Labour Codes: Which Question Are You Trying to Answer?

India's four Labour Codes have been in force since 21 November 2025, and the four sets of Central Rules since 8 May 2026. An employer's obligations under them fall into six groups: wages and minimum pay; contributions and entitlements; workforce reduction and discipline; working time and conditions; employee and worker classification; and recurring or transitional compliance. The applicable Code, section, rule or notification determines each obligation.

India's four Labour Codes have been in force since 21 November 2025, and the four sets of Central Rules since 8 May 2026. The four-Code framework replaced twenty-nine Acts and divides employer obligations among wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety and health. The applicable Code must be identified for each obligation.

What counts as wages, and what must you pay. Section 2(y) of the Code on Wages, 2019 includes everything payable and then excludes eleven categories, and each payslip component must be classified against the exclusion list. Where the payments in nine of those categories exceed one-half of total remuneration, the excess is added to wages. The Ministry provides a worked calculation using remuneration of ₹76,000. No Code prescribes a salary structure: CTC, gross pay and take-home appear nowhere in any of the four. No national minimum wage exists. The minimum rate for your State is whichever notification covers the employment, the skill level, the area and the wage period.

What you contribute, and who is entitled. Provident fund contributions are twelve per cent from each side on the section 2(88) base, and the contribution rates and the wage ceiling are each fixed by a separate notification. Five years of service are not required for gratuity on expiry of a fixed term: expiry of a fixed term is itself the event, on one year of continuous service. Gig and platform workers are outside the employment chapters altogether, and the aggregator's own duties concern registration and schemes rather than payroll.

How you reduce or discipline a workforce. Section 70 of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 attaches notice and compensation at any size, and prior Government permission starts at three hundred workers. Lay-off, retrenchment and closure are three different events with three different costs. Separate thresholds apply to recognition and stoppages, and which union you must negotiate with is decided at thirty, fifty-one or twenty per cent depending on the applicable recognition procedure.

How long people may work, and under what conditions. Section 25(1)(a) of the OSH Code allows no worker more than eight hours in a day, and overtime, rest and annual leave are each governed by a separate provision. Before any of that binds a site, the establishment has to be registered, and separate deadlines apply to Form I registration and licensing. A woman may work at night, and her consent and the prescribed safeguards are conditions on it rather than a prohibition.

Who is a worker, and who is only an employee. The four Codes contain seven separate definitions of "employee" and "worker". Only each Code's own definition governs the provision being applied. A supervisor is outside "worker" above ₹15,000 a month under the Code on Wages and above ₹18,000 under the Industrial Relations and OSH Codes, so the same person can be a worker under one Code and not another.

What falls due, and when. Existing employers must complete and document the one-time transition requirements. Recurring compliance obligations, including POSH obligations, continue year after year. For FY 2026-27 deadlines, each date must be supported by an applicable instrument for that year. A State's draft rules bind nobody, and your State's applicable rules are determined by the notifications published in that State's Gazette.

Apply the governing section, rule or notification as of the stated review date.