Compliance deadlines are not hard. They are just numerous, and they arrive whether or not anyone is watching.
Most Indian SMEs miss them the same way: the person who knew the dates left, or a new state was added and nobody mapped its filings. A calendar fixes both, and it takes an afternoon to build.
What a compliance calendar is
A dated list of every statutory filing, payment and renewal your business owes, with an owner against each one.
It covers three cycles. Monthly items like PF and ESI contributions, TDS and professional tax. Annual items like the POSH return, bonus registers and Form 16 issuance. And one-off renewals like Shops and Establishments registration.
The point is not the document. It is that the dates stop living in one person’s head.
Why it matters more since November 2025
India replaced twenty-nine central labour laws with four Labour Codes on 21 November 2025. Central rules followed on 8 May 2026, and state rules are still being notified and are not uniform.
Two changes affect the calendar directly:
- Wages are due by the 7th of the following month under the Code on Wages, 2019. The concession letting employers with 1,000 or more staff pay by the 10th has been removed.
- Final settlement is due within two working days of resignation, dismissal or retrenchment. Not the next payroll cycle. This one catches almost everybody.
PF and ESI obligations now sit in the Code on Social Security, 2020, and working hours and safety in the OSH and Working Conditions Code, 2020. The filings continue; the statute they sit under has changed.
Building one
Start with where you employ people, not where you are registered. Professional tax, minimum wages and Shops and Establishments rules follow the employee’s work location. Four states means four sets of dates.
Then list what applies at your headcount. Several obligations start lower than founders expect. POSH at ten employees, with the annual return to the District Officer due by 31 January even in a year with no complaints. An equal opportunity policy under section 21 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 at any size, with no threshold at all.
Put a name against each line. Not a department. A person, with a backup.
Set the reminder before the deadline, not on it. A PF challan needs the money moved, which needs someone to approve it. Three working days of buffer is about right.
Record the proof. Challan number, acknowledgement, filing date. The calendar is only useful in an inspection if it links to evidence.
Where calendars fail
They go stale. Someone builds it, it works for eight months, then a state revises its minimum wage notification or you hire your first employee in a new state and nobody updates it.
The other failure is the downloaded template. Generic calendars miss state-specific items entirely, and professional tax is the usual casualty because it varies so much. A template is a starting point, not a calendar.
Doing it yourself or handing it over
A calendar you maintain is genuinely fine if someone owns it and reviews it quarterly. The question is whether that person exists.
In most companies under a hundred people, they do not. Compliance is a side task for someone hired to do something else, and it is the first thing dropped in a busy month.
The short version
Map your states, list what applies at your headcount, name an owner per line, set reminders with buffer, and keep the proof. Review it quarterly and after any change in headcount or location.
If that is not going to happen reliably, we run the calendar as part of our employee compliance service, across every state you employ in. Send us your headcount and locations and we will map it for you.
Every registration, monthly filing and annual return for Indian employers - in one place.
Get it free →
Written by Makarand Gaikwad
HR professional at HRTailor with expertise in payroll, compliance, and HR management across India.