You can hire engineers in India without registering a company — in 48 hours, fully legally. An EOR (Employer of Record) handles all employment contracts, payroll, PF, ESI, and TDS. You manage the engineer's work. The EOR handles everything else. With Peple, it costs $99 per engineer to onboard and $249 per engineer per month. No Indian entity, no local director, no compliance risk.
This article is for US, UK, and Australian founders and people leaders who want to hire Indian engineers — but don't want to spend 3 months and $2,500+ setting up an Indian company first.
It covers the three legal ways to hire in India, why most companies start with an EOR, exactly how the process works step by step, and what it actually costs. Every number in this article comes from Peple's direct experience of onboarding 500+ engineers across 150+ companies.
One thing most guides get wrong: they treat India EOR as a permanent arrangement. It isn't. The best India EOR providers are designed to transition you to your own entity when you're ready — that's what separates a good EOR from a trap.
There are three legal ways to hire engineers in India from the US or UK, and each suits a different stage of growth.
Option 1 — Employer of Record (EOR): A third-party company employs your engineers on your behalf under Indian law. You direct their work. The EOR handles employment contracts, payroll, PF (Provident Fund — India's mandatory retirement savings scheme, equivalent to 12% of basic salary from both employer and employee), ESI (Employee State Insurance — mandatory health insurance for employees earning under ₹21,000/month), TDS (Tax Deducted at Source — income tax withheld from salary before payment, equivalent to PAYE in the UK), and all statutory compliance.
Option 2 — Your own Indian entity (Pvt Ltd): You register a Private Limited Company — India's equivalent of a US LLC or UK Ltd — and employ engineers directly. This gives you full control but takes 3 months to set up and requires ongoing compliance costing $79+/employee/month.
Option 3 — Independent contractors: You engage engineers as freelancers. This is faster but carries compliance risk — India's tax authorities may reclassify a contractor as an employee if they work full-time exclusively for one company for more than 45 days. Triggered reclassification means back-payment of PF, ESI, and penalties.
| Option | Setup time | Monthly cost/engineer | Compliance risk | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EOR (Peple) | 48 hours | $249 | None — EOR handles it | 1–20 engineers |
| Own entity (Pvt Ltd) | 3 months | $79 (compliance only) | Yours to manage | 20+ engineers |
| Contractor | 1 day | Nil | High (reclassification risk) | Short-term <45 days |
An India EOR takes on legal employer status for your engineers — handling every obligation that Indian employment law places on an employer.
What the EOR handles: Drafting compliant employment contracts under India's Labour Codes, PF registration and 12% monthly employer contribution, ESI registration and 3.25% monthly employer contribution, TDS calculation and quarterly returns, Professional Tax (PT — a state-level employment tax), monthly salary processing and payslip generation, annual Form 16 issuance (India's equivalent of a W-2), leave and attendance management, and offboarding and final settlement when someone leaves.
What you handle: Day-to-day work assignments, performance and direction, tools and system access, culture and goals.
"Your engineer reports to you every morning. Our name is just on the contract so you don't have to deal with 35+ annual compliance filings yourself."
Your first Indian engineer can be live in 48 hours from the day the employment contract is signed. Here is the exact timeline from Peple's 500+ onboardings:
| Day | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 0 | You sign the EOR master services agreement (1 hour, done remotely) |
| Day 0 | You share engineer's offer details — salary, title, start date |
| Day 1 | EOR drafts compliant employment contract |
| Day 1 | Engineer receives, reviews, and signs contract |
| Day 1–2 | PF and ESI registration completed |
| Day 2 | Laptop procured locally, configured to your IT specs, dispatched |
| Day 2 | Engineer starts work ✓ |
The most common delay is the client taking 2–3 days to provide complete offer details. Have salary, job title, start date, and any role-specific requirements ready before you contact the EOR.
With Peple, the total cost of hiring one engineer via EOR is straightforward and predictable:
| Fee | Amount | When paid |
|---|---|---|
| Onboarding fee | $99/engineer | Once, at onboarding |
| Monthly EOR fee | $249/engineer/month | Monthly, in USD |
| Hardware management (optional) | Device cost at actuals + $20/device/month | At procurement + monthly |
| Office space (optional) | Rent at actuals + 15% management fee | Monthly |
The $249/month includes full payroll processing, PF/ESI/TDS filing, compliance dashboard, attendance and leave management, offboarding support, and a dedicated account manager. For a team of 5 engineers with hardware and office space, a typical monthly Peple invoice is $1,800–2,200.
See the full Peple pricing breakdown →
Indian employment law is more complex than most US and UK founders expect. There are 35+ annual filings per employee across 5 different government bodies.
| Frequency | Filing / Obligation | Government body |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | PF return | EPFO |
| Monthly | ESI return | ESIC |
| Monthly | TDS payment | Income Tax Dept |
| Monthly | Professional Tax | State government |
| Quarterly | TDS return (Form 24Q) | Income Tax Dept |
| Annual | Form 16 issuance | Income Tax Dept |
| Annual | Annual PF return | EPFO |
| Annual | Annual ESI return + Labour Welfare Fund | ESIC + State govt |
All of these are included in the $249/month EOR fee. If you were running your own Indian entity, missing any of these can trigger penalties and, in some cases, personal liability for directors.
No — not when using an EOR. A local director (a person resident in India for at least 182 days in the prior financial year) is only required if you register your own Indian Pvt Ltd.
With an EOR, the EOR company is the registered entity and the employer. You need no Indian presence, no resident, and no local representative. You operate entirely from the US or UK.
Most companies transition from EOR to their own Indian Pvt Ltd when their India team reaches 15–25 engineers. At that scale, the cost of running your own entity ($79/employee/month) is lower than the EOR fee ($249/employee/month).
The India entity incorporation process has 5 components: Pvt Ltd incorporation (~$2,500, 3 months), banking and RBI filing, statutory registrations (GST, PF, ESI, PT), employee migration ($1,000 one-time fee), and ongoing compliance ($79/employee/month).
With Peple, this transition is planned from day one. CA Rohit Lohade's team begins entity groundwork quietly in the background from your first EOR hire — so when you hit 20 engineers and want to make the move, most of the preparation is already done.
If you ship a laptop from the US to your Indian engineer, you will pay 38–42% customs duty on its full value. A $1,500 MacBook costs you $2,100–2,130 landed in India. Most SaaS-only EOR platforms have no solution for this. Peple procures laptops locally from Dell, HP, Lenovo or Apple India — eliminating import duties entirely.
PF registration is mandatory before the first payroll run. If an EOR processes a salary before the employee is registered with the EPFO, the employer faces penalties and backdated contributions. Peple completes PF registration within 24 hours of contract signing.
India's income tax department applies a 45-day threshold for independent contractors. An engineer working exclusively for one company for more than 45 continuous days may be reclassified as an employee — triggering back-payment of PF (up to 24% of basic salary), ESI, and penalties.
Indian employment law requires a minimum 30–90 days notice for most engineers. Final settlement must be paid within 2 working days of the last working day or the employer faces fines. Peple manages the full offboarding process to ensure you stay compliant.
Most Indian corporate banks require physical presence, notarised documents, and multiple KYC rounds. For a foreign-owned Pvt Ltd, the process takes 3–6 weeks. We start the bank account process in parallel with incorporation — not after it.
A 35-person SaaS company based in San Francisco reached out to Peple in January 2026. They had identified a senior backend engineer in Pune they wanted to hire. Their options: hire as a contractor (fast but risky) or set up an Indian entity (too slow — the engineer had another offer on the table in 3 weeks).
The one hiccup: The client wanted a specific Dell model out of stock in Pune. Peple sourced it from Bengaluru and shipped overnight. Total delay: 18 hours.
| EOR (Peple) | Own Pvt Ltd | Contractor | Global EOR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 48 hours | 3 months | 1 day | 48 hours |
| Onboarding cost | $99/engineer | $2,500 + $1,000 | Nil | $0–500 |
| Monthly cost/engineer | $249 | $79 | Nil | $300–500 |
| Hardware management | ✓ Local | Yours to manage | N/A | ✗ |
| Physical office | ✓ Available | Yours to arrange | N/A | ✗ |
| Transition to own entity | ✓ Built in | N/A | N/A | ✗ |
| India-specific CA team | ✓ | Yours to hire | N/A | ✗ |
Book a free 30-minute call with CA Rohit Lohade. No sales pitch — just an honest assessment of your options and exact costs for your first hire.
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