Labour codes compliance checklist for employers after 21 November 2025

What replaced what?

The Government made the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 effective from 21 November 2025, rationalising 29 central labour laws. The Ministry of Labour and Employment's compliance handbook for employers maps them as follows:

• Code on Wages, 2019: the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.
• Industrial Relations Code, 2020: the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.
• Code on Social Security, 2020: nine laws, including the EPF and ESI Acts, the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 and the Employee's Compensation Act, 1923.
• Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020: thirteen laws, including the Factories Act, 1948, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996.

Do the old Acts and state rules still matter?

Yes, for now. The Government's release of 21 November 2025 said that during the transition, the relevant provisions of the existing labour Acts and their rules, regulations, notifications, standards and schemes continue in force. Much of the operational detail — forms, registers, return formats, minimum wage rates — sits in rules that the appropriate government makes under each Code.

For most private establishments the appropriate government is the state, and states are at different stages with their own rules. The Ministry's handbook expressly covers only establishments for which the Central Government is the appropriate government. So this checklist describes what the Codes themselves require; how and on which form you discharge each item at a given site depends on that state's rules.

How does the 50% wages rule change salary structures?

Section 2(y) of the Code on Wages defines wages as basic pay, dearness allowance and retaining allowance, and lists exclusions: among them house rent allowance, conveyance, statutory bonus, employer pension and provident fund contributions, overtime and commission. The first proviso is the one that changes payroll. If the excluded payments in clauses (a) to (i) exceed one-half of all remuneration, or such other percentage as the Central Government notifies, the excess is deemed to be wages.

The Code on Social Security, 2020 carries the same definition and the same proviso in section 2(88), and that is the Code under which provident fund contributions and gratuity are computed. A cost-to-company structure built on a low basic and a large allowance pool will therefore produce a higher wage base for those calculations than the payslip suggests.

• Model every salary band: excluded components as a share of total remuneration.
• Where exclusions exceed 50%, recompute the wage base for provident fund and gratuity on the deemed figure.
• Note the second proviso: conveyance, HRA, award or settlement amounts and overtime count as wages for equal pay and payment of wages, even though they are excluded otherwise.
• Remuneration in kind given in lieu of wages counts as wages only up to 15% of total wages.

What changes for fixed-term employees?

Section 2(o) of the Industrial Relations Code defines fixed term employment as engagement on a written contract for a fixed period, with three conditions: hours, wages, allowances and other benefits no less than a permanent worker doing the same or similar work; all statutory benefits available to a permanent worker, proportionate to the period served, even if the period does not reach the statute's qualifying period; and eligibility for gratuity after one year of service under the contract.

The Social Security Code mirrors this. Section 53 makes gratuity payable on the termination of a contract period under fixed term employment, waives the five-year qualifying service where the termination is due to expiry of fixed term employment, and requires the employer to pay a fixed-term employee's gratuity on a pro rata basis. The Ministry's handbook summarises it as gratuity payable to a fixed-term employee after one year of service, within thirty days of becoming payable.

• Use a written contract for every fixed-term engagement, with the period stated.
• Benchmark fixed-term pay and benefits against the comparable permanent role.
• Accrue gratuity for fixed-term staff from the first year, not the fifth.

What are the new wage payment deadlines?

Section 17 of the Code on Wages sets the clock by wage period: daily wages at the end of the shift, weekly wages on the last working day of the week, fortnightly wages before the end of the second day after the fortnight, and monthly wages before the expiry of the seventh day of the following month. Under section 16, no wage period may exceed a month.

On exit, the rule is stricter than many payroll calendars assume. Where an employee is removed, dismissed, retrenched, resigns, or becomes unemployed because the establishment closes, wages due must be paid within two working days. Full and final settlement processes that run to the next payroll cycle need to be split: wages within two working days, gratuity within thirty days.

Overtime for employees whose minimum wage is fixed under the Code must be paid at no less than twice the normal rate, and total deductions in a wage period cannot exceed 50% of wages.

What does single registration, licence and return mean in practice?

Under section 3 of the OSH Code, every establishment employing ten or more employees must register electronically within sixty days. An establishment already registered under a central Act need not register again, but must intimate its registration details, and any change in particulars must be intimated within thirty days. Section 119 provides a common licence for factories, beedi and cigar premises and engaging contract labour, applied for electronically or otherwise to an authority the appropriate government designates.

The Ministry describes the overall effect as a single registration, a single licence and a single electronic return replacing eight registrations, four licences and 31 returns under the earlier Acts, with employer registers reduced from 84 to 8. Its action list puts the Unified Annual Return among periodic compliances. The format and portal come from the rules of the appropriate government, which is why the state matters again here.

Which headcount thresholds switch on obligations?

Thresholds are where a growing company most often discovers an obligation late. Track headcount per establishment, not just per company, against the figures in the Codes:

• 10 employees: OSH registration; ESI coverage (other than seasonal factories, and from one employee in notified hazardous occupations); gratuity and maternity benefit chapters for shops and establishments.
• 20: provident fund; a Grievance Redressal Committee in industrial establishments.
• 50: crèche facility; contract labour provisions where 50 or more contract workers were engaged on any day of the preceding twelve months, and a licence for contractors employing 50 or more.
• 100: canteen; a Works Committee if the government so orders.
• 300: standing orders apply, and factories, mines and plantations need prior government permission for lay-off, retrenchment or closure.

What else goes on the employer checklist?

Several obligations apply regardless of size or sector once an establishment is covered, and they are easy to miss because they did not exist, or were narrower, under the old Acts.

• Appointment letters to all employees (OSH Code).
• Free annual health check-ups; the Government's release describes this as applying to workers above the age of 40.
• Women may work at night and in all types of work, with consent and the safety conditions the appropriate government prescribes for work before 6 a.m. or after 7 p.m.
• Wage slips on or before payment; wage registers kept physically or electronically and preserved for five years.
• Notice-board display of minimum wage rates, working hours, wage period, pay date and the Inspector-cum-Facilitator's details.
• Twenty-one days' notice before changing a service condition listed in the Third Schedule to the IR Code.
• Retrenchment: 15 days' wages per retrenched worker to the Workers' Re-Skilling Fund, on top of retrenchment compensation.
• Principal employers are liable for contract workers' wages if the contractor fails to pay, and must provide welfare facilities.

How should the checklist live in a compliance register?

Each item above becomes a row per establishment, tagged with the Code and section, the state whose rules govern it, a trigger (a headcount threshold, an exit, a new contract) or a due-date rule, an owner and the evidence of discharge. Tag which regime each row comes from — a legacy Act running under the transition, or a Code with notified rules — so rows can be retired when a state's rules take effect.

Tools such as IntelloComply hold these as cited obligations against each entity, plant and branch, with owners, escalations and an evidence trail. Whatever you use, the test is whether you can pick any row and show the provision, why it applies to that site, and when it was last reviewed.