The record that decides a PF and ESIC file in Bengaluru is your own employee register. Not the portal login, and not the challan. The register fixes headcount on a given day, it fixes which names stand there on 31 December, and it fixes which of those names carry wages that trigger a deduction. Employers who keep it clean file in an afternoon. Employers who rebuild it from bank statements in June lose weeks and still miss people. So we open every Bengaluru payroll engagement on the register, then work outward to the monthly filings and to the Karnataka obligations that sit beside them.
What actually goes wrong when a Bengaluru payroll filing slips?
Coverage does not switch off. Section 1(8) of the Code on Social Security, 2020 provides that an establishment a Chapter applies to at the first instance stays covered even if the number of employees later falls below the threshold. A team that touched ten people in March and dropped back to eight by September is still inside.
Karnataka then adds consequences of its own. Section 4 of Karnataka Act 35 of 1976 makes the employer liable to pay professional tax on behalf of employees whether or not the deduction was actually made, so a forgotten deduction comes out of the company. Section 5(5) sets a penalty of ₹1,000 on an employer who applies late for a registration certificate, and ₹500 on any other person, imposed after a hearing. If a penalty is imposed under section 12 it is ten percent of the tax due, and it is on top of the interest payable under section 11.
None of this is dramatic in any single month. It gets expensive when four years of it surface during a diligence, which is when most founders here read their own filings properly for the first time.
Which Bengaluru employers are inside the net, and at what headcount?
ESI coverage runs off the First Schedule to the Code on Social Security, 2020, which reaches every establishment in which ten or more persons are employed, other than a seasonal factory. That test is no longer confined to factories, so a shop, an office or a software establishment with ten or more persons is inside Chapter IV directly, with no state extension needed. Counting is where employers slip. The second proviso to section 2(26) says employees whose wages are more than the notified ceiling are also taken into account when counting for the coverage of an establishment, even though they are not themselves covered employees. The wage ceiling for ESI coverage is fixed by notification, and we confirm the current notified ceiling before we register you. Contribution becomes payable from the date the Corporation begins providing benefits to your establishment, as notified by the Central Government.
Provident fund coverage is the one line we will not put a number to on a page like this. We check where your own establishment stands against the current instrument and tell you in writing, before anything is filed either way.
Who asks us to look at this:
- a product startup founder in HSR Layout who has just made the tenth offer and wants the count settled before the joining dates land
- an IT services and BPM operator at Electronic City carrying two shifts and a roll that moves every single month
- a Whitefield company whose headcount crossed ten during a project ramp and then slid back once the ramp ended
- a Peenya unit that has deducted for years without once reconciling its register against what was actually filed
Whose desk does your file land on in Karnataka?
ESIC's Regional Office for Karnataka is at Bengaluru, and the state carries five sub regional offices: Bangalore South at Bommasandra, Peenya, Mysuru, Hubballi and Kalaburagi. Two of the five sit inside Bengaluru, one for each industrial flank of the city. SRO Peenya takes in Malleshwaram, Peenya, Yeshwanthpur, Jalahalli, Hebbal, Nelamangala, Doddaballapura and Devanahalli. SRO Bangalore South at Bommasandra takes in Adugodi, HAL, Wilson Garden, Bommanahalli, Singasandra, Bannerghatta, HSR Layout, Anekal and Attibele. The HSR Layout founder and the Peenya unit are not writing to the same office, and that matters the first time a notice lands.
Professional tax is a different department again. That one is the Karnataka Commercial Taxes Department, and the whole of it runs on e-Prerana at ptax.karnataka.gov.in: the application, the certificate, the monthly statement and the payment. A Government Order of 4 February 2025 directs that applications be accepted online only, that no fee is payable on registration or enrolment, and that the certificate downloaded from the portal needs no seal or signature. Bengaluru clients ask about that last point constantly, usually after a bank has queried the download.
Which dates run the payroll year here?
Four calendars sit on one Bengaluru payroll, and only two of them are national.
| Obligation | Due date | Who it binds |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly PF contribution and ECR | 15th of the following month | every registered establishment |
| Monthly ESI contribution | 15th of the following month | every covered establishment |
| Professional tax statement in Form 5-A | Within 20 days of the month end | holders of a registration certificate |
| Employer professional tax return in Form 5 | Within 60 days of the year end | holders of a registration certificate |
| Enrolment certificate payment | Before 30 April | every enrolled person |
| Labour welfare fund and Form D | 15 January | employers of ten or more persons |
The last row is the one payrolls here miss. The Karnataka Labour Welfare Fund Act, 1965 is annual and it runs on the calendar year rather than the financial year. Contribution is payable for every employee whose name stands in the establishment register on 31 December, at ₹50 from the employee and ₹100 from the employer, with ₹50 from the State Government. The employee share may only be deducted from December wages, and any later month needs the Inspector's written permission. Since 7 January 2026 the Act reaches any establishment that employed ten or more persons on a working day in the preceding twelve months, societies and trusts included.
What does ₹999 a month buy, and what sits outside it?
The monthly fee covers the recurring run, and each month it goes like this:
- you send the register changes by the fifth, with joiners, exits and any wage revisions
- we compute the contributions and the professional tax deduction, then send you the workings
- challans are generated, you approve payment, and the ECR and ESI contribution go in by the fifteenth
- the Form 5-A statement follows on e-Prerana by the twentieth, with proof of payment attached
Nothing on that list carries a government fee of its own, because Karnataka charges nothing at all to register or to enrol. What sits outside the monthly figure is one time work:
- a first registration where you crossed the line months ago and never got around to enrolling
- a clean up of earlier periods, with the workings redone month by month and refiled
- a reply to a notice from an assessing authority or from a sub regional office
Each of those is quoted before we start. For the national mechanics of both schemes rather than the Karnataka layer, read PF and ESIC Compliance in India explained.
Where does Karnataka professional tax meet your PF and ESI work?
Karnataka runs two certificates and they are not interchangeable. The registration certificate under section 5(1) is what an employer takes for the liability of its employees. The enrolment certificate under section 5(2) is what the business takes for its own. A Bengaluru company with staff needs both, a consultant with no staff needs only the enrolment certificate, and section 5(3) allows thirty days from commencement to apply.
On the payroll side the line is a salary of ₹25,000 and above for a month. Schedule serial number 1 says "and above", so an employee drawing exactly ₹25,000 is inside it. Since 1 April 2025 the deduction is ₹200 for each month from April to January and for March, and ₹300 for February, which comes to ₹2,500 across the year.
On the business side almost every entry is a flat ₹2,500 a year. Explanation I means a company answering to several entries pays once, not several times over. Explanation V is the one that catches employers holding two addresses. Every additional place of business is deemed a separate person, so an office in Koramangala and a second in Whitefield each carry ₹2,500, while a place used purely as a godown does not. The enrolment payment date is 30 April, and although extensions have been ordered in recent years, each was a separate order good for one year.
Who runs your PF and ESI calendar month after month?
We run a Bengaluru payroll as one calendar instead of four. The team that files your ECR and your ESI contribution also files the Form 5-A statement, watches the 15 January labour welfare fund date, and maintains the register all of it is built from. Our Bengaluru office is in Kanak Nagar, and the CA and CS team works with employers across HSR Layout, Whitefield, Peenya and Electronic City. Jurisdiction follows your own registered address and not ours, so we confirm your sub regional office and your assessing authority before the first filing. Every month you get the workings, the challans and the acknowledgements, in a folder that stays yours.