Salary certificate format for Indian employers

What this letter is

A salary certificate states an employee current compensation, usually broken into components, on company letterhead. It is issued at the employee request for a third party who needs to verify income: a bank assessing a loan, a landlord, a consulate processing a visa. It is a snapshot of pay rather than a history of employment.

When to issue it

On request, addressed to the specific recipient the employee names, and handed to the employee rather than sent onward by you. Who sees an employee salary is the employee decision.

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]

To,
[BANK / CONSULATE / RECIPIENT NAME]
[ADDRESS]

Subject: Salary certificate for [MR/MS] [EMPLOYEE NAME]

This is to certify that [MR/MS] [EMPLOYEE FULL NAME], holding employee code [CODE], has been employed with [COMPANY NAME] since [DD/MM/YYYY] and currently holds the designation of [DESIGNATION].

The details of [HIS/HER/THEIR] monthly compensation for the month of [MONTH YYYY] are as follows:

  Basic salary                        Rs [AMOUNT]
  House rent allowance                Rs [AMOUNT]
  [OTHER ALLOWANCE]                   Rs [AMOUNT]
  Gross monthly salary                Rs [AMOUNT]

  Less: Employee provident fund       Rs [AMOUNT]
  Less: Professional tax              Rs [AMOUNT]
  Less: Income tax deducted at source Rs [AMOUNT]
  Net monthly salary payable          Rs [AMOUNT]

All amounts stated above are monthly figures in Indian Rupees.

This certificate is issued at the request of the employee for the purpose of [STATE THE PURPOSE].

For any verification, please contact [NAME, DESIGNATION, PHONE, EMAIL].

For [COMPANY NAME]

[SIGNATURE]
[NAME]
[DESIGNATION]

What it must contain

• Employee name, designation, employee code and date of joining.
• The salary breakdown: basic, allowances, gross, statutory deductions and net.
• Whether the figures are monthly or annual, stated in words rather than implied.
• The month or period the figures relate to.
• The name of the party it is addressed to, if the employee has named one.
• A verification contact at the company.

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.

• A salary certificate is a factual statement, not a statutory document, so no act prescribes its format. That freedom is why accuracy matters: it will be relied on by a lender or a consulate, and a figure that does not reconcile with the payslips and Form 16 is the kind of discrepancy that gets escalated rather than queried.
• Salary information is personal data about the employee. Issue it to the employee, and issue it for the purpose they asked for, rather than responding directly to third parties who contact you.
• Where the certificate is for a visa or a loan, the recipient will usually compare it against bank credits and tax documents. Keep the certificate consistent with what those show, and do not certify a gross figure that includes reimbursements the employee does not actually receive as salary.

The mistakes that cost money

• Certifying a figure that does not match the payslips. Banks reconcile the certificate against salary credits in the account statement, and a mismatch stalls the application.
• Leaving out whether the amount is monthly or annual. It is the single most common ambiguity in this document and it changes the number by twelve.
• Including reimbursements as though they were salary. Fuel and travel reimbursements are not income in the sense a lender is asking about.
• Sending it directly to the bank or the landlord. It is the employee financial information, so give it to the employee.

Questions people ask

The letters that go with this one

Where the details for this letter come from

Half the fields in this template are ones you already hold somewhere: date of joining, designation, salary structure, leave balance, notice period. Shiftelio keeps them in one employee record alongside attendance and payroll, so the figures you type into this letter are the figures the payslip used.

Every letter format in this library