India Employment Visa Salary Threshold | A2 Consultants
India's Employment Visa policy sets a minimum annual salary floor for most foreign nationals, with specific carve-outs. Getting the salary structuring wrong is one of the most common reasons an otherwise-eligible applicant gets stuck.
India's Employment Visa guidelines set a minimum annual salary threshold that a foreign national must be paid to qualify, intended to reserve the visa category for skilled and senior roles rather than positions that could be filled locally. The threshold and its exemptions are set by government policy and have been revised over time, so the current figure should always be confirmed at the time of application rather than assumed from a prior filing.
Who the threshold applies to, and who is exempt
The standard salary floor applies to most Employment Visa categories, but specific exemptions exist for certain categories -- historically including roles like ethnic cooks, language teachers (other than English), staff working for the Government of India, or roles under a specific sectoral carve-out. These exemptions are narrowly defined, and assuming a role qualifies for an exemption without checking current guidance is a common source of rejected or delayed applications.
What counts toward the salary for threshold purposes
This is where structuring mistakes happen most often. Not every element of a compensation package is automatically treated as salary for visa-threshold purposes -- allowances, benefits-in-kind, and deferred compensation are not always counted the same way as fixed cash salary. A package that looks like it clears the threshold on a total-compensation basis can fail if a large share is structured as non-salary benefits.
Common structuring problems
- Splitting compensation between India and home-country payroll in a way that makes the India-payslip salary alone fall under the threshold, even if global compensation is well above it.
- Heavy reliance on housing, car, or other benefits-in-kind rather than fixed cash salary, without confirming how these are treated for threshold purposes.
- Assuming a stated exemption category applies without verifying the applicant's actual role and documentation meet the current, narrow definition.
The practical approach
Before finalising an offer or secondment package for someone who will need an India Employment Visa, confirm the current threshold and how the specific compensation structure will be assessed against it -- ideally before the offer is signed, since restructuring compensation after the fact is far harder than getting it right at the outset.