counsel opinion, the legal name of the Indian Private Limited Company that employs your hire, and its CIN on the MCA portal.
How long can you use an EOR in India?
There is no statutory time limit on using an EOR in India. The practical limit is cost, not law. Because the platform fee is large against Indian salaries and your own company is cheap to register, the economics turn against EOR faster here than in any market we cover.
The break-even against setting up your own Private Limited Company arrives at around four to five hires, and within weeks at five or more. Most teams use an EOR for the first one to three hires, then plan the transition before the fee compounds.
How much does an EOR cost in India?
EOR fees run from USD 399 a month (the India-specific rate from Gusto and Velocity Global, with Multiplier near USD 400) to USD 599 a month (Deel and Remote, standard tier). On a ₹24 lakh CTC hire, the USD 599 fee alone is about 25% of total compensation, the highest fee-to-salary ratio of any market we cover.
On top of the fee sits statutory employer cost of roughly 13 to 17% of CTC, mainly EPF, accrued gratuity, professional tax, and the labour welfare fund. The all-in figure to budget is platform fee plus statutory contributions plus the gratuity provision, modelled for the specific state your hire works from.
Do you need a Private Limited Company to hire employees in India?
No. Hiring through an EOR is precisely the route that lets you employ people in India without your own company, because the EOR's Indian Private Limited Company is the legal employer.
You would set up your own Private Limited Company when the headcount justifies it. That requires at least two directors, one resident in India, costs roughly USD 600 to USD 2,400 to register, takes two to four weeks, and brings an ongoing chartered-accountant and filing burden.
The decision is rarely whether to set up your own company eventually, but when. In India that crossover comes early, at around four to five hires.
What is the difference between EOR and PEO in India?
An EOR is the legal employer of your worker in India, so it carries the statutory liability, the EPF and ESI registrations, and the contract. You get an employed worker without your own Indian entity.
A PEO, or professional employer organisation, operates as a co-employment model that assumes you already have your own Indian entity. It shares HR and payroll administration with you, but the statutory employer is still your company, so the compliance liability stays with you.
For a foreign company with no Indian entity, EOR is the relevant model. PEO-style co-employment becomes useful only after you have set up your own Private Limited Company.
When does gratuity vest, and how should I provision for it?
Gratuity vests at exactly five years of continuous service under the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972, at 15 days of basic salary per year, capped at ₹2 million. Vesting is a cliff: an employee at 4 years 11 months generates zero liability, and one at exactly 5 years generates the full balance, around ₹290,000 on a ₹24 lakh CTC.
The right answer is to provision from year one as an accrued liability, at roughly 4.81% of basic a month. We have seen teams skip the provision in years one to three because nobody had vested, then book the full liability against operating expense in year four, breaching the budget at the worst moment.
Check that your EOR's fee actually includes gratuity provisioning, not just the statutory contribution lines.
Why is EPF calculated on basic salary and not CTC?
The EPF Act sets the contribution base as basic salary plus dearness allowance, not the full Cost to Company package. Because basic is usually only 40 to 50% of CTC in Indian compensation structures, the 12% headline rate works out closer to 6% of CTC in cash.
This matters when you compare providers. A payroll engine that applies EPF to total CTC overstates the contribution and signals it does not understand the Indian base, while one that skips EDLI and admin charges understates it. Ask the provider to show the calculation against the basic component.
The Labour Codes will eventually force basic to be at least 50% of total pay, which raises the EPF and gratuity base, so model that scenario before it reaches your state.
Final Verdict: When Does an EOR Make Sense in India?
An EOR solves a real problem in India: it gets you a compliant hire in days, in a market where EPF, ESI, gratuity, professional tax, and the state Shops and Establishments stack are genuinely hard to run without local expertise and a resident director. For your first one to three hires, a short pilot, or any project role under twelve months that never reaches the gratuity cliff, it is the right tool, and the India-specific USD 399 rate from Gusto or Velocity Global keeps the fee proportionate.
What it does not solve is the cost compounding. The threshold is sharp here: at four to five hires, or any hire across a second state, your own Private Limited Company pays back its setup cost within weeks, and from then on the platform fee is money you are no longer obliged to spend. India is the market where the exit plan should be in the procurement deck on day one, not improvised in year two.
So the clear call is this. Use an EOR to move, pick the owned-entity provider whose counsel opinion survives your Legal review, pin the India rate in the contract, and set the headcount trigger, five hires, at which you switch to your own company before the fee outruns the value.
Methodology and disclosure
Whichapp is an independent comparison site. We do not sell EOR, payroll, or contractor services. This page reviewed five providers for India on entity structure, EPF calculation basis, and state-level compliance coverage, grounded in the central statutes named above and our cross-provider pricing analysis.
Provider links may include affiliate referrals, which never affect our assessments or ordering. This page is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Pricing and promotional rates change, so confirm the current figure at the point of contract. Consult an Indian chartered accountant or employment lawyer for guidance on a specific hire.
Last reviewed: June 2026Already have a local entity in India? See our guide to payroll in India.
Already have a local entity in India? See our guide to payroll in India.