Salary Slip Format India: Section 33 Code on Wages

A salary slip is a dated, employer-issued record of one wage period, typically a calendar month, showing what the employee earned and what was withheld. It splits into three blocks that every Indian payroll follows : the earnings side listing Basic, HRA, Dearness Allowance, special and conveyance allowances ; the deductions side listing employee Provident Fund, ESI where applicable, Professional Tax and TDS ; and a summary stating gross earnings, total deductions and net salary payable, usually printed in both figures and words.

People confuse the payslip with the CTC sheet and the Form 16, and the distinction matters. The CTC breakup is an annual projection handed over at the offer stage and includes the employer's own PF and gratuity contributions, which never appear as your take-home. Form 16 is the year-end TDS certificate the employer files for tax purposes. The salary slip sits between them as the monthly proof of what was actually credited to your bank account. A bank assessing a loan reads the payslip, not the CTC letter, because it wants the real net figure. If your basic pay shows as a suspiciously small fraction of gross, expect the loan officer to question it, since lenders treat artificially low basic as a sign of an inflated allowance structure. For the contract that fixes this structure in the first place, see our employment contract and appointment letter for India.

Until late 2025 the payslip obligation rested on the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, which required employers to give a wage slip detailing earnings and deductions. That statute has now been repealed. Since 21 November 2025, wages in India are governed by the Code on Wages, 2019, which consolidated the Payment of Wages Act, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 into a single code. The duty to issue a payslip survived the change and was in fact strengthened : under Section 33 of the Code on Wages, 2019, every employer must maintain a register of wages and issue wage slips in the prescribed form to all workers, with non-maintenance of records carrying a fine up to ₹10,000 and underpayment of wages exposing the employer to penalties reaching ₹50,000 to ₹1,00,000.

The most consequential change is the standardised definition of wages in Section 2(y). Wages now mean basic pay plus dearness allowance, and where the excluded allowances such as HRA and conveyance together cross 50% of total remuneration, the excess is deemed wages and pulled back into the base on which PF, ESI and gratuity are calculated. This 50% rule has forced thousands of companies to restructure pay that previously kept basic at 20 to 30% of CTC. For workmen, conditions of service still interact with the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, and final settlement timing on exit is governed by the same wage framework, a point our relieving letter format for a clean exit addresses directly. Employers and employees who want the primary text can consult the official Code on Wages 2019 as published on India Code. Because the central and state implementation rules are still being notified, the prescribed slip format may be refined, but the obligation to issue one is already live.

The everyday trigger is the monthly payroll run. Every salaried employee is entitled to a payslip for the wage period, and an employer who skips it is exposed the moment a dispute or an inspection arises. Beyond routine issuance, the highest-stakes use is the loan application. Banks and NBFCs ask for the most recent three to six months of slips to verify income before sanctioning a home loan, a personal loan or a credit card, and they reject slips that are unsigned or lack the company letterhead.

Visa processing is the next big one. Consular officers for the Schengen, UK, US and Gulf routes treat the payslip as proof of stable employment and means, usually paired with bank statements showing the same net credit. Then comes the annual ritual of income tax filing, where the slip reconciles your declared salary against Form 16 and your Form 26AS. Tenancy is an underrated use : landlords in metros increasingly ask prospective tenants for recent slips, and the HRA line on your payslip is also what you rely on when claiming the rent exemption, which is why a clean rent receipt for an HRA claim should match the figures on your slip. One edge case worth flagging : an employee on loss of pay leave should still receive a slip, because the LOP line is precisely what a lender will scrutinise to understand a dip in net pay.

• The employer and employee identification block carries the company name and registered address, the employee name, designation, employee code, PAN, UAN (the universal PF account number) and the bank account into which salary is credited. Lenders and visa officers check that the name and account match the supporting bank statement, so a mismatch here is a common reason for rejection.
• The earnings side itemises Basic (now typically held at or above 50% of gross to satisfy the Code on Wages wage definition), House Rent Allowance, Dearness Allowance, Special Allowance, Conveyance and Medical Allowance. Each line is shown separately rather than rolled into a single figure, because partial tax exemptions on HRA and conveyance depend on the component being visible.
• The deductions side lists employee Provident Fund at 12% of basic (capped where basic is taken at the ₹15,000 statutory ceiling, giving a maximum employee contribution of ₹1,800), ESI at 0.75% of gross for employees drawing up to ₹21,000 a month, Professional Tax per the state slab, and TDS deducted under the income tax law. The template keeps zero-value lines visible for transparency.
• The attendance and pay-period block records the wage month, total paid days, LOP days and the date of payment, because a lender reading a lower net amount needs the LOP figure to explain it.
• The net pay summary states gross earnings, total deductions and net salary payable, printed in both figures and words, with the payment mode noted as bank transfer alongside the last four digits of the account. This is the figure a bank underwrites against.

Payslip law in India layers a central code over State-level rules, and the part that varies most by state is Professional Tax, a deduction levied by states rather than the centre.

Maharashtra levies Professional Tax under the Maharashtra State Tax on Professions, Trades, Callings and Employments Act, 1975, with monthly slabs that top out at ₹200 (and ₹300 in the final month of the year for higher earners). A Mumbai or Pune payslip without a PT line is immediately suspect to a local bank, and employers registered under the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments Act must reflect the deduction every month.

Karnataka deducts Professional Tax under its own Profession Tax Act for employees in Bengaluru and across the state, currently exempting lower earners and capping the deduction at ₹200 a month. Given the IT workforce concentration, Bengaluru payslips are among the most heavily scrutinised by visa consulates, so the UAN and PAN fields must be populated correctly.

Tamil Nadu administers Professional Tax through local bodies such as the Greater Chennai Corporation on a half-yearly basis, which means the PT deduction often appears as a larger periodic figure rather than a small monthly one, a difference a Chennai employee should expect to see.

Delhi does not levy Professional Tax at all, so a compliant Delhi payslip will simply omit the PT line, and its presence on a Delhi slip is itself an error. The PF and ESI lines, being central, appear identically across all states.

You begin by entering the company details and the wage month, then add the employee's identification, including PAN and UAN, so the slip ties back to the EPFO and tax records. From there you enter the agreed salary structure : the form lets you set Basic, HRA, DA and the allowances, and it flags the position if basic falls below the 50% threshold the Code on Wages now expects. Once the earnings are in, the template applies the statutory deductions, calculating employee Provident Fund at 12% of basic against the ₹15,000 ceiling, ESI where the employee draws up to ₹21,000, the Professional Tax slab for the selected state, and the TDS figure you supply from payroll. You then record paid days and any LOP, and the slip computes gross, total deductions and net salary payable in figures and words. The output downloads as a Word file you can put on company letterhead and as a finished PDF, the format banks and consulates accept. If you are also setting up the underlying engagement, the linked offer letter aligned with the Code on Wages keeps the promised structure consistent with what later appears on the slip.

The most damaging error is calculating Provident Fund on the wrong base. PF is 12% of basic pay, not of gross or CTC, and keeping basic artificially low to shrink the PF outflow is exactly the practice the Code on Wages 50% rule now penalises by deeming the excess allowances back into wages. Employers who left basic at a quarter of CTC are finding their PF, gratuity and ESI bases recalculated, and a payslip that still shows a token basic will not survive an inspection. A close second is omitting the PAN and UAN, which makes the slip useless for tax reconciliation and for the employee's own EPFO claims.

Another frequent failure is issuing an unsigned slip or one without the company letterhead, which banks reject outright as proof of income. Employers also stumble on Professional Tax by applying the wrong state slab or, in Delhi's case, deducting PT where none is due. Finally, many leave off zero-value lines or hide the LOP figure, when transparency is precisely what makes the document credible. A lender seeing a lower net pay needs the LOP line to understand it ; without it the slip raises a question instead of answering one. Keep payroll records for at least three years, since the limitation period for wage claims under the Code is now three years.