Search for an appointment letter template and you will find hundreds. Almost all of them were written before the labour codes, and it shows: they are a paragraph confirming the role, a line about salary, and a signature.
That is no longer what an appointment letter is.
What the rule requires
Section 6(1)(f) of the OSH Code requires every employer to issue an appointment letter to every employee. Rule 6 of the OSH (Central) Rules, 2026 sets out what has to be on it — sixteen prescribed particulars, in a fixed order.
The list is not a style guide. It is the particulars the rule names, and the order it names them in. Reordering or dropping rows is not a formatting preference.
State rules may prescribe their own form, so a central-rules letter is the floor rather than the ceiling if you operate somewhere with its own requirement.
An offer letter is not an appointment letter
They get used interchangeably and they do different jobs.
An offer letter is an offer. It goes out before the candidate has accepted, it can be withdrawn, and it exists to be agreed to.
An appointment letter is issued to someone who is already an employee, and it is the document the rule requires. It records the terms of the engagement in the form the rule prescribes.
Sending a good offer letter and nothing afterwards leaves the requirement unmet. Both documents have a place, and most people who ask for one actually need both. What belongs in the offer itself is in How to Write an Offer Letter.
Why it is worth getting right rather than resenting
The honest case for the rule is not compliance. It is that most disputes between a small employer and a departing employee come down to something that was never written down — what the notice period was, what the working hours were, what was counted as wages, who the person reported to.
Sixteen particulars is a long list. It is also, more or less, that list of things.
The wages definition catches people out
One particular deserves separate attention, because it interacts with how salaries are structured.
The labour codes use a single definition of wages across provident fund, gratuity, bonus and overtime. Basic pay, dearness allowance and retaining allowance always count. A list of other items is excluded — house rent allowance, conveyance, overtime — but if those excluded items together exceed half of total remuneration, the excess is pulled back into wages.
Structures built to keep basic low so that PF and gratuity stay small run straight into that rule. If your appointment letter sets out a salary break-up, it is worth checking the split before it is in writing rather than after.
What to do
Take your current template and read it against the sixteen particulars, in order. Most people find they have eight or nine of them, scattered.
Our appointment letter format is built on rule 6: the particulars are there, numbered, in the order the rule sets out, and the form shows what share of total remuneration is basic plus DA as you type — so you can see the fifty-per-cent line before you commit to a structure rather than after.
Make it now
Keep reading
- How to Write an Offer LetterAn offer letter is the employer's proposal, and once it is accepted its terms are what was agreed. What to put in it so the candidate knows exactly what they are accepting, with a sample salary break-up.
- What Changed for Indian Employers on 1 April 2026Four changes landed at once, and most HR templates in circulation still predate all of them. Here is the list, with what each one actually requires.
- Downloading the Format as Word or ExcelA PDF is finished. Sometimes you need to change the wording, add a clause, or hand the file to an accountant. That is what the other two buttons are for.