Employer of Record · India
Hire, pay and manage your team in India — without setting up an entity
Aether Blue Associates is your Employer of Record in India. We handle employment contracts, payroll, taxes and every statutory filing — so your Indian team can start in days, not months. No salary deposits. No FX markups. No platform fees.
Trusted by teams at
AssetIntel
Hello Recruiter
CodeStand
Stealth AI
The problem we solve
Expanding to India shouldn't take months of paperwork
Without Aether Blue
Six months before your first hire starts.
Setting up an Indian subsidiary means company incorporation, tax registrations, labour-law compliance and payroll infrastructure — before your first employee begins. The filings never stop, and mistakes carry penalties.
With Aether Blue
Compliant from day one.
As your Employer of Record, your team in India is legally employed by us — contracts, payroll, benefits and every statutory filing covered — while working exclusively for you. You get the talent. We carry the compliance.
- Registered Indian Private Limited Company
- GST-registered · zero-rated exports under LUT
- EPF, ESI & TDS compliant employer
- Serving US-based clients since 2024
- Aligned to India's new Labour Codes (in force Nov 2025)
- Pan-India employment — all states & major cities
Services
What we do
Benefits
Employee benefits,
done the proper way
Long-term benefits are where informal arrangements fail audits. We build them formally from day one.
Leave SOP
A written leave policy aligned to state Shops & Establishments rules — earned, casual and sick leave, carry-forward and encashment — administered with proper leave registers and reflected correctly in payroll and full-and-final settlements.
Policy + registers
Gratuity
Statutory gratuity under the Payment of Gratuity Act is provisioned for every eligible employee from day one and settled transparently at exit — so a long-serving employee's dues never surface as a surprise liability.
Accrued, not ignored
Group Gratuity Fund
We maintain an approved Group Gratuity Fund structure so gratuity liabilities are funded and ring-fenced with a regulated insurer — not just a book entry. Your team's benefits stay secure independent of any single client engagement.
Funded & ring-fenced
Process
How it works
01
Discovery call
We understand your roles, headcount plan and budget — and give you a transparent per-employee cost sheet.
02
Agreement
A straightforward Master Service Agreement covering scope, fees, confidentiality and IP protection.
03
Onboarding
Compliant employment contracts, EPF/ESI enrollment, documentation and induction for your selected candidates.
04
Run & report
Monthly payroll, statutory deposits and one USD invoice — with registers and compliance proofs every cycle.
Timeline
First employee onboarded in as little as 5–7 working days.
On the record
What our clients say
“We needed engineering capacity in India without the overhead of an entity, and without compliance surprises in a business where compliance is everything. Aether Blue runs it like clockwork — contracts, payroll, filings, proofs — one invoice, zero follow-up needed from our side.”
Hooman Parvardeh·CEO, AssetIntel
Verified client
“Our India team is the core of our engineering org. Aether Blue onboarded our first hires in under a week and has never missed a payroll or a filing since. When India rewrote its labour laws, they'd already restructured everything before we even asked.”
Avi Tiwari·CFO, Hello Recruiter
Verified client
“We're pre-launch, so discretion and speed matter. Aether Blue gave us a compliant Indian team in days, bills us cleanly in USD, and handles everything we don't want to think about.”
Founding Team·CodeStand
Verified client
In force 21 November 2025
India rewrote its employment law. We've already implemented it.
Four Labour Codes replaced 29 central laws from 21 November 2025. Every employment we run is structured on the new framework, not the old one.
Why Aether Blue
Why India, and why us
Why India
- 60–70% cost savings versus equivalent US roles
- The world’s largest pool of English-speaking professionals
- Time-zone advantage: your India team works while you sleep
- Mature remote-work culture and digital compliance infrastructure
Why Aether Blue
- A genuinely compliant employer — your people get PF, ESI and formal contracts, not gig arrangements
- Director-level attention on every account — no ticket queues
- USD invoicing as a zero-rated exporter — clean, GST-free billing
- Jharkhand-based: lower operating costs than metro providers, passed on to you
2024
Incorporated in India
100%
On-time statutory filings
USD
Zero-rated export billing
24–48h
Typical response time
Pricing
One flat monthly
fee per employee
One flat monthly fee per employee, billed in USD. Salaries and statutory contributions are passed through at actuals with proofs — no markup.
1–5 employees
EOR — Starter
Contact us for pricing
- Compliant employment contracts
- Monthly payroll & payslips
- EPF, ESI, TDS & PT filed with proofs
- No setup fee, no deposit
6–15 employees
EOR — Growth
Contact us for pricing
- Everything in Starter
- Dedicated compliance calendar
- Leave, attendance & HR policy admin
- Monthly MIS for your finance team
16+ employees
EOR — Scale
Contact us for pricing
- Everything in Growth
- Quarterly compliance review calls
- Priority director-level support
- Entity-transition support when you're ready
Do we need to register a company in India to hire through you?
No. Under the EOR model, Aether Blue is the legal employer in India. You need no Indian entity, bank account or registration.
Who controls the employees' day-to-day work?
You do. Employees work under your direction, on your projects and tools. We handle the legal employment, payroll and compliance layer.
Can you employ people anywhere in India?
Yes — we employ across all Indian states and major cities. State-specific items (Professional Tax schedules, Shops & Establishments rules, state holidays, and state Labour Code rules) are applied per each employee's work location, and our compliance calendar tracks them state-wise.
How do we pay you?
One consolidated monthly invoice in USD, covering salaries, statutory contributions and our service fee. As an exporter of services under LUT, our invoices carry no Indian GST.
How does payment work each month?
We invoice once monthly in USD — salaries and statutory contributions at actuals plus our fee — payable by wire before the salary date. Salaries are paid to employees on schedule every month; we maintain the working discipline that your team's payday is never dependent on same-day transfers. Filing proofs and payroll registers accompany every cycle.