Your employer of record in India
An employer of record legally employs your India team while you direct the daily work, the priorities and the performance. We hold the contracts, run the payroll, carry the benefits, the tax and the compliance, and keep the team whole. You get engineers in India who work only for you, without registering a company or learning a country's employment law. Every Outpost team is employed this way.
What an employer of record does
An employer of record, usually shortened to EOR, is the company that legally employs your team in a country where you have no entity of your own. The split is simple and it is the point of the model. The EOR is the employer on paper: it holds the contracts, pays the salaries, and answers for compliance. You are the employer in practice: you set the priorities, direct the daily work, and manage performance. The team works only for you, but you never register a company, open a payroll, or take on the legal weight of employing people in India.
That is what lets a firm in the Gulf put engineers in India in weeks rather than quarters. India is about one and a half to two and a half hours ahead of the Gulf, so the working day overlaps almost entirely with yours, and the EOR removes the one thing that would otherwise slow you down, which is standing up a legal presence before a single person can be hired.
What the EOR carries, and what stays yours
We take the employment and the compliance. You keep the work and the ownership.
We handle
Payroll and statutory benefits, income tax and provident fund, employment contracts, HR administration and ongoing compliance. In India that means the DPDP Act, keeping the data the team touches resident in India, and an information security standard: we are ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified. One transparent monthly fee per seat covers all of it.
You keep
The roadmap, the priorities, the daily direction and the performance calls. And the ownership: your intellectual property and work product are assigned to you, and every engineer signs confidentiality and IP terms as part of employment. We are the legal employer for payroll and compliance, but the code, the product and the work are yours throughout.
When an EOR beats your own entity, and when it does not
The honest rule is a matter of scale. Below a modest team size, running through an employer of record is almost always simpler and cheaper than registering and carrying your own company in India. You avoid the setup, the fixed overhead, the local filings, and the standing cost of an entity that has to exist whether the team is five people or fifty. You pay per seat and you adjust with notice.
Above a larger team, with a long commitment, the arithmetic can flip. A captive entity you own can win on cost per head at scale, and it gives you outright control of the operation. This is where build operate transfer bridges the two: you start on an employer of record, prove the team while it is small and the risk is low, and transfer it into your own entity once the size and the certainty justify the overhead. You do not have to choose the endpoint on day one.
For Outpost, the EOR is not an add-on. It is how every team is employed. When you run a dedicated team or an offshore development centre with us, we are your employer of record in India by default, which is what makes the rest of it work.
Common questions
What is an employer of record in India?
An employer of record, or EOR, is the company that legally employs your India team on your behalf. It holds the employment contracts, runs payroll and statutory benefits, and carries the compliance, while you direct the daily work, the priorities and the performance. You get a team in India without registering your own entity there.
What does an employer of record handle?
The EOR handles payroll, statutory benefits, income tax and provident fund, employment contracts, HR administration and ongoing compliance. In India that also means the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, keeping data resident in India, and an information security standard. With Outpost we carry all of this as ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified, so you direct the work and we carry the employment.
Who owns the intellectual property when an EOR employs the team?
You do. Intellectual property and work product are assigned to you, and every engineer signs confidentiality and IP terms as part of their employment. The EOR is the legal employer for payroll and compliance, but the code, the product and the work belong to you throughout.
When is an EOR the right choice versus registering your own entity?
Below a modest team size an employer of record is almost always simpler and cheaper than standing up and carrying your own company in India. Above a larger team, with a long commitment, a captive entity can win on cost per head and gives you outright control. Build operate transfer bridges the two: start on an EOR, and transfer to your own entity once the size justifies it.