Your workforce sits under a rulebook that changed mid-year — four labour codes replacing twenty-nine central Acts, central rules notified in May 2026, and every state moving at its own speed. Meanwhile the registrations, registers, returns and renewals that were always due are still due.
Transparian runs that entire map: registrations and licences, statutory registers, wage and benefit obligations, periodic returns, inspections and notices, and the labour code transition alongside it. You keep sign-off and authority. We keep the record complete on the day someone asks for it.
The four labour codes came into force on 21 November 2025, consolidating twenty-nine central labour laws into four. The Ministry notified the final central rules in May 2026. But labour is a concurrent subject: until a state notifies its own rules, employers there follow the central rules alongside the legacy state Act. That is why labour codes compliance looks different in Karnataka than it does in Maharashtra.
| Central Rules | Maharashtra Rules | What Applies Today | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code on Wages, 2019 | notified | notified |
Code + central + state rules
|
| Industrial Relations Code, 2020 | notified | notified |
Code + central + state rules
|
| OSH & Working Conditions Code, 2020 | notified | draft |
Code + central + legacy state Act
|
| Code on Social Security, 2020 | notified | draft |
Code + central + legacy state Act
|
Basic pay and DA must be at least half of total remuneration, which changes how PF, gratuity, bonus and leave encashment are computed. This is live now — it is not waiting on state rules.
For every employee, and among the first things an inspector asks for.
Shops and establishment compliance, Professional Tax and Labour Welfare Fund continue under state law, now inside the code framework. Running one and not the other is where most establishments are exposed today.
The question most compliance pages avoid. Applicability turns on your type of establishment, your state, and your headcount.
| Trigger | Obligation | Registration |
|---|---|---|
| First employee | Shops and establishment compliance (Maharashtra: registration at 10+, intimation below) | State S&E registration |
| 10+ with power / 20+ without | Factories Act — safety, welfare, working conditions | Factory licence, annual renewal |
| 10+ employees | ESIC (20 in some states, including shops in Maharashtra); gratuity liability; POSH Internal Committee | ESIC registration |
| 20+ employees | EPF coverage; Payment of Bonus Act | EPFO registration, monthly ECR |
| 20+ contract workers (50 in some states) | CLRA compliance — principal employer registration, contractor licence | CLRA registration + licence |
| 10+ construction workers | BOCW obligations and cess | BOCW registration |
| 250+ / 500+ workers | Safety committee / safety officer under the OSH Code | — |
| 300+ workers | Certified Standing Orders under the IR Code | Certification by authority |
| All sizes | Minimum wages compliance, Payment of Wages Act compliance, Professional Tax, Labour Welfare Fund | State-specific |
The OSH Code replaces several separate registrations with a single establishment registration, due within sixty days of applicability. The Standing Orders threshold has moved from 100 workers to 300. If you are unsure where you sit on this table, that is what our labour law compliance audit resolves first.
Shops and establishment, factory, CLRA, contractor licences, BOCW and the single OSH registration — obtained, renewed before they lapse, and amended when your headcount, premises, occupier or manager changes.
Muster roll, wage register, register of workers, overtime, leave, fines and deductions — maintained, updated after every amendment, and digitised so retrieval takes minutes rather than days.
Minimum wages compliance tracked through every state revision and carried into your registers. Payment of Wages Act compliance, bonus, gratuity and equal remuneration computed correctly — including modelling the new wage definition's impact before it hits payroll.
Half-yearly and annual returns, integrated returns where permitted, bonus and gratuity filings, POSH annual report, monthly remittances. Drafted, sent for your sign-off, filed, acknowledgement recorded against the obligation.
Your file kept inspection-ready as a standing condition. When a notice arrives we prepare the response, represent you before the authority, and take the matter to documented closure.
Gap assessment against all four codes, wage restructuring, appointment letters and contracts reissued, Standing Orders reviewed, re-registration under the OSH Code, and a state-by-state watch on rules as they are notified.
PF and ESI work runs through our PF & ESIC consultant team, contractor obligations through vendor compliance services, and plant-level obligations through factory compliance services.
It’s rarely dramatic. A licence not renewed in one state. A wage revision that never reached the register. A half-yearly return filed three weeks late. Nothing happens for a long time, and then an inspection, a customer’s vendor audit or investor diligence brings all of it up at once.
By that point the penalty is usually the smaller cost. The larger one is six weeks of your HR and finance teams reconstructing three years of records under a deadline someone else set.
