Ask an HR manager for their statutory compliance checklist and you will usually get an Excel file. Forty rows, colour-coded, last edited by someone who left in 2024. Nobody opens it until the inspector's letter lands on the desk.
We have seen that file many times. The rows are fine. What is missing is time. A checklist says "pay ESIC". It does not say "today is the 13th, ESIC is due in two days and the Pune challan is still not uploaded".
So we took the usual checklist and sorted it by date instead of by law. Some jobs you do once when a site opens. Some come round every month. A handful turn up each quarter or every April and October, and the rest land once a year. If you handle payroll or HR for an Indian company, big or small, this is meant to sit next to your desk.
What statutory compliance covers
In plain terms, statutory compliance is everything the law makes an employer do for its people. Register the business. Pay wages on time and at least at the minimum. Deposit PF and ESIC. Pay professional tax and labour welfare fund where your state levies them. Keep registers, file returns and keep an eye on contract workers. Miss one and it turns up later as a notice, a penalty or a very long inspection.
First, what moved in 2026
Four labour codes went live on 21 November 2025 and 29 old central Acts went with them. The Central Rules came out on 8 May 2026. States have been catching up at their own pace, which is why two of your sites in different states may not be on the same page yet.
For a checklist, three things changed in practice. Minimum wages now cover every employee, including office and IT staff who were outside the old scheduled employments. The definition of wages now drives PF, gratuity and bonus, and if your excluded allowances add up to more than half of total pay, the extra gets counted back in. And establishments with 10 or more workers now take one common registration under the OSH Code instead of several separate ones.
What did not change is just as important. Shops and Establishments Acts, professional tax and labour welfare fund are still state subjects. A company with offices in Bengaluru and Pune is still following two sets of rules.
Things you set up once
Pick one site and pull out its folder. Is the common registration under the OSH Code in there? For central-sphere units that comes from Shram Suvidha; for everyone else, the state portal. Next to it you want the Shops and Establishments certificate or factory licence, the EPF and ESIC codes, and the professional tax and labour welfare fund registrations if your state has them. Now repeat for every site. Tedious, yes, but you only do it properly once.
Two items get missed more than the rest. The first is the POSH Internal Committee, which every office or branch with 10 or more employees must have, not just head office. The second is standing orders, which the Industrial Relations Code requires for industrial establishments with 300 or more workers.
Then put everything in one sheet: registration number, date of issue, renewal date and the person responsible. It sounds basic. In audits, it is often the one document that does not exist.
Every month
The monthly cycle is where most penalties come from, because the dates are fixed and they keep coming.
Salaries have to reach employees before the end of the 7th of the following month under the Code on Wages. EPF and ESIC contributions are due by the 15th, and it helps to save the EPF challan and ECR in the same folder the day you pay. Professional tax depends on your state; some collect it monthly, others do not.
When someone leaves, whether they resigned or were let go, their dues must be paid within two working days. Many payroll teams still work on a 30 or 45 day full and final cycle, and that is now a breach.
Overtime needs a line of its own. It is payable at no less than twice the normal rate, and attendance and overtime records should match what payroll paid.
If you use contractors, collect their wage sheets and PF and ESIC challans every month, not just at onboarding. If a contractor does not pay its workers, the principal employer can be asked to pay instead.
End each month by filing the challans and acknowledgements against the right establishment. If an auditor cannot find the proof, the task might as well not have been done.
Every quarter
Once a quarter, sit down with each site's registers and compare them with payroll. Headcount gaps between PF, ESIC and payroll usually mean someone was never enrolled.
This is also a good time to go through contractor licences for expiry dates, read the central and state notifications from the last three months, and check that your POSH committee still has the right members. People leave, and a committee with a vacant presiding officer is not properly constituted.
Every six months
April and October are the two months to mark in red. Variable dearness allowance on minimum wages is revised twice a year, before 1 April and before 1 October. An employee who was comfortably above the minimum in March can fall below it in April without anyone touching their salary.
ESIC contribution periods also run in halves, April to September and October to March. Some states collect labour welfare fund on a half-yearly basis too; Maharashtra, for example, collects it in June and December.
Once a year
Year-end has the most items but the fewest surprises. Annual returns go in as your state and the codes ask, and the acknowledgement goes in the site folder the same day. Statutory bonus has to be paid within eight months of your accounting year closing, so for a March year-end that means by 30 November. The POSH committee owes you its annual report.
Licence renewals are where people get caught. A licence rarely lapses because nobody knew about it. It lapses because the only reminder sat on the phone of someone who has since changed jobs. Put every renewal date in a shared calendar.
Two more. Fixed-term staff now get gratuity after a single year, so check who crosses that line this year. And block a week for an internal audit of each site, using the full checklist, before an inspector does it for you. While you are at it, reread the wage, working hours, leave and fixed-term sections of your HR policy against the codes.
Mistakes we see again and again
The common ones are rarely about not knowing the law. A company pays its contractor on time and assumes the workers got paid. Registers sit at the plant while challans sit at head office, so nobody can put together one complete file. A professional tax rule from one state gets applied to another. The April revision is missed because nobody was watching for it. Or the return was filed on time but the acknowledgement was never saved.
Why a routine beats a list
Think about what happens when your payroll lead takes two weeks off in March. With a list, their replacement has forty rows and no idea which are urgent. With a routine, they open the calendar, see what falls due this week and get on with it.
Once you have more than four or five sites, keeping that calendar by hand gets messy. The compliance calendar in our digital library lists due dates month by month and is a decent place to start. That is usually the point where teams move it into labour law compliance software, so reminders go out on their own and every challan, licence and register sits against the right site. For the full, law-by-law version of what is above, we keep a detailed labour law compliance checklist 2026 covering registrations, records, wages, PF, ESIC, safety, leave, gratuity and POSH.
FAQs
What is statutory compliance in HR?
It covers the duties an employer owes under labour and social security laws: registrations, minimum wages and timely pay, PF, ESIC, professional tax, labour welfare fund, registers, returns and contractor checks.
What goes into a statutory compliance checklist?
Start with registrations and licences for each site. Then add the recurring stuff: wage dates, PF, ESIC, professional tax, labour welfare fund, registers and contractor records. Round it off with POSH, bonus, gratuity, annual returns and a yearly internal audit.
When are PF and ESIC contributions due?
By the 15th of the month after the wage month.
When do monthly wages have to be paid under the Code on Wages?
Before the end of the 7th day of the following month. Dues on exit have to be cleared within two working days.
How often should we audit?
A full audit of each site once a year works for most companies. In between, spend an hour a quarter on registers and contractor papers.
Does the checklist change by state?
Yes, quite a bit. Delhi has no professional tax, Maharashtra does. Labour welfare fund rates and dates differ, and so do Shops and Establishments rules and minimum wages. Keep one version per site.
Conclusion
A statutory compliance checklist only earns its keep when it tells you what is due this week. Set up each site's registrations once, then run the same monthly cycle: wages by the 7th, PF and ESIC by the 15th and dues on exit within two working days. Add a quarterly look at registers and contractors, keep April and October marked for minimum wage revisions, and close the year with returns, bonus, renewals and an internal audit.
Most gaps we come across have little to do with the law itself. They come from records kept in two places and reminders kept on one person's phone. Put every date in a shared calendar and every challan against the right site, and inspections get a lot less stressful.
If you manage several states, our labour law compliance software can run this routine for you, with reminders, licences, registers and contractor records in one place.
This is general information, not legal advice. Check the rules notified for your state before acting.
