Offer letter and joining letter in India: what each one means

Offer letter and joining letter are not two names for the same document. The offer letter is the employer's written proposal of employment, sent once a candidate is selected. The joining letter comes later and concerns reporting for work. The appointment letter is a third document, and the only one Indian law addresses.

Offer letter and joining letter are not the same, and neither is the appointment letter

Offer letter and joining letter have no statutory definition in India. Both labels come from industry practice, and no Indian statute says what either has to contain. Companies still keep them apart. TCS, on its recruitment fraud alert page, asks freshers to validate an offer, joining or provisional letter as three separate documents, while experienced professionals are given offer letter validation alone.

Document	What it is	Where it comes from
Offer letter	The employer's written proposal of employment	Industry practice, not statute
Appointment letter	The letter an employer must issue to every employee on appointment	Section 6(1)(f), Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020
Joining letter	What a selected candidate receives about reporting for work	Industry practice, not statute

What changed for appointment letters in November 2025

India's four Labour Codes took effect on 21 November 2025, and the duty to issue appointment letters to all workers came with them. Before that date, no general law required a written appointment letter.

Section 6(1)(f) of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 requires an employer to "issue a letter of appointment to every employee on his appointment in the establishment", with the information it carries and the form it takes to be prescribed under the Code. The same clause gives a three month window for employees who were already engaged when the Code commenced.

The section leaves that detail to rules made under the Code. Offer letter and joining letter appear nowhere in it.

Whether an offer letter is legally binding in India

No Indian court judgment could be found, in the primary sources checked here, that squarely decides whether a private sector IT offer letter binds the employer. That absence is the honest answer. What exists is the general law of contract.

The Indian Contract Act, 1872 supplies it. Section 2(a) treats a proposal as signifying a willingness to act or abstain, with a view to obtaining another person's assent. Section 2(b) states that "A proposal, when accepted, becomes a promise". Section 2(h) defines a contract as an agreement enforceable by law, and section 10 requires free consent, competent parties and a lawful consideration and object.

Two provisions bear on the gap before a start date:

• Section 5: a proposal may be revoked at any time before the communication of its acceptance is complete as against the proposer, and not afterwards.
• Section 73: compensation is available for loss caused by a breach that naturally arose in the usual course of things. That is damages, not reinstatement or forced employment.

On what counts as acceptance, the Supreme Court held in Padia Timber Co. v. Board of Trustees of Visakhapatnam Port Trust (2021) that "An acceptance with a variation is no acceptance". That case was a commercial supply dispute with a port trust and not an employment case, so it states the general rule and decides nothing about offer letters.

This article is general information about how these documents work. It is not legal advice.

Conditions an offer can still fall away on

Companies publish eligibility conditions in far more detail than anything about withdrawal. TCS states on its All India NQT hiring page that an offer is valid only where the degree or provisional degree certificate clearly shows engineering cleared in first class within the stipulated course duration. The same page says: "We will review the candidate's eligibility at every stage of the selection process", and that a candidate found ineligible, or with discrepant declared details, is disqualified.

TCS publishes further conditions for that drive:

• Minimum 60 percent aggregate in 10th, 12th, diploma and graduation
• No pending backlog at the time of appearing for the selection process
• Overall academic gap of no more than 24 months
• Full time courses only
• Age between 18 and 28

That drive is covered in the TCS NQT 2026 registration and exam pattern guide, and the science graduate route in TCS BSc Ignite 2026 hiring. Openings are also listed by qualification for engineering graduates, BCA and BSc graduates and the 2026 engineering batch.

Cognizant publishes that its verification covers educational qualifications, previous employment details and references, criminal history where permissible, and credit history for some roles. Its candidate privacy notice states: "Submitting inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information may make you ineligible for employment."

Capgemini publishes the sequence: a recruiter extends a formal offer, the candidate accepts through the candidate portal, and "Upon acceptance, the background verification process begins." No company covered here publishes a plain statement that an offer is subject to satisfactory verification. That wording sits inside offer letters, which are not published.

Why joining dates slip, according to the companies themselves

The clearest account of the wait between offer letter and joining letter comes from Infosys, in regulatory filings rather than in anything written for candidates. Its Form 20-F annual report states: "we do not utilize our technology professionals when they are enrolled in training programs". A fresher in training does not count towards utilisation on the company's own measure.

Infosys reports two utilisation figures each year, one including trainees and one excluding them. The distance between them is the unbilled fresher pool:

• FY22: 82.4 percent including trainees, 88.3 percent excluding them
• FY23: 77.1 percent and 82.5 percent
• FY24: 80.7 percent and 82.2 percent
• FY25: 83.4 percent and 85.5 percent
• FY26: 81.1 percent and 84.4 percent

Infosys CFO Jayesh Sanghrajka told the Q4 FY26 call on 23 April 2026: "Utilization, including trainees, was at 81.1% for FY26 reflecting the investment made towards creating future capacity."

Onboarding is staggered by design. On the same call, CEO Salil Parekh described a model that onboards part of an intake at one point and the rest across the year. On 13 April 2023, Infosys CFO Nilanjan Roy said the company had "a very rich bench now", and on the Q4 FY23 call that day expected utilisation to improve as freshers were deployed.

Infosys hired 15,000 freshers in FY25, onboarded more than 20,000 in FY26, and expects a similar number in FY27. TCS CHRO Milind Lakkad said on 10 April 2025: "Our trainee onboarding in FY25 was 42,000 as planned." Infosys hiring for specialist roles is covered in the Infosys Specialist Programmer 2026 guide, alongside listings open to MCA and MSc graduates.

The same filing names the risk: if Infosys cannot train and deploy freshers on client projects in time, its utilisation, client satisfaction and profitability could be adversely affected. Wipro's FY26 Form 20-F treats bench forecasting the same way, warning that a failure to "precisely forecast demand for our services to optimize our bench" could adversely affect its results. Its fresher drive is covered in the Wipro Elite NTH 2027 exam pattern guide.

On 19 January 2026 the union NITES complained to the Union Labour and Employment Minister that more than 250 Wipro freshers issued Letters of Intent around May 2025 had not been onboarded, calling it "unfair recruitment practice, deficiency of service and violation of principles of fairness". That is a union allegation reported in the media, not a finding by a court or authority.

What each company actually publishes, and what it does not

Published and checkable on the companies' own sites:

• TCS runs an onboarding and document verification helpdesk (XP.Onboarding@tcs.com, 1800-572-3858, Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 18:00) and a campus and NQT helpdesk (ilp.support@tcs.com, 1800-209-3111).
• TCS lets freshers validate an offer, joining or provisional letter using a reference ID and a QR scan, and describes Xplore as "a post offer learning and engagement program, which includes 120 hrs of progressive induction curriculum".
• TCS states that after applying the status reads as Applied for Drive, and that no further acknowledgment or confirmation mail follows.
• Infosys publishes an offer validation page at career.infosys.com/offerValidation, linked from its fraud alert.
• Wipro publishes helpdesk.recruitment@wipro.com, and states that the address is "not monitored for resumes and career applications".
• Accenture states that its onboarding dashboard opens "30 days prior to your committed hire date".

Not published, the honest answer to most questions about the gap between offer letter and joining letter:

• TCS, Infosys and Wipro publish no offer-to-joining timeline and no commitment on the length of the wait.
• Infosys publishes an offer validator and a fraud alert, and no onboarding status process, helpdesk contact or joining timeline FAQ.
• Wipro's published hiring process page carries no offer letter, background verification or onboarding content at all.
• No company covered here has answered onboarding delay allegations on its own website. Every corporate response reached the public through the media.

Frequently asked questions

Are offer letter and joining letter the same

No. The offer letter is the employer's written proposal of employment, issued after selection. The joining letter is a separate document about reporting for work. TCS treats the two as distinct on its recruitment fraud alert page, alongside the provisional letter.

Is an offer letter legally binding in India

No Indian judgment could be found that squarely decides this for a private sector IT offer letter. Under the Indian Contract Act, 1872, an accepted proposal becomes a promise, and an agreement enforceable by law is a contract. Section 5 of that Act allows a proposal to be revoked before communication of its acceptance is complete against the proposer.

What is an appointment letter

It is the letter of appointment that section 6(1)(f) of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 requires an employer to issue to every employee on appointment in the establishment. It is the only one of the three with a statutory basis in India. What it must contain is to be prescribed under the Code, not set out in the section itself.

Why is my joining letter delayed

No company covered here publishes reasons for individual delays, and none of TCS, Infosys or Wipro publishes an offer-to-joining timeline. Infosys does state in its Form 20-F that it does not utilise technology professionals enrolled in training programmes, and its CEO said in April 2026 that onboarding is spread across the year.

When does background verification start after an offer

Capgemini publishes that verification begins once the candidate accepts the offer through its candidate portal. Cognizant publishes that its checks cover educational qualifications, previous employment details and references, plus criminal history where permissible. The other companies covered here do not publish when their checks begin.