Beyond Payroll: The India EOR Work That Is Not in the Standard Proposal
Your India EOR contract will cover payroll in detail. It will say far less about the things that decide whether your first hire is genuinely working on day one.
The short version. An India EOR is hired to be the legal employer. That covers the contract, payroll, statutory dues and compliance. In practice, most foreign employers need more. A place for the person to sit. A laptop in their hands on day one. An email address on your domain. Letters for visa files. And policies that actually work in India. Whether your India EOR does that work, and whether it sits inside the fee, decides if your new hire is useful in week one or still waiting in week four.
The gap between the contract and the first working day
Read almost any India EOR proposal and you will find the same scope. Employment agreement. Onboarding. Monthly payroll. PF and ESI. Professional tax. TDS. Statutory filings. Exit formalities. All correct, and all needed.
Now think about a new hire in Pune or Hyderabad on their first morning. They need somewhere to sit. A laptop that works. An email address on your domain. Maybe a phone line, if the role faces customers. And the policies that govern leave, expenses and conduct.
In short, none of that is payroll. However, all of it decides whether you have a hire or a working colleague.
For a firm with an Indian entity, an office manager and an IT team handle this. For a firm hiring from abroad, nobody sits in country to do it. Unless your India EOR does.
Five things an India EOR gets asked for again and again
1. A physical place to work
Remote suits some roles and fails others. For example, sales roles that need a business address push towards a real desk. So do roles that touch client data. So do hires in cities where home broadband keeps dropping.
Typically, you have three options. Rent commercial space. Take a co-working or managed desk. Or use a registered address for statutory purposes only.
Each option changes something. It changes the establishment registration. The address on your filings changes too. So does the cost. Above all, ask whose name holds the lease, because a lease in your India EOR's name is a very different promise from one in yours.
2. Laptops, phones and the delivery problem
Buying IT kit in India is easy. By contrast, the delivery is not. Buying it, setting it up, and getting it to one named person in one named city before a fixed date is where it falls over.
So the questions repeat. Who buys the asset? Whose books hold it? Who insures it? Who fixes it when it dies? And critically, who gets it back when the person leaves?
Asset recovery at exit is the step firms most often leave undefined. It is also the step where money quietly walks out of the door.
3. Email, identity and access
Your new hire needs an email address on your domain, in your directory, with the right access groups. This sounds trivial and usually is.
Still, somebody has to raise the request, chase it, and confirm it before day one. That person normally sits in a different time zone from both your IT team and the hire.
4. Letters, certificates and visa papers
Sooner or later your hire needs paperwork from their legal employer. Employment letters. Salary certificates. No objection letters. Address confirmations. Papers to support a visa file, whether for travel to your country or elsewhere.
These have to come from the legal employer, on the right letterhead, saying the right things. A loose letter causes problems. So does one a consulate reads as out of step with the employment structure. Here, be precise rather than helpful.
5. Policies that are written for India
Unfortunately, global handbooks travel badly.
Some of what a policy covers has a floor in Indian labour law that a foreign template sits below. Leave, working hours, holiday calendars and maternity all work this way.
Other parts have no floor at all. That cuts the other way, and it surprises people just as often. Take paternity leave. Private sector staff in India have no statutory right to it. So if you want your global parental leave policy to reach your India team, you have to grant it by contract. It will not arrive by default.
In practice, custom policy work means taking your intent and putting it in terms that hold up in India. Then applying it evenly across everyone on that payroll.
Two India EOR engagements where this was the whole job
A business in the United Arab Emirates needed more than payroll in India. It needed a rented workplace, papers for a Germany visa file, and laptops and mobile phones. TMS ran payroll and HR, and coordinated the ground work alongside it. Workplace, papers and assets were coordinated end to end.
An Australian staffing company needed its India team on a structured payroll model. It also needed assets ordered through vendors, IT kit delivered, internal email IDs created, and its own policies applied in India. TMS ran payroll, onboarding, documentation and the full operational setup. The team got productive quickly, with assets and IT fully coordinated.
In both cases, payroll was the least interesting part of the job. It was also the only part a standard India EOR scope covers.
Six questions to ask before you sign
Useful questions are not about payroll accuracy. Any serious India EOR will get payroll right. Ask these instead.
- Can you buy and deliver laptops and phones, and whose asset are they?
- Who recovers company kit when someone resigns, and what if they keep it?
- Can you provide a workspace, and whose name holds the lease?
- Will you issue employment and visa letters, and how fast?
- Will you apply our policies in India, or only your own template?
- Which of the above sits inside the monthly fee, and which is billed on top?
Above all, get the answers in writing before the commercial talk closes. Not after your first hire starts.
How TMS approaches India EOR work
TMS has run as an Indian HR and compliance firm since 2006. Around 8,500 people sit on TMS payroll across all 28 states, for clients in more than 20 countries. The operation is Indian and on the ground, so the same team that runs payroll runs the rest.
Workspace, asset supply, IT and email coordination, employment papers and India specific policy work are all things TMS has delivered on live engagements. The two above are examples.
Which of them applies to you, and how each is priced, gets scoped per engagement rather than assumed. That is exactly the question this post suggests you put to any provider.
Hiring in India and need the setup as well as the payroll? Get a tailored quote.
More TMS guides
Deeper reference material on the topics in this post:
Frequently asked questions
Can an India EOR provide office space for my team?
Some can. However, it is not part of the standard EOR definition, so agree it specifically. That includes whose name holds the lease or the co-working membership.
Who owns the laptop given to an India EOR employee?
That depends on who buys it. It can sit on the EOR's books, or get billed through to you. What matters most is that ownership, insurance, support and recovery at exit are agreed in writing before anyone hands the kit over.
Can an India EOR issue a letter for a visa application?
Yes. The letter has to come from the legal employer, which is the EOR. It also has to describe the employment relationship accurately.
Will an India EOR apply my company policies?
A good one adapts them. Global policies often sit below Indian minimums on leave, notice and working hours. So they need rewriting to hold up in India, not copying across.
Is operational support inside the India EOR fee?
Often not by default. Payroll and compliance usually sit inside the fee. Workspace, assets and IT setup are commonly scoped on top. Providers differ, so confirm the model before you sign rather than assuming either way.
This post is general information about how EOR engagements work in India. It is not legal or tax advice. Scope, pricing and duties vary by provider and by contract, so confirm the detail in your own agreement.