How much stipend should a company pay interns in India?

Compare recent internships with similar work, hours and locations, then ask your lawyer or CA which rules apply to your arrangement. As of 31 October 2026, Internshala’s terms set monthly listing floors of ₹2,000 in office and ₹1,000 for home working, with specified unpaid exceptions. A platform listing floor is not a universal internship rate. Government schemes state their own amounts for their own participants.

Updated 31 October 2026. Internshala’s terms, the AICTE and LineupX pages, the NATS About page and the linked government publications were checked; scheme amounts are attributed to dated documents because current payment terms could not be confirmed on all three scheme portals.

Is there a minimum stipend for interns in India?

The sources checked here do not establish one rate for every internship. Platform listing floors and apprenticeship scheme rates apply in different contexts. As of 31 October 2026, Internshala’s terms require at least ₹2,000 a month for in-office internship listings and ₹1,000 a month for work-from-home listings.

Treat the platform’s minimum as a listing requirement, then compare similar roles before setting your offer. An internship stipend is the amount you promise in your post and offer letter, so record incentives and reimbursements on separate lines. AICTE’s National Internship Portal says stipends are declared upfront and paid to the student’s bank account (read 31 October 2026). For the free-listing allowance and posting steps, see is Internshala free for companies.

Paid or unpaid internship: which should I offer?

Check whether the posting platform accepts unpaid internships, and ask your lawyer or CA whether your proposed arrangement is appropriate. A mentor or certificate does not by itself make an unpaid arrangement appropriate.

Internshala’s terms, read on 31 October 2026, list among what it does not allow ‘Unpaid internships, except for NGOs/NPOs, government agencies & niche internship profiles (Law/Legal & Legal Research)’.

If an unpaid arrangement is appropriate after professional review, state its hours, project, supervision, expenses and end date clearly. Never charge an intern a fee, deposit or ‘training charge’: Internshala’s terms, read on 31 October 2026, say that charging applicants money in any form for offering a job is strictly prohibited.

How do I set a stipend for my own internship?

A practical starting point is to compare five recent listings for similar work, hours and locations. This small sample helps you set an offer; it does not establish a market rate.

COMPARISON RECORD (one per listing)
Listing link: [URL]        Date checked: [date]
Guaranteed monthly stipend: ₹[amount]
Weekly hours: [hours]      Location: [city]
Work mode: [office / hybrid / remote]
Required skills: [skills]

Work through the numbers in this order:

1. Record five comparable listings in the format above.
2. Sort the five amounts and select the third. If the roles or hours differ substantially, improve the comparison before calculating a midpoint.
3. Record any adjustment for skills, hours, location, work costs or responsibility, without counting the same factor twice.
4. Check the result against your platform’s floor, such as the ₹2,000 in-office or ₹1,000 remote minimum in Internshala’s terms as of 31 October 2026.
5. Multiply by the number of interns and months, add the costs you cover, and confirm you can pay it. If the budget is unaffordable, revise the hours or scope before advertising.

Listings are often messy. Handle them like this:

• No hours stated: leave the listing out, or ask the employer. Do not guess.
• Incentive-only or ‘up to’ figures: use only the guaranteed monthly amount.
• Unusually high or low offers: check for differences in hours, skills or responsibilities before including them.
• Different cities or modes: compare like with like, or adjust once for a stated reason.

If you cannot find enough comparable listings, ask placement cells for recent offers for similar roles, record the dates and hours, and treat their responses as a local comparison rather than a national benchmark. Do not fill gaps with estimated platform figures.

This guide does not recommend a national average; use recent comparable offers to choose an amount for your role. The two worked examples below use placeholders for every rupee figure.

WORKED EXAMPLE
Case: 15-person SaaS startup, Hyderabad
Role: QA intern, in office, Monday to Friday,
  5 hours a day = 25 hours a week, for about 4 months
Candidate: final-year BCA or B.Tech student
Task: write and run test cases for each weekly
  release, and log bugs with exact steps
Supervision: a developer answers bug questions the
  same day; a QA lead reviews the log every Friday

1. Five comparable listings (QA, Hyderabad, in office,
   about 25 hours a week), stipend per month:
   [₹A]  [₹B]  [₹C]  [₹D]  [₹E]
2. Sort them from lowest to highest and take the
   third: [₹M]
3. One adjustment, with a reason:
   our intern must already know API testing, which the
   comparison roles do not require: + [₹X]
4. Stipend to offer: [₹S] = [₹M] + [₹X]
5. Floor check: [₹S] is at least [₹ floor] on [platform]
6. Budget for one intern over 4 months:
   Stipend: [₹S] x 4 = [₹T]
   Costs you cover (test devices, tools): [₹U]
   Total: [₹T] + [₹U] = [₹V]
   Mentor time: [hours] a week x [weeks between the
   agreed start and end dates]
7. Pay date: the [day] of each month, by bank transfer
8. Check that the student's timetable and any college
   permission allow these in-office hours.

SECOND EXAMPLE (money as placeholders)
Case: CA firm in Jaipur, two B.Com interns
Work: supervised reconciliation of completed-period
  records; a senior reviews every file each week
Hours: [hours] a week on [days], fitted to the timetable
Stipend: ₹[S] a month each, from the same worksheet
Travel reimbursement cap per intern per month: ₹[R],
  against bills
Stipend budget: 2 x ₹[S] x [months]
Maximum travel budget: 2 x ₹[R] x [months]
Maximum total budget: stipend budget + maximum travel
  budget

Do government schemes pay part of an intern’s stipend?

Some do, for their own participants only. Keep the stipend you promise separate from government assistance and from apprenticeship minimums:

• Scheme assistance is government money for participants in a specific scheme.
• An apprenticeship stipend is the payment for an apprenticeship; the official sources below specify minimum rates for particular apprentice categories. Apprentices are not interns.

The 2024 pilot gave ₹5,000 a month (PIB, 4 October 2024), and PIB’s 22 April 2026 release still calls the scheme a pilot, so check which terms apply. The March 2026 MCA answer says participating companies may place interns in their own company or tie up with companies or MSMEs in their supply chain or group; read the PM Internship Scheme portal to see whether your company can take part.

For NATS, a Board of Apprenticeship Training (Northern Region) circular dated 14 May 2026 says the revised minimum rates apply from 1 April 2026 and the Government of India bears 50% of the minimum rate. PIB’s 11 February 2026 release describes NATS as approved for continuation up to 2025-26, while the Ministry of Education’s 1 February 2026 budget release records a 2026-27 allocation for it. An allocation is not a continuation approval, so confirm the scheme’s status on the NATS portal.

Apprenticeships run under the Apprentices Act, 1961, and carry prescribed minimum stipends. Selected minimum rates, reproduced from Table 2.1 of NITI Aayog’s February 2026 report, which cites the Apprenticeship (Amendment) Rules, 2025, and checked on 31 October 2026:

The report’s table has three more rows, including ₹6,800 for Class 5th to 9th pass-outs (NITI Aayog report). These are apprenticeship rates, not an intern pay scale. PIB’s 11 February 2026 release says future revisions are linked to the Consumer Price Index, so confirm the current figure on the Apprenticeship India portal before you use one.

What should an honest internship post say about the stipend?

It should state the amount, the hours it covers and the pay date. For the other fields a post needs, see how to write a job description.

• The amount: a monthly figure for stated hours, such as ‘₹[amount] a month for [hours] a week’.
• The pay date: the day of the month, and how the money is paid.
• What is guaranteed: the stipend on its own line. Any sales or performance incentive goes on a separate line.
• Costs: who pays for travel, commuting, meals, equipment and software.
• Duration: start and end dates, and how a part month is paid.
• A PPO: mention a possible pre-placement offer (PPO) only if a full-time opening is realistic, and say what it depends on.
• If unpaid: the word ‘unpaid’, once the arrangement has been checked, and what the intern receives instead.

Check that the offer matches the advertised amount, hours, expenses and payment schedule. As of 31 October 2026, employers can post an internship for free on LineupX, with no hidden charges and no limit on the number of posts. Put the stipend in the post so students can judge it before applying.

What should the offer letter say about the stipend?

Repeat the advertised stipend and hours, then specify payment dates, expenses and the agreed part-month calculation. Internshala’s terms, read on 31 October 2026, say the offer letter must detail the role, the remuneration and the payment mechanism, and that the promised remuneration must be paid on time as agreed in it.

Our internship offer letter format has the full letter. Ask your lawyer and CA to adapt this payment clause for your offer letter:

STIPEND CLAUSE (have a lawyer and a CA check it)
Monthly stipend: ₹[monthly stipend], for [hours] hours a week.
Payment: by bank transfer on or before the [day] of each month.
Part months: ₹[part-month payment] = ₹[monthly stipend]
  x [eligible days in the part month]
  / [days in that month, on the same agreed basis].
Day-count basis and leave: [state the basis and how leave
  is treated, as advised by your lawyer or CA].
Costs: [travel / equipment / software] are [paid by the
  company / reimbursed against bills / not covered].
Incentives: [rule, or none]. They are paid in addition to
  the stipend and are not a condition of it.
Deductions: [none / as advised by the company's CA].
Early end: the stipend is paid up to the last working day.
Changes: any change to these terms is made in writing and
  agreed by both sides.

How to hire interns in India shows where the stipend decision sits in the seven-step process, from scope to PPO.

What should I ask my lawyer or CA?

This guide reports what platforms and official documents state. It is not legal or tax advice. Take these questions to your lawyer or CA before you finalise the amount:

• Is this arrangement an internship, an apprenticeship or employment for my business, and does the answer change the rules that apply?
• How should the stipend be recorded and paid, and are any deductions needed?
• Do any state or sector rules apply to my business, or to students on this kind of placement?
• Which clauses in the offer letter need a lawyer’s check, and which payment lines need a CA’s?

What stipend mistakes do employers make?

Before publishing, check that the budget, listing and offer letter use the same guaranteed amount and payment schedule.

• Copying a number from another year. An average from an earlier year, or a story about big-tech interns, does not describe your role, city or hours.
• Posting a full-time figure for part-time hours, or the reverse.
• Delaying payment or combining monthly payments without agreement. A schedule that changes without notice makes a stipend unreliable for a student who budgets around it.
• Treating a certificate as pay. State the certificate requirements separately, as in the internship certificate format; a certificate does not replace a promised stipend.
• Skipping the budget. Confirm the full stipend and expense budget, and reserve mentor time, before advertising.