Payslip and Wage Payment Rules Under the New Labour Code
By Varun M
For employers: two operational obligations apply from your very first employee, no headcount threshold involved — exact payment deadlines by wage period, and a mandatory, itemised wage slip for every payment.
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Model the wage figures that must appear on every payslip.
The short answer
Monthly-paid wages must be paid by the 7th of the following month. Full and final settlement, on removal, dismissal, retrenchment, or resignation, is due within 2 working days. Every employee must get a wage slip, physical or electronic, on or before payment — these apply to every employer, regardless of size.
Payment deadlines by wage period
Section 17 of the Code on Wages sets a different deadline for each wage period an employer chooses to pay on:
| Wage period | Payment deadline |
|---|---|
| Daily | End of the shift |
| Weekly | Last working day of the week, before the weekly holiday |
| Fortnightly | Within 2 days of the fortnight ending |
| Monthly | Before the 7th of the following month |
| On removal / dismissal / retrenchment / resignation | Within 2 working days |
Most salaried employers pay monthly, making the 7th-of-next-month deadline the one that matters day to day — but the 2-working-day final-settlement deadline is the one most frequently missed, since it applies on every exit, not on a predictable monthly cycle. Build it into your offboarding checklist, not just your payroll calendar.
The mandatory wage slip
Every employer must issue a wage slip to every employee, on or before the date of payment, electronically or in physical form (Section 50, read with the Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2026 — Form V). This applies to full-time, part-time, and contractual employees alike. A compliant wage slip should show, at minimum:
- Establishment name and address, the wage period covered, and the date of issue.
- Employee name, designation, UAN, and bank account number.
- The wage breakdown: Basic, DA, and other allowances — and specifically, which components count as statutory "wages" (Basic + DA + retaining allowance) versus which are excluded (HRA, bonus, commission, and similar). See Basic salary vs CTC under the new labour code for why this classification matters beyond the payslip itself.
- All deductions: employee PF, ESI, professional tax, TDS — and separately, employer-side contributions (employer PF, ESI, gratuity provisioning where applicable).
- Gross wages, total deductions, and net pay.
If you're still issuing an informal or incomplete payslip, this is a compliance gap independent of your headcount — unlike most of the labour code's other obligations, there's no small-business threshold that exempts you from it. See which labour code obligations apply at what headcount for what does scale with size.
Getting this wrong
Late wage payment and missing or non-compliant wage slips both expose an employer to penalties under the Code on Wages, separate from any employee grievance or dispute this might also trigger. Treat the payment-deadline table and the wage-slip checklist above as a baseline payroll-process audit, not a one-time read.
FAQ
Before the 7th day of the following month. Other wage periods have their own deadlines: daily wages at the end of the shift, weekly wages on the last working day before the weekly holiday, and fortnightly wages within 2 days of the fortnight ending.
Within 2 working days of removal, dismissal, retrenchment, or resignation — a much shorter window than the regular monthly payment cycle, and one of the most frequently missed deadlines since it doesn't follow a predictable schedule.
Yes — every employer must issue a wage slip, physical or electronic, on or before the date of payment, for full-time, part-time, and contractual employees alike, under Section 50 of the Code on Wages and the Central Rules' Form V.
Establishment details, the wage period, employee name/designation/UAN/bank account, the wage breakdown (Basic, DA, allowances, and which components count as statutory 'wages'), all deductions (employee and employer side), and gross/net pay.
Yes, without exception — unlike most other labour-code obligations, wage payment timing and wage slips have no headcount threshold. They apply from your very first employee.
Last verified: 14 Aug 2026
Sources: Code on Wages, 2019, Section 17 (time limit for payment of wages) and Section 50 (wage slips); Code on Wages (Central) Rules, 2026, Form V.
This is general information, not legal advice. State-specific rules may set additional or slightly different requirements — confirm your organisation's exact payroll compliance obligations with legal or HR compliance counsel.