What Goes Into a Security Guard's Salary

A security guard's pay in India is anchored to the minimum wage notified for the guard's skill category by the appropriate government. Unarmed guards are usually classified as semi-skilled and armed guards or supervisors as skilled, and the notification splits the wage into a basic rate and a variable dearness allowance (VDA) that is revised, in most states, twice a year. Everything else in the salary is built on top of this floor. The state-wise minimum wages guide explains where to find the current figure.

On top of basic plus VDA an agency may pay HRA, a uniform or washing allowance, a conveyance allowance, and a night or hazard allowance depending on the client contract. Under the Code on Wages the excluded allowances cannot exceed 50% of total remuneration; anything above is added back to wages for PF and other calculations. Keeping basic plus DA at least half of the package is now the safe design.

Overtime is a separate line and is never part of the fixed wage. Statutory bonus at a minimum of 8.33% is an annual liability that most agencies accrue monthly and either pay monthly as a component or pay out after the accounting year closes. Gratuity accrues but is paid only on exit after five years of continuous service. A payslip that shows all of these separately is what a labour inspector and a client auditor expect to see.

• Basic + VDA at or above the notified minimum wage for the skill category and zone
• Allowances (HRA, uniform, conveyance) kept within the 50% rule under the Code on Wages
• Overtime as a separate line at twice the ordinary hourly rate
• Statutory bonus at 8.33% minimum, accrued or paid monthly
• Employer PF, ESI, EDLI and admin charges shown as cost-to-company, not deducted

The 26-Day Divisor and Per-Day Wage

Minimum wages are notified as a monthly figure that already assumes the guard gets a paid weekly off. The accepted practice is to divide the monthly wage by 26 (30 days minus 4 weekly offs) to get the per-day rate. A guard who works all 26 duty days and takes 4 weekly offs receives the full monthly wage. The daily rate is used for LOP deductions, for paying extra duty days, and for deriving the hourly rate for overtime.

The hourly rate follows from the daily rate: divide by 8, because 8 hours is the normal working day in most state notifications and in the Factories Act benchmark of 9 hours per day and 48 per week. Overtime is then paid at twice that hourly rate. If the state notification defines the working day as 9 hours, adjust accordingly; do not mix a 26-day divisor with a 30-day month or an 8-hour day with a 9-hour notification.

The salary per day calculator and the overtime pay calculator let you test these divisors against your own wage master. Agencies that divide by 30 to compute LOP and by 26 to compute overtime are systematically short-paying, and the discrepancy shows up the moment a guard compares two payslips.

• Per-day wage = monthly minimum wage ÷ 26
• Hourly rate = per-day wage ÷ 8 (or the notified daily hours)
• Overtime rate = hourly rate × 2
• Extra duty on a weekly off is paid as an additional day at the daily rate, or as overtime if the weekly hours exceed 48
• Use one divisor for everything: LOP, extra days and overtime must agree

Attendance-Based Payable Days

Payable days for a guard are duty days actually worked plus paid weekly offs plus paid leave and paid holidays. If the roster shows 26 duty days and the guard worked 24 with 2 unauthorised absences, payable days are 24 duty days plus the 4 weekly offs, and LOP is 2 days at the daily rate. Whether an absence also forfeits the weekly off wage depends on the state rule and your leave policy; the safer practice is to deduct only the absent days unless the notification says otherwise.

This is where attendance quality becomes payroll accuracy. A paper site register signed by the guard and countersigned by a supervisor is the legal baseline, but it is filled from memory at month end more often than anyone admits. GPS and selfie attendance timestamped at the post gives the payroll executive a day-by-day record that matches the roster, so payable days are computed rather than argued.

Half-days, late arrivals and early departures need explicit rules before payroll, not during it. A common approach for guards is that a shift under 4 hours is unpaid, 4 to 8 hours is a half day, and 8 or more is a full day, with a grace of 10 to 15 minutes for arrival. Whatever you choose, write it into the attendance policy the guard signs and configure the same rule in payroll. The half-day and overtime guide covers the edge cases.

• Payable days = duty days worked + paid weekly offs + paid leave + paid holidays
• LOP = absent days × per-day wage
• Define half-day and grace rules in writing and apply them identically in payroll
• Match attendance against the published roster, not against the guard's recollection
• Reconcile payable days per guard per site before running payroll

Overtime on 12-Hour Posts: The Honest Options

Most client contracts in India specify 12-hour guard posts. A guard working 12 hours a day for 26 days works 312 hours in a month against a normal 208 (26 × 8). The extra 104 hours are overtime and must be paid at twice the ordinary hourly rate under section 59 of the Factories Act and under the Code on Wages. There is no lawful way to treat those 4 hours a day as normal time by calling the shift 'a 12-hour duty'.

There are three honest ways to structure a 12-hour post. First, pay the overtime: the guard's pay is roughly the monthly wage plus the same amount again in overtime, and the client is billed accordingly. Second, staff the post with three 8-hour shifts, which costs 3.5 guards instead of 2.33 but has no overtime. Third, run 12-hour shifts on a reduced number of days so that weekly hours stay at 48, which needs more guards and a more complex roster. Each is legitimate; the dishonest option is to pay a flat 12-hour 'duty rate' with no overtime line.

Whatever the structure, overtime should be consent-based under the new Codes, capped by the state rule on maximum overtime hours per quarter, and computed from recorded attendance rather than assumed. Attend Mitra's security guard payroll software derives overtime hours from the shift template and the actual in and out times, so a guard who leaves early on a 12-hour post does not get 4 hours of overtime by default.

• 12 hours × 26 days = 312 hours; normal time is 208; overtime is 104 hours at 2x
• Option A: pay the overtime and bill the client for it
• Option B: run three 8-hour shifts and staff 3.5 guards per post
• Option C: shorter working weeks on 12-hour shifts with more guards
• Never a flat '12-hour duty rate' without a visible overtime line

PF, ESI and Bonus Deductions

EPF is deducted at 12% of basic plus DA. Since 17 September 2026 the statutory wage ceiling is ₹25,000 per month, so a guard whose basic plus VDA is below that has the full amount subject to PF. The employer contributes another 12%, split as 8.33% to the pension scheme (on wages up to the ceiling) and 3.67% to the provident fund, and pays EDLI at 0.5% and administration charges at 0.5% on top. Because September 2026 straddles the change, the ceiling applies on a split basis for that month (1–16 September at ₹15,000, 17–30 September at ₹25,000). Use the PF calculator to see the exact split.

ESI applies where the establishment is covered and the guard's wages are up to ₹21,000 per month gross. For the coverage test ESIC excludes overtime, but once a guard is covered the contribution is payable on gross wages including overtime. The employee share is 0.75% and the employer share is 3.25%; a guard earning up to ₹176 a day is exempt from the employee share. A guard who crosses ₹21,000 mid-contribution-period (April to September or October to March) continues to contribute until the period ends. The ESI calculator handles these rules.

Statutory bonus is due to employees with basic plus DA up to ₹21,000 who have worked at least 30 days in the year, at a minimum of 8.33% and a maximum of 20%, computed on ₹7,000 or the scheduled minimum wage, whichever is higher. For security guards the minimum wage is almost always higher than ₹7,000, so bonus is computed on the actual minimum wage. Many agencies show bonus as a monthly component; if you do, make sure it is not counted as part of the minimum wage itself.

• Employee PF: 12% of basic + DA, ceiling ₹25,000 from 17 September 2026
• Employer PF: 8.33% EPS + 3.67% EPF, plus 0.5% EDLI and 0.5% admin
• ESI: employee 0.75%, employer 3.25% on gross, coverage up to ₹21,000 excluding overtime
• Bonus: 8.33% minimum on wages up to ₹7,000 or the minimum wage, whichever is higher
• Professional tax where the state levies it; none in Delhi, Haryana, UP or Rajasthan

Worked Example (Illustrative Wage)

The figures below use an assumed monthly minimum wage of ₹18,200 (basic plus VDA) for a semi-skilled unarmed guard. This is a placeholder chosen to make the arithmetic clear; it is not any state's actual rate, and you must substitute the current notification for your state and zone. The guard works 8-hour shifts, is present on all 26 duty days, and puts in 24 hours of overtime covering a colleague's week-offs.

Per-day wage is ₹18,200 ÷ 26 = ₹700. Hourly rate is ₹700 ÷ 8 = ₹87.50, so the overtime rate is ₹175 per hour and 24 hours earns ₹4,200. Gross for the month is ₹18,200 + ₹4,200 = ₹22,400. Employee PF is 12% of ₹18,200 = ₹2,184. The guard is ESI-covered because ₹18,200 is under ₹21,000 (overtime excluded from the test), so employee ESI is 0.75% of ₹22,400 = ₹168. Net pay is ₹22,400 − ₹2,184 − ₹168 = ₹20,048, before any professional tax or advance recovery.

On the employer side: EPS 8.33% of ₹18,200 = ₹1,516, EPF 3.67% = ₹668, EDLI 0.5% = ₹91, admin 0.5% = ₹91, ESI 3.25% of ₹22,400 = ₹728, and bonus accrual at 8.33% of ₹18,200 = ₹1,516. Total employer cost for the month is about ₹27,010. If the same guard had been absent two days, payable duty days drop to 24, the wage becomes 24 × ₹700 = ₹16,800, and every percentage line recomputes on the lower base.

• Earnings: Basic + VDA ₹18,200; Overtime 24 h × ₹175 = ₹4,200; Gross ₹22,400
• Deductions: EPF ₹2,184; ESI ₹168; Net ₹20,048
• Employer: EPS ₹1,516; EPF ₹668; EDLI ₹91; Admin ₹91; ESI ₹728; Bonus ₹1,516
• Payslip must show days paid (26 + 4 weekly offs), OT hours, and each statutory line
• Replace ₹18,200 with your state's current notified wage before using any of this

Common Errors in Guard Payroll

The most frequent error is applying a 30-day divisor to a wage that was notified on a 26-day basis. A guard absent for two days loses 2/30 of the wage instead of 2/26, and over a year across 200 guards this adds up to a real underpayment and a real claim. The second is ignoring the weekly off wage altogether by paying only for days physically on post; the notified monthly wage already includes the four offs.

The third error is not paying overtime on 12-hour posts, discussed above. The fourth is computing PF on basic alone when the notification is basic plus VDA; PF is due on both. The fifth is missing the ESI contribution-period rule and stopping deductions the month a guard's wage crosses ₹21,000. Each of these is easy to fix in a wage master and impossible to fix retrospectively without arrears.

Attendance-linked payroll removes most of these because the divisor, the overtime rule and the statutory settings are configured once and applied identically to every guard. Attend Mitra prepares the payroll run from the recorded attendance, derives LOP and overtime, applies EPF, ESIC, PT and TDS settings, and produces payslip PDFs, a salary register and an NEFT bank file. It does not file the ECR or ESIC returns or issue Form 16; those remain with your compliance consultant. The VDA glossary entry explains how the dearness component moves each revision.

• Wrong divisor (30 instead of 26) on minimum-wage guards
• Not paying the weekly off that is built into the monthly wage
• Flat 12-hour rate with no overtime line
• PF on basic only, ignoring VDA
• Stopping ESI the month wages cross ₹21,000 instead of at period end