Hire in India without setting up a company there.
Bumsa becomes the legal employer of your people in India. We handle the contracts, payroll, statutory filings and benefits. You direct the work, exactly as you would with any other member of your team.
Any role, any seniority. Your employee can work from home anywhere in India, from our Chennai office, or split the week between both.
What you get on day one
- A compliant Indian employment contract
- Payroll, PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS handled
- Statutory and supplemental benefits in place
- IP and confidentiality assigned to you
- A desk in Chennai if the role needs one
- A wage you set, and can raise whenever you like
What an Employer of Record actually does
India is one of the best talent markets in the world, and one of the more demanding places to employ someone. Hiring directly means incorporating a subsidiary, registering with EPFO and ESIC, appointing a resident director, opening local banking, running Indian payroll and filing on a monthly and annual cycle. That is a six-figure commitment and several months of work before your first employee starts.
An Employer of Record removes all of it. Bumsa's Indian entity signs the employment contract and appears on the payslip. The employee is legally ours; operationally, they are yours. They join your standups, use your tools, report to your manager and follow your priorities.
You get a single monthly invoice: the wage you set, plus one transparent markup covering everything required to employ that person lawfully in India. No Indian subsidiary. No local filings. No compliance exposure sitting on your balance sheet.
You should be looking at EOR if…
- You found one excellent candidate in India and don't want to build a company around them
- You're testing the Indian market before committing to an entity
- You need to move fast and incorporation would take months
- You've been paying people in India as contractors and know that's a risk
- You're hiring a small team — 1 to 25 people — where a subsidiary is hard to justify
- You have an entity elsewhere in APAC but nothing in India
- You want to keep the option of converting to your own entity later
Not sure which side of the line you're on? A 20-minute call is usually enough to tell.
What's included in every Bumsa EOR engagement
One fee. No unbundling, no per-filing surcharges, no surprise line items.
Contracts and onboarding
Offer letters and employment agreements drafted to Indian law and to your terms — notice periods, probation, non-solicit, confidentiality and IP assignment. Background checks and reference verification on request.
Monthly payroll and payslips
Salary structured correctly across basic, allowances and reimbursements. Paid on time, every month, in INR. Compliant payslips and annual Form 16 issued directly to the employee.
Contributions and filings
EPF, ESI, professional tax, TDS, gratuity provisioning and labour welfare fund — calculated, remitted and filed on schedule. Registers and records maintained for inspection.
Health cover and leave
Group medical insurance, personal accident and term life cover, statutory leave, public holidays by state, and maternity and paternity benefits administered end to end.
Office, equipment and IT
Laptop procurement and asset tracking, secure workspace in Chennai, internet stipends for remote staff, and access control where your data policy requires it.
Day-to-day people operations
Leave and attendance tracking, expense reimbursement, employee queries, appraisal-cycle support, POSH compliance and a named HR contact your employee can actually reach.
Risk and reporting
Permanent-establishment and misclassification risk managed at the contract level. Monthly cost reporting per employee, with a full audit trail for your finance team.
Offboarding done properly
Notice served correctly, full and final settlement, gratuity where due, asset recovery, PF transfer support and relieving documentation — so exits stay clean.
Recruitment via Bumsa RPO
Don't have a candidate yet? Our recruiting team sources, screens and shortlists, then employs the person you pick. Most EOR providers can't do the first half. See RPO services →
Remote, in-office, or hybrid — your call
Most EOR providers can only offer remote, because they have no premises. We have an office in Chennai, so the work model becomes a decision you make on the merits of the role rather than a limitation you inherit from your vendor.
Fully remote
Hire from anywhere in India — Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Coimbatore. Widest possible talent pool, no geographic constraint, home-office and connectivity stipends included.
Best for: senior engineers, designers, analysts and specialists where the strongest candidate won't relocate.
Chennai office
A managed desk in our own office. Supervised environment, reliable power and connectivity, secure network and controlled access for regulated or client-confidential work.
Best for: finance and accounting, healthcare and claims processing, customer support, and anyone handling sensitive data.
Hybrid
Two or three days in the Chennai office, the rest from home. Structured collaboration and onboarding without asking people to commute five days a week.
Best for: growing teams, junior hires who benefit from being around colleagues, and anyone you want building a team culture.
Changing your mind later costs nothing. Move an employee from remote to hybrid — or open a desk for a team that's outgrown video calls — with a note to your account manager.
Any role you'd hire at home, you can hire in India
Our EOR service is role-agnostic. If it's legal employment in India, we can structure it. These are the areas we're asked for most.
Technology
Software engineers, QA, DevOps and cloud, data engineering, mobile, IT support, security analysts.
Finance & accounting
Bookkeepers, AP/AR, payroll analysts, financial analysts, controllers, CA-qualified staff, audit support.
Customer experience
Support agents, technical support, success managers, chat and email teams, inside sales and SDRs.
Marketing & creative
SEO and content specialists, performance marketers, designers, video editors, marketing operations.
Healthcare & RCM
Medical billing and coding, claims processing, prior authorisation, clinical documentation support.
HR & recruitment
Recruiters and sourcers, HR generalists, HR operations, learning and development coordinators.
Operations & admin
Project coordinators, executive assistants, procurement, logistics coordinators, data operations.
Professional services
Legal support, insurance operations, research analysts, engineering drafting, architectural support.
From first call to first payslip
A straightforward sequence with no unnecessary steps. Most engagements run start to finish in two to three weeks once the candidate accepts.
Scope the role
We map the position, seniority, work model and location, then benchmark the salary against the current Indian market and give you a fully loaded monthly cost — before you commit to anything.
Find or receive the candidate
Already have someone? We take it from there. If not, our RPO team sources and shortlists, and you interview and choose exactly as you would in-house.
Agreement and offer
You sign one service agreement with Bumsa. We issue a compliant Indian employment contract to your chosen candidate, carrying your terms, your IP clauses and your notice period.
Onboard and equip
Background checks, documentation, statutory registrations, benefits enrolment, laptop and access provisioning, and a desk in Chennai if the role calls for one.
Run the month
Payroll processed, contributions remitted, filings made, leave and attendance tracked. Your employee gets local HR support; you get a single consolidated invoice.
Scale, convert or exit
Add headcount as you grow, transfer the team to your own entity when you're ready, or offboard cleanly. No lock-in either way.
The Indian obligations we take off your desk
Indian employment compliance is layered: central statutes, state rules and a live reform programme running underneath both. Here is what sits behind every Bumsa EOR employee.
Provident Fund (EPF)
Employer contribution of 12% of basic and dearness allowance, mandatory up to the ₹15,000 monthly wage ceiling, with 8.33% routed to the pension scheme. Registration, UAN linkage and monthly ECR filing handled.
Employees' State Insurance (ESI)
Employer contribution of 3.25% and employee contribution of 0.75% on gross wages for employees at or below the ₹21,000 monthly ceiling (₹25,000 for employees with disabilities). Filed by the 15th, every month.
Income tax and TDS
Tax deducted at source each month against the employee's declarations and regime election, quarterly returns filed, and Form 16 issued annually.
Professional tax
Deducted and remitted according to the slab of the employee's state. Tamil Nadu operates a half-yearly cycle; other states differ, and we apply the correct one per employee.
Gratuity
Provisioned from the start of employment and paid out where the qualifying service period is met, so there's no unfunded liability waiting at the end of a tenure.
Leave, holidays and maternity
Earned, casual and sick leave per applicable state rules, the correct state holiday calendar, and 26 weeks of paid maternity benefit administered under the Maternity Benefit Act.
Workplace safety and POSH
Registration under the applicable Shops and Establishments Act, plus a constituted Internal Committee and mandatory training under the POSH Act.
IP, confidentiality and data
Work product and intellectual property assigned to you by contract from day one, with confidentiality and data-handling terms aligned to your own client obligations.
Permanent establishment risk
Engagements are structured so your company isn't inadvertently treated as carrying on business in India through your people there — a risk that contractor arrangements frequently create.
Misclassification exposure
Paying an Indian worker as a contractor while directing their hours and methods invites reclassification, back contributions and penalties. Employment through an EOR closes that gap.
On India's new labour codes
India's four labour codes — Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions — came into force on 21 November 2025, and the central rules were notified in May 2026. Because labour is a concurrent subject, each state must still notify its own rules, and several major industrial states, Tamil Nadu among them, remain in progress. The practical effect for employers is a moving compliance target through 2026: a revised definition of wages that lifts the statutory cost base, gratuity eligibility after one year for fixed-term employees, and new rules for gig and platform workers. Tracking that transition is our job, not yours. Contribution rates, ceilings and thresholds on this page are current as of August 2026 and are reviewed as notifications are issued; this page is general information rather than legal or tax advice.
EOR, your own entity, or contractors
All three are legitimate. They suit very different situations, and the wrong choice is expensive in ways that don't show up for a year or two.
| Bumsa EOR | Your own Indian entity | Independent contractors | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first hire | Two to three weeks | Three to six months | Days |
| Setup cost | None | Incorporation, advisory, registrations, banking | None |
| Ongoing overhead | One transparent markup on the wage you set | Local payroll, accounting, audit, secretarial, director | Low, until something goes wrong |
| Control over what the worker is paid | Yours — you set it and can change it | Yours | Yours, but with none of the protections |
| Who is the legal employer | Bumsa | You | Nobody — that's the problem |
| Misclassification risk | Eliminated | Eliminated | High, and rising under the new codes |
| Permanent establishment risk | Managed | Not applicable — you're established | Real, and often overlooked |
| Statutory benefits for the worker | Full — PF, ESI, gratuity, leave, insurance | Full | None |
| IP ownership | Assigned to you contractually | Yours | Depends entirely on the contract |
| Office space available | Yes — Chennai | Only if you lease it | No |
| Ease of exit | Offboard and stop invoicing | Entity wind-up takes months | Simple, but disputes are common |
| Sensible at | 1 to 25 employees, or testing the market | 25+ employees and a long horizon | Genuinely project-based work only |
Past roughly 25 people, an entity usually wins on cost. We'll tell you when you cross that line — and help you transfer your team into it.
What makes us different from a global EOR platform
The large platforms cover 150 countries through a network of local partners. We cover one country, with our own people in it.
We're actually in India
Our Chennai office is ours. Your employee has colleagues, an HR contact who shares their time zone, and somewhere to go when a laptop dies or a document needs signing.
We recruit as well as employ
Most EOR providers require you to arrive with a candidate. Bumsa was built as a recruitment firm first — we can run the search, then employ the person you hire.
Canadian-owned, Canadian standards
Founded by senior Canadian recruitment leaders and headquartered in Toronto. Contracting, reporting and communication built around what North American buyers expect.
Overlapping hours, both ways
Chennai teams routinely run shifts that overlap North American mornings or European afternoons. We set the schedule around your working day, not the other way around.
One provider as you grow
Start with one EOR hire, add a managed BPO function, layer in RPO for volume recruiting. One relationship, one point of accountability.
You control the wage
One transparent markup on a salary you set — not an opaque all-in rate. You decide what your employee earns and when that changes. Why that matters →
You set the wage. We apply one transparent markup.
Our pricing is a single multiple of the employee's actual wage — typically 1.75×. That one number covers statutory contributions, benefits, HR, compliance, workspace and our fee. Nothing else appears on the invoice.
The multiple applies uniformly across all compensation — base wage, raises and bonuses alike. One number, applied the same way every time, with nothing to renegotiate line by line.
The important part isn't the number. It's what the structure does: because the markup sits on top of a wage you decide, you control what your employee earns. Want to pay above market to land someone exceptional? Do it. Want to give a raise at six months, or a bonus after a good quarter? That's your call, not ours, and you can make it the same week you decide to.
We'll consult on wages — benchmarks by role, city and seniority, and a candid view on what it takes to be competitive for the person you actually want. But we advise. You decide.
We built this after losing people ourselves
Before we offered EOR, we bought it. We used an offshore provider that quoted us a tidy all-in rate per head — and paid the people behind that rate poorly. We had no visibility into what they earned and no mechanism to change it.
So we lost them. Good workers we'd trained, who knew our accounts, left for a few thousand rupees more somewhere else. We couldn't counter, because the pay wasn't ours to move.
That's the failure this model is designed around. A markup on a wage you control means the person on your team can be paid what they're worth, when you decide they've earned it — and they stay.
Control over pay is control over retention
Attrition is the number that quietly decides whether offshore hiring worked. Most of the levers that move it are pay levers — and most EOR models put them out of the client's reach.
Counter an outside offer
Someone gets approached with a better number. You can match it that week, without renegotiating your contract with us or waiting on a vendor's approval cycle.
Reward performance directly
Bonuses, spot awards and mid-year raises flow through payroll from you to your employee. The person knows where the money came from, which is most of the point.
Pay above market on purpose
Sometimes the right hire costs more than the benchmark. When the wage is yours to set, that's a decision you can make on the merits instead of one the provider makes for you.
Full visibility into the split
You always know what your employee is actually paid, because you set it. No black-box rate where the gap between what you pay and what they receive is the provider's business.
They feel like your employee
Same review cycle, same recognition, same compensation conversations as the rest of your team. The employment paperwork is ours; the relationship is yours.
Honest wage advice
We benchmark by role, city and seniority and tell you what it will genuinely take. We have no incentive to talk you down — and every incentive to keep your team intact.
Tell us the role. We'll tell you what it costs to employ that person in India — this week.
No entity, no long-term commitment, no obligation to proceed.
Employer of Record in India — common questions
What is an Employer of Record in India?
An Employer of Record is a company that legally employs staff in India on behalf of another business. Bumsa's Indian entity holds the employment contract, runs payroll and carries the statutory obligations, while you manage the person's day-to-day work. It lets you hire in India without incorporating a subsidiary there.
How quickly can someone start?
Two to three weeks from candidate acceptance is typical, covering documentation, background checks, statutory registrations, benefits enrolment and equipment. Urgent cases can move faster. If we're also recruiting the role, add three to six weeks for the search.
Is it legal to use an EOR in India?
Yes. The arrangement rests on an established Indian entity being the genuine legal employer, meeting all statutory obligations for that employee. What matters is that it's structured properly — which is precisely why the entity behind the arrangement, and who owns it, is worth asking about.
Who manages the employee day to day?
You do. You set priorities, run one-on-ones, approve work and make performance decisions. Bumsa handles employment administration — payroll, benefits, leave records, statutory compliance — and provides local HR support for anything the employee needs on the ground.
Can my employee work from home, or do they have to come to the office?
Either, or both. We support fully remote employees anywhere in India, in-office employees at our Chennai premises, and hybrid arrangements. You choose per role, and you can change it later.
What roles can you employ?
Any role that constitutes lawful employment in India. We're most often asked for technology, finance and accounting, customer support, marketing, healthcare and RCM, HR, and operations positions — but the service isn't limited to those functions.
What's the difference between an EOR and a staffing agency?
A staffing agency finds people and typically supplies them for a defined period, often at a margin on their pay. An EOR employs a person you've chosen, for as long as you want them, and charges a flat administrative fee. The employee is a permanent member of your team who happens to sit on our payroll.
What if I already have a candidate?
That's the most common scenario. Send us the details and the agreed compensation, and we'll issue the contract and onboard them. No recruitment fee is charged when you bring your own candidate.
Can I convert to my own Indian entity later?
Yes, and we'll help you do it. When headcount makes an entity worthwhile — usually somewhere past 25 people — we support the transfer of employment, preserving service continuity, PF accounts and gratuity accrual. There's no penalty for leaving.
Who owns the intellectual property my employee creates?
You do. IP assignment and confidentiality terms are written into the employment contract at onboarding and flow through to your company. For engineering, design and R&D roles we'll review your existing IP clauses and mirror them.
What does it cost?
A single multiple of the employee's wage — typically 1.75× — covering statutory contributions, benefits, HR, compliance, workspace and our fee. There are no separate line items. Because the markup applies to a wage you set, you always know exactly what your employee earns and what you're paying on top of it.
Who decides what my employee gets paid?
You do. We benchmark the role by city and seniority and give you a straight recommendation, but the number is yours. You can pay above market to win a candidate, raise it mid-year, or add a bonus after a strong quarter — without renegotiating anything with us.
Are bonuses and raises marked up too?
Yes. The multiple applies to all compensation, not just base wage — a bonus is invoiced on the same basis as salary. Bonuses run through payroll, attract tax withholding and can affect statutory calculations, so they carry real administration; more to the point, one uniform multiple is what keeps the model predictable and free of line-item negotiation. We'd rather tell you this up front than have you find it on an invoice.
Why not just quote one all-in rate per person?
Because that's the model that fails. When the provider sets the wage behind a bundled rate, the client has no visibility into what the worker actually earns and no way to respond when a competitor offers more. We've been on the client side of that arrangement and lost good people because of it. A markup on a wage you control fixes the underlying problem.
What happens if I need to end an employment?
We manage it under Indian law — correct notice, full and final settlement, gratuity where due, asset recovery and relieving documentation. Terminations in India carry more procedural requirements than in Canada or the US, which is exactly the kind of thing an EOR exists to get right.