Moving from an EORto your own Indian entity.

They change employer. Each person's employment with the employer of record ends, and a new one starts with your Indian company on a date you agree with them. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code requires an appointment letter from any establishment above a set headcount, and some states require one from every employer, so your company issues its own to everyone. The cleanest version mirrors the terms people already have.

What carries across on its own is narrower than most teams expect. Provident fund follows the person, because it sits under their Universal Account Number rather than with an employer. Entitlements that build with service, gratuity above all, are counted with the employer. They move only if you agree in writing that they should.

None of this is hard, and all of it is better decided before the date than discovered after it. The people you move are usually the ones you set up the entity to keep, so the change should reach them as a plan, not as a pile of new forms.

PF moves with them. The UAN was designed as one number for all of a member's employments, so each person gives theirs to your company when they join and the new PF account sits under it. The employee then asks EPFO, usually online, to transfer the old account to your company's PF account, with the balance and service period carried over. Where the UAN is linked to Aadhaar and the KYC is complete, the transfer can run automatically, and in most cases it no longer needs either employer to approve it.

Gratuity is the item that needs a decision. It now sits in the Code on Social Security, which replaced the Payment of Gratuity Act when the labour codes took effect on 21 November 2025. The Code pays gratuity when employment ends, including on resignation, once a qualifying period of continuous service is complete. It counts that service under the employer.

So the answer splits in two. Someone who has already completed the qualifying service at the EOR is owed gratuity by the EOR when they resign to move. Someone who has not starts again at your company, unless you agree in writing to recognise their EOR years, which the Code expressly allows as a better term.

Two details change the cost of that promise. The Code's gratuity chapter reaches a shop or establishment once it employs the number of people set in the Code's First Schedule, so a small new company can sit below it for a while. And recognised service is a liability your company takes on, so price it before you offer it.

Unused leave needs the same care. Decide, person by person, whether the EOR pays it out when that employment ends or your company carries it across, and write the answer into the appointment letter.

It needs to be able to employ and pay people, which takes more than a certificate of incorporation. Companies are incorporated through SPICe+, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' integrated web form. The same filing issues the company's PAN and TAN, its EPFO and ESIC registration numbers and, in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal, its professional tax registration. It also starts the application for the company's bank account.

Having those numbers is not the same as owing contributions. The Labour Ministry's notice says new companies get EPFO and ESIC registration at incorporation but must comply once they cross the employment threshold. Under the Code on Social Security, PF and ESI each apply from a headcount set in its First Schedule, and ESI only reaches employees within the wage ceiling the government notifies.

Below the PF threshold, PF can still apply to your company if the employer and a majority of employees agree to it. That is how a small company keeps people in the scheme they are already in.

The rest is state law. Professional tax is a state tax on professions and employments, so whether it applies, and how you register, depends on the state your people work in. Each state also has its own shops and establishments Act, which sets whether and how your office registers there.

Tax on salaries is national. Your company deducts income tax from salaries at source and reports it in a quarterly TDS statement filed under its TAN.

Thresholds, ceilings and state rules move, and India changed several of them in the past year. Our team confirms the current position for your state and headcount before anything moves.

Either your own team, usually with a local payroll provider and accountant, or Teamed. The monthly work is the same in both cases. PF and ESI are deducted and deposited where they apply, wage slips go out, and income tax is deducted from salaries, with the TDS statement filed quarterly and professional tax paid wherever the state levies it.

For a company that wants its own Indian entity without first building a payroll and compliance team, Teamed is the best choice, because GEMO sets up and manages entities in 100+ countries and Teamed has its own legal entity in India. You stay the employer and make the decisions. Teamed does the work behind them.

Setting up your own entity in India takes anywhere from a few weeks to several months, depending on how quickly the incorporation is approved and how fast a bank opens the company's account. Moving people is the quick part. Keep the EOR in place until your company can actually pay people, not merely until it exists.

What you control is the paperwork and the decisions: directors' documents ready, terms agreed and people told early. What you do not control is the registry and the bank, and nobody can honestly promise you a date for either. The steps below run in this order for a reason.