Free Experience & Relieving Letter Generator
Generate an experience certificate or a relieving letter for a departing employee and download it as a PDF. Switch between the two document types above.
Confirms the role and dates worked. Usually requested by a future employer.
They/them is used by default. Pick what the employee uses.
Experience certificate
Confirms the role held and the period worked. This is the document a future employer or a background verification agency will ask for.
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Two documents, two purposes
An experience certificate answers the question "did this person do this job, for this long?" It is what background verification agencies request, and it typically stays relevant for the rest of someone's career.
A relieving letter answers a narrower and more immediate question: has this person been properly released? New employers ask for it because they do not want to hire someone still contractually bound elsewhere. Without it, a joining date can slip by weeks.
Keep the content factual
The temptation is to write something warm, or in a bad separation, something pointed. Neither serves you. Confirm the role and the dates, add a neutral line about conduct if you wish, and stop. Anything evaluative in a document the employee carries for years is a risk you do not need to take, and anything negative invites a dispute you will spend more time on than the letter was worth.
Do not use documents as leverage
Withholding a relieving letter to force an employee to serve notice or return equipment is common and rarely wise. The clean route is to settle the money question through the full and final settlement — where a notice shortfall can be recovered — and issue the documents regardless. Holding someone's next job hostage over a contractual claim tends to be viewed unsympathetically.
Issue them on time
The best moment is the last working day, alongside the settlement. Every week of delay is a week your former colleague spends chasing you, and it is one of the most common subjects of public complaints about employers.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between an experience letter and a relieving letter?
- An experience certificate confirms what role someone held and for how long — it is what a future employer or a background verification agency wants to see. A relieving letter confirms that the employee has been formally released, handed over charge and had their dues settled. Many employers ask for both.
- What must an experience letter contain?
- The employee's name, the designation held, the exact dates of joining and leaving, and a signature from an authorised person on company letterhead. Employee code and department are optional but help background verification agencies match records.
- Is an employer obliged to issue these letters?
- There is no single statute compelling it, but withholding a relieving letter from an employee who has served their notice and settled dues is treated poorly by courts and by tribunals, and it can amount to restraining someone's right to work. In practice most employers issue both as a matter of course.
- Can an employer refuse a relieving letter if the employee did not serve notice?
- Employers sometimes withhold it in that situation, but the cleaner and more defensible route is to recover the notice shortfall through the full and final settlement and still issue the letter. Withholding documents to enforce a contractual claim tends not to end well.
- Should the letter mention performance or salary?
- Keep it factual. Standard practice is to confirm role and dates, with at most a neutral line about conduct. Salary figures do not belong in an experience certificate — if a future employer needs them, payslips or Form 16 are the right evidence.
- How soon should these be issued?
- Ideally on the last working day, or together with the full and final settlement. Delays here are one of the most common causes of ex-employee complaints, and they hold up the person's next job because their new employer is usually waiting on the relieving letter.
Related free tools
- Offer Letter Generator
Create a professional job offer letter with role, CTC and joining date, and download it as a PDF.
- Full & Final Settlement Calculator
Work out an exit settlement with pending salary, leave encashment, gratuity, notice pay and recoveries.
Exit paperwork shouldn't need an archaeology dig
Joining date, designation history, last working day, settlement status — these letters just restate facts you should already have. Smart Dhandha keeps them on the employee record from day one, so producing exit documents is a lookup rather than an investigation.
- Employment dates and role history per employee
- Settlement status tied to the same record
- Documents stored against the employee, not in email
This tool is provided free for general guidance and uses the rates noted above. Statutory rates change, and individual circumstances differ — please confirm with your accountant or a qualified professional before relying on these figures for filing or payroll.