Corporate housing in Bangalore

This guide is written for the person who actually arranges the accommodation — an HR or admin lead, a finance manager signing off the invoice, a founder housing a team that has just landed. It covers the four options, the tax treatment of each, and the tenancy rules specific to Karnataka that catch out companies moving people in from other states. If you are the person being moved rather than the person arranging it, start with relocating to Bangalore: the first 30 days, which sets out the order to do things in once you land.

One note on language before anything else. "Corporate housing" is an American term with almost no traction in Indian search. The phrase people in India actually type is "serviced apartments" — so if you are briefing a supplier or searching for options, that is the word that will find them.

What are a company's options for housing an employee in Bangalore?

Four, in practice. The table below compares them on the things that determine the decision — not on price, which varies far too much by area and standard to generalise, but on commitment, deposit and what you have to furnish yourself.

The decision is really about duration and about who absorbs the setup cost. A company-leased flat has the lowest monthly rent of the four and by some distance the highest entry cost — a deposit that can run to ten months, plus furnishing, plus the internal effort of a lease, a registration and a TDS obligation. A serviced apartment inverts that: a higher monthly rate, and effectively no entry cost at all.

How is GST charged on a corporate stay in Bengaluru?

The GST structure for accommodation in India changed on 22 September 2025. There are now two bands, and the one you fall into decides whether anyone in the chain can claim input tax credit.

The threshold is applied per unit per day — not per booking, not per person, and not on the total invoice. A ₹6,000-a-night apartment booked for thirty nights is still in the 5% band.

The place-of-supply trap that costs companies their credit

This is the detail that most often surprises a finance team. Accommodation is treated under GST as a service connected to immovable property, which means the place of supply is always the location of the property. The supplier must therefore charge CGST and SGST — never IGST — even when the guest's employer is registered in another state, and even when the invoice is raised to a head office elsewhere.

The consequence: a company that holds no GST registration in Karnataka cannot use the input tax credit on a Bengaluru stay. A Mumbai-headquartered firm with no Karnataka registration will find that the GST on its employee's Bengaluru accommodation is simply a cost. Asking the property to bill the Mumbai address does not change this, and claiming IGST credit on such an invoice is a common and correctable error.

What tax applies when a company leases a flat for an employee?

Two separate obligations arise, one on the employee and one on the company.

The employee pays tax on it as a perquisite

Accommodation provided by an employer is a perquisite under section 17(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, valued under rule 15(2) of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. Both took effect on 1 April 2026, replacing section 17(2) of the 1961 Act and Rule 3, and carried over the valuation that CBDT Notification 65/2023 had set from 1 September 2023.

Where the same accommodation is provided to the same employee for more than one year, the amended rule caps the later years' valuation at the first year's value adjusted by the Cost Inflation Index — so a long posting does not attract a rising perquisite purely because the employee's salary has risen.

A hotel or serviced apartment provided by the employer is valued differently: at the lower of the actual charges or 24% of salary, because rule 15 defines a hotel to include a licensed service apartment. Our comparison of a company-leased flat and a serviced apartment works through what that gap means for the employee, alongside the deposit, the 18% reverse-charge GST a registered company pays on residential rent, and the stay length at which leasing breaks even.

The company deducts TDS on the rent

Under section 393(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which replaced section 194-I from 1 April 2026, a company paying rent for land or a building to a resident deducts TDS at 10% where the rent exceeds ₹50,000 for a month or part of a month. Individuals and HUFs that are not liable to a tax audit fall under a separate row of the same table, at 2%.

Whether rent TDS applies to a hotel or serviced-apartment bill depends on how the stay is contracted. CBDT Circular 5/2002 says a rate contract with a hotel, which fixes room rates for a period without reserving particular rooms, is not accommodation taken on a regular basis, so rent TDS does not apply to it. Where the arrangement is structured as a lease, section 393 is the provision to look at. If the distinction matters to your numbers, confirm the treatment of your specific contract with your tax adviser before you sign it.

What deposit and agreement terms should a company expect in Bengaluru?

Karnataka's tenancy rules are unusually landlord-favourable on deposits, and this is the single biggest cash-flow difference between leasing a flat in Bengaluru and leasing one in most other Indian cities.

• Karnataka sets no statutory deposit ceiling. No cap appears in the text of the Karnataka Rent Act, 1999, and deposits of several months' rent are routine in Bengaluru — ten months is a long-established opening ask in areas like HSR Layout, Koramangala and Indiranagar.
• The widely reported "two-month cap from January 2026" is not in the law. The Karnataka Rent (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Governor's assent 7 January 2026) amends only sections 24, 53, 54 and 55 — adjudication and penalties — and contains no deposit provision. The two-month figure is a recommendation in the Model Tenancy Act, 2021, which Karnataka has not enacted. See the long-stay playbook for the detail.
• 11 months is the standard agreement length. A lease for more than a year must be registered with the sub-registrar under section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908, so the market has settled on 11 months to avoid compulsory registration.
• Agreements are e-stamped. Stamp duty on a residential agreement of up to a year is 0.5% of the rent for the term plus the deposit, capped at ₹500, under Article 30 of the Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, so with a typical Bengaluru deposit almost every 11-month agreement pays ₹500. Our stamp duty calculator works out any other case.

For a single employee on a six-month project, a ten-month deposit against an eleven-month lease is difficult to justify. That gap — real, local and specific to Karnataka — is the main reason serviced apartments take the medium-length corporate stay in this city.

Why do companies put people in HSR Layout?

Because of where it sits relative to the Outer Ring Road tech corridor. HSR Layout is a planned BDA neighbourhood in south-east Bengaluru — Hosur–Sarjapur Road Layout, developed from 1985, pin code 560102, seven sectors — near the convergence of the Outer Ring Road, Hosur Road and Sarjapur Road.

The Outer Ring Road matters more than the neighbourhood does. It runs 60 km, passes directly through HSR Layout, and the IT firms along it generate roughly US$22 billion a year — about 32% of Bengaluru's total IT revenue. If an employee's office is on that corridor, HSR Layout is close to the best-placed residential area in the city.

These are ranges because published sources disagree by several kilometres — HSR Layout and each destination are areas, not points. Our commute guide sets out the routes, the Electronic City Elevated Expressway, the Silk Board double-decker flyover and the Blue Line metro station in detail, and Living in HSR Layout covers the neighbourhood itself sector by sector.

One correction worth carrying into any relocation brief: HSR Layout's own metro station is on the Blue Line (Phase 2A along the ORR, 19.75 km, 13 stations, Central Silk Board to KR Puram), still under construction, with passenger service now reported for 2027. The Yellow Line, which opened on 10 August 2025, does not serve HSR Layout directly — its nearest stations are Bommanahalli and Hongasandra on Hosur Road, 1.1 to 3.2 km on foot from the seven sector centres. Property listings get this wrong constantly.

Which option fits which length of stay?

A rough decision rule, based on where the commitments start to bite rather than on price:

• Up to about two weeks — a hotel. Nothing else is worth the arrangement effort, and daily housekeeping is included.
• Two weeks to about six months — a serviced apartment. No lease, no deposit, no furnishing, a kitchen for someone who does not want to eat out for four months, and a single invoice your finance team can process.
• Six months to a year — genuinely contested. A leased flat is cheaper per month, but the ten-month deposit and the furnishing cost have to be amortised over a stay that may still be cut short. Our break-even table works out where the line falls for a given rent and stay.
• Over a year, or a permanent posting — a company-leased flat, or move the employee onto their own lease with an HRA arrangement instead.
• A team arriving together — serviced apartments, usually. Several units in one building keeps people close without committing to multiple leases before you know who stays.

If you go the company-leased flat or guest-house route, furnishing it becomes a separate buying job. FurnishDesk, a sister business of HSR Stay, sources commercial furniture from manufacturers in India for offices, hotels, serviced apartments, restaurants, clinics and schools, including hotel and serviced-apartment furniture. You send one requirement and get back one consolidated quotation. It is a sourcing desk, not a manufacturer or a showroom.

Common questions about corporate housing in Bangalore

Corporate housing is furnished accommodation a company arranges for an employee rather than the employee renting it themselves. In Bengaluru it usually takes one of four forms: a hotel, a serviced apartment, a flat leased in the company's name, or a guest house the company runs itself. In Indian search, most people look for this using the phrase serviced apartments rather than corporate housing.

Since 22 September 2025, accommodation billed at up to ₹7,500 per unit per day attracts 5% GST without input tax credit, and accommodation billed above ₹7,500 per unit per day attracts 18% GST with full input tax credit. The threshold is applied per unit per day, not per booking or per person.

Only if the company holds a GST registration in the same state as the property. Accommodation is treated as a service connected to immovable property, so the place of supply is always where the property is, and the supplier must charge CGST and SGST. A company registered only outside Karnataka cannot use the credit on a Bengaluru stay, regardless of which office address the invoice is raised to.

Karnataka sets no statutory ceiling on residential security deposits. No cap appears in the text of the Karnataka Rent Act, 1999, and the Karnataka Rent (Amendment) Act, 2025 — which received the Governor's assent on 7 January 2026 — amends only sections 24, 53, 54 and 55 of that Act, covering adjudication and penalties, and contains no deposit provision at all. Reports that Karnataka imposed a two-month cap in January 2026 appear to confuse that amendment with the Model Tenancy Act, 2021, which recommends a two-month cap but which Karnataka has not enacted. In practice Bengaluru landlords commonly quote several months' rent, with ten months a long-established opening ask, so budget on the quote you actually receive. Current as at August 2026; not legal advice.

Yes, where the rent crosses the threshold. Under section 393(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which replaced section 194-I from 1 April 2026, a company paying rent for land or a building to a resident deducts TDS at 10% where the rent exceeds ₹50,000 for a month or part of a month. Individuals and HUFs that are not liable to a tax audit fall under a separate row of the same table, at 2%.

For employees moving on their own lease with an HRA arrangement, our free rent receipt generator produces monthly receipts updated for Form 124. For short assignments and relocations in HSR Layout, see the stays HSR Stay is being built for and its 1 BHK and 2 BHK apartments, opening December 2026.