We are not an employer of record and we do not resell one, so we have no reason to talk you into or out of either. There is a real answer and it is mostly arithmetic — but the arithmetic is usually set up wrongly, and the three things that actually decide it are not costs at all.
Statutory employer cost is identical on both sides, so it is left out. What remains is the EOR margin against setup plus annual compliance — and a break-even expressed as people, not rupees.
An EOR employs Indian staff for you. It does not give your business a presence that can sponsor a foreign national into it. If you need to be in India in your own company, that decides it.
If people in India are winning and closing business for your foreign company, the exposure follows the activity rather than the payslip. An EOR does not make that go away, and we will say so.
Fixed hours, your direction, your systems, exclusively for you — that is employment whatever the contract says. Reclassification brings provident fund, insurance and gratuity for the whole period, with interest.
Continuity of service for gratuity, provident fund transfer rather than restart, one parallel payroll cycle, and the registrations in place before the first salary run.
Hold licences and an IEC, invoice Indian customers and recover GST, own assets, grant equity on your own cap table, and build a filing history a buyer can inspect.
One or two hires, no India presence yet.
Where the margin has quietly passed the cost of a company.
Wanting to know what exposure has built up.
Every case is different, so we review yours first and give you a clear price before any work or payment — no charge for the review, no obligation.
No hidden charges. You decide after you see the price.
💬 Get my quote →Yes, through an employer of record, which becomes the legal employer of your India staff and handles the payroll, provident fund, insurance and withholding while they work for you day to day. It is lawful and it is a sensible way to test a market. It is not a substitute for a presence in India: an EOR cannot hold your licences, invoice your Indian customers, recover GST for you, own assets, or sponsor a foreign national to work in your business.
For the first one or two hires, usually yes. Beyond that it depends on salary more than on headcount, and the comparison is often set up wrongly. Salary and the statutory employer contributions are paid either way — the EOR pays them and bills them through — so they cancel out. What is really being compared is the EOR's margin against the fixed cost of running a company. Because the margin is normally a percentage of pay, a team of five senior engineers can cost more in margin than a company costs to run, while a team of ten junior staff might not.
At a 12% fee and ₹1,20,000 average monthly salary the margin is roughly ₹1.7 lakh per person per year, so a company with ₹3 lakh of annual fixed cost is cheaper from about the second or third hire. At ₹40,000 salaries the same company needs six or seven people. The commonly quoted figure of twelve to fifteen employees comes from vendors and assumes modest salaries; at senior pay levels it is far lower. The calculator on this site takes your own numbers.
No, and this is what settles the question for a lot of founders. An EOR employs Indian nationals for you. It does not give your business an Indian presence that can sponsor you or a colleague to come and work in it. If somebody needs to be in India in your own company rather than as a business visitor, you need your own entity. The visa application itself belongs with an immigration specialist — we do not advise on that.
Not on its own. A permanent establishment depends on what is actually happening in India — a fixed place of business, or people habitually concluding contracts or securing orders for your foreign company. A sales team in India closing deals for a foreign parent can create that exposure whoever issues the payslips, and where a PE is found the foreign company has an Indian return to file and Indian tax on the profit attributable to it. An EOR changes who employs the people, not what they do.
You can, and it is the most common way a foreign company ends up with an unplanned liability. If someone works set hours, under your direction, on your systems, exclusively for you, they are an employee in substance whatever the agreement says. A reclassification brings provident fund, insurance and gratuity for the whole period with interest, plus the tax that should have been withheld on salary rather than on professional fees — and the exposure sits with the principal. For genuinely independent, project-based work with several clients, a contractor arrangement is fine.
Treat it as a change of employer rather than a transfer. Continuity of service matters because gratuity accrues on unbroken service, the provident fund account moves rather than restarts, and notice and employee consent have to be handled properly. In practice: incorporate, obtain the employer registrations, run one payroll cycle in parallel, then transition on a clean month end. We handle the registrations, payroll and filings; the employment contracts and the termination side belong with an Indian employment lawyer.
No, and we do not resell one either, which is why this page reads the way it does. We set up and run Indian entities, so there is an argument we have our own bias — the honest position is that for one or two hires an EOR is usually the right answer and we will tell you so. What we will not do is pretend the visa limit and the permanent-establishment point do not exist, because those are where the real cost sits.
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