Offer letter format for Indian employers

What this letter is

An offer letter is a proposal. It sets out the role, the money and the start date, and it invites the candidate to accept. Until they do, no contract exists. That is the difference between this and an appointment letter, and it is not a technicality: an accepted offer has the elements of a contract, which is how an employer ends up bound to a person who never joined.

When to issue it

After the hiring decision and before the appointment letter. Send it once, with an acceptance deadline, and do not send a second version carrying different numbers unless you formally withdraw the first.

Everything in square brackets is yours to replace. Read the section below on what this letter must contain before you send it, because the template is the easy half.

[COMPANY LETTERHEAD]

Date: [DD/MM/YYYY]

[CANDIDATE NAME]
[ADDRESS]

Subject: Offer of employment for the position of [JOB TITLE]

Dear [CANDIDATE NAME],

Further to our discussions, we are pleased to offer you the position of [JOB TITLE] at [COMPANY NAME], reporting to [MANAGER NAME, DESIGNATION], based at our [LOCATION] office.

Your proposed compensation is as follows:

  Basic salary                  Rs [AMOUNT] per month
  House rent allowance          Rs [AMOUNT] per month
  [OTHER ALLOWANCE]             Rs [AMOUNT] per month
  Employer provident fund       Rs [AMOUNT] per month
  Gross monthly salary          Rs [AMOUNT]
  Annual cost to company        Rs [AMOUNT]

  [If any part of this is variable, state it here and say what it depends on.]

Your intended date of joining is [DD/MM/YYYY].

This offer is subject to:
  1. Verification of the documents and references you have provided.
  2. Your producing a relieving letter from your current employer.
  3. [ANY OTHER CONDITION].

Please confirm your acceptance by signing and returning a copy of this letter on or before [DD/MM/YYYY], after which this offer will lapse.

The detailed terms and conditions of your employment will be set out in the appointment letter issued to you on your date of joining.

We look forward to working with you.

Yours sincerely,

[NAME]
[DESIGNATION]
[COMPANY NAME]

Accepted:

Signature: ______________    Date: ____________

What it must contain

• The job title and the reporting manager, both specific.
• The full compensation breakdown, not only the CTC figure. State the basic, the allowances, the employer provident fund contribution and anything variable, because a candidate who discovers at their first payslip that a fifth of the CTC was a performance bonus will not stay.
• The intended date of joining.
• The conditions the offer is subject to, listed explicitly.
• An acceptance deadline, after which the offer lapses on its own.
• A line stating that the detailed terms will follow in the appointment letter issued on joining.

The law behind it

India has no single statute governing employment letters. The obligations sit across state Shops and Establishments Acts, which differ from each other, and a handful of central acts that apply to some employers and not others. Each note below names its source and who it applies to.

• An accepted offer can be a binding contract under the Indian Contract Act 1872. Offer, acceptance and consideration are all present the moment the candidate signs, so treat the numbers in it as final rather than as an opening position.
• Conditions must be stated in the letter to be enforceable as conditions. If the offer is subject to a background check, a medical, or the candidate producing a relieving letter from their current employer, write that down. An unstated expectation is not a condition, it is a hope.
• Withdrawing an accepted offer has cost Indian employers money. Where a candidate has resigned from another job in reliance on the offer, courts have been willing to award compensation. If your headcount approval is not final, do not send the offer.

The mistakes that cost money

• Quoting CTC as though it were take-home. This single mistake produces more first-month resignations than any other, and printing the breakdown prevents it in four lines.
• Omitting the acceptance deadline. Without one the offer stays open indefinitely, and a candidate can accept it three months later when you have already filled the role.
• Writing notice period, probation and termination terms into the offer letter and then writing different ones into the appointment letter. Disagreeing later about which document governs is an expensive way to start an employment relationship.
• Sending an offer before the budget is signed off. An accepted offer is not a draft.

Questions people ask

The letters that go with this one

Or stop retyping it every time

Shiftelio generates offer letters as branded A4 PDFs with your letterhead, the employee details filled in from their record, and a repeating header and page count. The dates, designation and salary come out of the same place your payroll does, so the letter and the payslip cannot disagree.

Every letter format in this library