On this page
- What the Law Actually Covers
- Paid vs Unpaid Internships at a Glance
- When an Unpaid Internship Can Make Sense
- 1. It's Tied to College Credit
- 2. It's Short and Part-Time
- 3. You Get Something You Can Show
- When Unpaid Is Never Okay
- What a Fair Written Offer Must State
- How to Decide Between Two Offers
- Our Recommendation
A Bengaluru startup offers you a three-month marketing internship. Great brand, real work, a founder who replies to emails. Stipend: zero. Your classmate got a ₹10,000-a-month offer from a company nobody in your batch has heard of. Which one do you take?
The paid vs unpaid internships question isn't really about money alone. It's about what you're trading your hours for, and whether the deal is written down. This guide gives you a straight answer, the few cases where unpaid can work, the cases where it never does, and the checklist a fair offer has to pass.
What the Law Actually Covers
Here's the part most blogs skip. India has a clear legal stipend floor for one kind of workplace training, and it's apprenticeship, not internship. Under the Apprentices Act, the Apprenticeship (Amendment) Rules, 2025 notified on 3 September 2025 set the minimum stipend for graduate or degree apprentices at ₹12,300 a month and ₹10,900 for diploma apprentices, payable by the tenth of the following month.
A regular internship you find on a job board or through a friend usually isn't registered as an apprenticeship, so that floor doesn't automatically apply. Government schemes set their own numbers instead. The Prime Minister Internship Scheme, for example, pays a minimum of ₹9,000 a month, per a PIB release from April 2026, after the allowance was raised from ₹5,000, as MCA told the Lok Sabha in August 2026.
So what protects a normal intern? Mostly the written offer. That's why the checklist further down matters more than any general rule you'll read online.
Paid vs Unpaid Internships at a Glance
Question | Paid internship | Unpaid internship |
|---|---|---|
Who it suits | Most students, especially anyone relocating or covering their own costs | Students who need credits or a specific skill and can afford the time |
What you should expect | Stipend in ₹, a start and end date, defined duties | Short duration, flexible hours, real mentoring, a letter or certificate |
Biggest risk | A small stipend hiding a full-time workload | Free labor dressed up as "exposure" |
Fair if | Stipend and duties match what's written | It's genuinely about your learning, not their output |
When an Unpaid Internship Can Make Sense
Unpaid isn't automatically a scam. Some setups are honest about being low-stakes learning, and a few are worth your time.
1. It's Tied to College Credit
The UGC's December 2023 internship guidelines make a 60 to 120 hour internship after the fourth semester mandatory for undergraduate degree students. A few weeks of supervised work at an NGO, a lab or a local MSME that counts toward those credits can be fine unpaid, as long as the hours stay in that range and someone actually supervises you.
2. It's Short and Part-Time
Four to six weeks, a few hours a day, around your classes. If the commitment looks like a hobby project, the lack of a stipend hurts less. If it's 9 to 7 for six months, it's a job, and jobs pay.
3. You Get Something You Can Show
Unpaid only earns its keep when you leave with proof: a published report with your name on it, code merged into a real repo, a campaign you ran end to end. A second-year BBA student in Jaipur who leaves an NGO internship with a fundraising deck she built herself has something to put in her first internship resume. A certificate alone isn't proof.
When Unpaid Is Never Okay
Some deals don't deserve a second look, no matter how big the logo is:
You're asked to pay. A training fee, registration fee, security deposit or "refundable" amount is the clearest sign of a fraud. The Ministry of Labour's
National Career Service advisory lists training fee, joining fee and security money among the words to watch for.
The work is billable. If you're writing content, handling sales calls or building features that clients pay for, you're producing revenue and should be paid for it.
It's full-time with no end date. Open-ended unpaid work is how companies avoid hiring.
Nothing is in writing. A WhatsApp message that says "you're selected, join Monday" isn't an offer.
Our full checklist for that is in how to spot a fake internship before you apply.
What a Fair Written Offer Must State
Paid or unpaid, ask for these in writing before your first day. A serious company won't blink. The AICTE National Internship Portal puts the standard well: stipends are declared upfront and paid to your bank account, never negotiated in DMs.
The stipend in ₹ per month, or a clear statement that it's unpaid, plus when it's paid and how (bank transfer, not cash).
Start date, end date and expected weekly hours.
Your role and three to five real duties, not just "assist the team."
Your supervisor's name and work email on the company's own domain.
What you get at the end: a certificate, a letter of recommendation, or a chance at a pre-placement offer, and what that depends on.
If the stipend is performance-linked, ask what the base is and how performance is judged. "Up to ₹15,000" with no base often means ₹0.
How to Decide Between Two Offers
When the choice is a paid role against an unpaid one, compare them on three things and be honest with yourself.
Cost of saying yes. Add up rent, travel and food for the duration. An unpaid internship in Mumbai that costs you ₹20,000 a month to live there is not free, it's expensive.
Quality of work. Ask both companies what a typical week looks like and who you'll work with. Specific answers beat famous names.
What comes after. Does either one hire interns into full-time roles? Ask directly. Companies with a real path will tell you how it works.
If the paid offer wins on two of the three, take it. In our view, a stipend is also a signal: a company that budgets for interns has usually planned what you'll do.
Our Recommendation
Default to paid. Treat unpaid as an exception you have to justify: short, credit-linked or clearly about your learning, with everything in writing. And never pay anyone for the privilege of working for them.
Start with listings that state the stipend upfront. Browse open internships on InternsGuru, and if you're still mapping out where to look, our guide to getting an internship in India covers every channel worth your time.
