As a company grows past its first few dozen employees, compliance stops being something the founder can hold in their head and becomes a structured, recurring obligation with real deadlines and real penalties. The challenge is that India's payroll and labour compliance landscape is genuinely broad — central statutes, state statutes, monthly deposits, quarterly returns, annual filings — and a single missed deadline can mean interest, penalties, or worse. The recent consolidation of 29 laws into four Labour Codes has simplified the structure but not removed the obligations.
This checklist pulls together the compliance areas a mid-market company in India needs to stay on top of. It is organised by frequency, because that is how compliance is actually managed — by knowing what is due monthly, quarterly, annually, and on a one-time basis.
One-time registrations
These are the registrations that need to be in place once an establishment crosses the relevant thresholds.
Provident Fund registration becomes mandatory at twenty or more employees, done through the Shram Suvidha portal. Employee State Insurance registration is triggered at ten or more employees in most states (twenty in some), also via Shram Suvidha. Professional Tax registration is required in each state that levies PT where the company has employees — both as an entity and as an employer responsible for deduction. Shops and Establishment registration under the applicable state Act is needed for commercial establishments. And the broader registrations under the Labour Codes framework apply as the codes are implemented.
The key principle: registrations are threshold-driven and state-specific. As the company crosses headcount thresholds and enters new states, new registration obligations arise, and missing them is a common gap for fast-growing companies.
Monthly obligations
This is the heartbeat of payroll compliance — the deposits and filings that recur every single month.
PF contributions must be deposited by the 15th of the following month, with the ECR (Electronic Challan cum Return) filed. Miss it, and interest plus damages apply from the due date. ESI contributions are likewise deposited by the 15th of the following month through the ESIC portal. TDS on salary must be deposited by the 7th of the following month — note this is earlier than the PF and ESI deadline, which catches people out. Professional Tax deposits follow each state's timeline, which varies, so multi-state employers track multiple PT calendars.
The monthly cycle is where most compliance failures happen, simply because it repeats so often and the deadlines are firm. A disciplined monthly close process is the single most important habit for staying compliant.
Quarterly obligations
Some filings recur every quarter rather than every month.
Quarterly TDS returns must be filed, reporting the salary TDS deducted and deposited against each employee's PAN for the quarter. These returns are what ultimately feed the employee's Form 16 and their tax credit, so accuracy here directly affects employees. The deadlines for quarterly TDS returns are fixed, and late filing attracts a fee per day of delay, which accumulates quickly.
Getting the quarterly returns right is also what makes the year-end smooth — if the quarterly filings are accurate and reconciled, Form 16 generation at year-end is straightforward; if they are not, the year-end becomes a scramble to fix mismatches.
Annual obligations
A set of obligations comes due once a year.
Form 16 must be issued to every employee from whom TDS was deducted, after the financial year ends — this is the employee's statement of salary paid and tax deducted, used to file their return. The annual reconciliation of TDS deducted, deposited, and reported needs to tie out. Statutory bonus, where applicable, must be calculated and paid within the prescribed period after the accounting year closes. Various annual returns under the labour statutes, as applicable under the Labour Codes framework, also fall due. And the company's own books need to reflect all payroll-related provisions — gratuity, leave encashment, bonus — accurately for the year.
Ongoing record-keeping
Beyond the time-bound filings, the labour statutes require employers to maintain certain registers and records — of wages, attendance, leave, and the various statutory computations. These records must be kept current and be available for inspection. Under the Labour Codes, the record-keeping framework has been streamlined, but the obligation to maintain accurate, current records remains. Good record-keeping is also what makes responding to any inspection or audit painless rather than panic-inducing.
The Labour Codes — what changed
The four Labour Codes came into force on 21 November 2025, consolidating 29 older labour laws into four codes: the Code on Wages, the Code on Social Security, the Industrial Relations Code, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. For compliance purposes, the most important effects are the uniform definition of "wages" (which affects PF, ESI, gratuity, bonus, and leave encashment calculations and is built around the 50% basic-pay rule), the extension of certain benefits such as gratuity to fixed-term employees after one year, and the broad streamlining of registrations and records.
The practical takeaway is that the compliance obligations did not go away — they were reorganised. Companies need to ensure their salary structures comply with the new wage definition, their benefit calculations reflect the new rules, and their registrations and records align with the consolidated framework. Because the detailed rules continue to settle, this is an area to monitor and to take professional advice on.
The compliance calendar at a glance
Putting the recurring items in one view:
By the 7th of each month: deposit salary TDS for the previous month. By the 15th of each month: deposit PF and ESI contributions and file the PF ECR for the previous month. Per each state's schedule: deposit Professional Tax. Each quarter: file the quarterly TDS return by its due date. After the financial year: issue Form 16, reconcile annual TDS, pay statutory bonus where applicable within the prescribed window, and complete annual labour returns. Continuously: maintain statutory registers and records.
Common compliance failures
The failures that recur in growing companies are predictable.
Missing the monthly PF, ESI, or TDS deposit deadlines and incurring interest and penalties. Filing quarterly TDS returns late and racking up per-day fees. Not registering for PF or ESI promptly after crossing the headcount threshold. Overlooking PT registration and deposits in a new state of operation. Issuing Form 16 with figures that do not reconcile with the quarterly returns. Continuing on salary structures that do not comply with the new Labour Codes wage definition. Letting statutory registers fall out of date.
Almost all of these share a root cause: compliance obligations that are scattered across deadlines, statutes, and states, managed through a patchwork of reminders and spreadsheets, with no single system ensuring nothing is missed.
Why compliance is easier on a unified system
Compliance failures are rarely failures of intent — companies want to comply. They are failures of coordination: the right deposit on the right date, the right return with reconciled figures, the right registration in the right state, all tracked reliably as the company grows across headcount and geography. When payroll, statutory calculations, and the compliance calendar live in one system, the obligations are generated from the actual payroll data and surfaced on time, rather than depending on someone remembering each deadline.
When payroll and compliance sit on a single database, the statutory deductions are computed from live salary data with the correct ceilings and the Labour Codes wage rule applied automatically, the deposit deadlines are tracked, and the quarterly and annual filings draw from the same reconciled source — so Form 16 ties out to the returns because they came from the same data. This is the core of how Helion approaches Indian compliance: because the calculations, the deposits, and the filings all flow from one source of truth, the year-end reconciles by construction rather than through frantic last-minute fixing. For a mid-market company where a compliance slip carries real cost, that reliability is exactly what lets the team focus on the business rather than chasing deadlines.
This checklist reflects the position as of 2026, including the four Labour Codes effective from 21 November 2025 and the new Income Tax Act, 2025. Registration thresholds, deposit and filing deadlines, the wage definition, and record-keeping requirements are governed by the applicable central and state statutes and continue to settle in detail. This is general information for employers, not a substitute for advice from a qualified chartered accountant or labour-law professional on your specific obligations.