We write to alert you that India's four new Labour Codes
have been made effective on November 21, 2025.
The Labour Codes replace 29 central / federal level labour laws
and are India's biggest labour law reform. The Labour Codes
were enacted in 2019 & 2020, and it took over 5 years for the
government to make them fully effective.
We are providing below a high-level overview of the Labour Codes
along with the key aspects that they cover.
1. Wages – New Definition: Possibly the
biggest change across all the Labour Codes is the introduction of a
new definition of 'wages'. It consists of salary,
allowances and other components expressed or capable of being
expressed in monetary terms and includes basic pay, dearness
allowance, and retaining allowance. There is a specific list of
components that do not amount to 'wages', such as statutory
bonus, provident fund and pension contributions, conveyance
allowance, house rent allowance, overtime, besides
