Free internship vs unpaid internship: what "free" should mean

What should "free" mean on an internship listing?

The All India Council for Technical Education answers its own question on the National Internship Portal, "Is this genuinely free, or is there a catch later?", with "Free, end to end." Registering, applying, being shortlisted and receiving the completion certificate are all ₹0 to a student, and the page lists the "Cost to students" as "₹0 forever".

That is the standard to hold any listing to. Free means you pay nothing at any stage: nothing to apply, nothing to sit a test, nothing to start the work, nothing to receive the certificate at the end. A charge at any one of those points makes it a programme you pay to join, whatever the headline says.

Internshala's help centre says applying on its platform costs nothing. Its terms for employers go further and forbid charging applicants money in any form, naming test fees, security deposits and documentation fees as examples.

The word describes what flows from you to the organisation. Whether anything flows back to you, a stipend or nothing, is a second question with its own line on the listing.

Is a free internship the same as an unpaid internship?

No. "Free" is about what you pay; "unpaid" is about what you earn. One listing may cost nothing to join and pay a stipend, another may cost nothing and pay nothing. Only the second is unpaid, and India's technical education regulator allows it. A search for a free internship with stipend is a search for the first kind.

The AICTE Internship Policy lists three possibilities: compensated, non-compensated, and paid for part of the time. The same paragraph asks that the arrangement be useful to both sides, the intern and the host. Under that policy an unpaid internship is allowed on those terms; paying to work is a different thing.

Listing platforms set their own limits. Internshala's terms permit unpaid internships only from "NGOs/NPOs, government agencies" and a few niche profiles in law and legal research. For everyone else they set a floor: "The minimum stipend criteria for an in-office internship is Rs. 2000/Month and for a work from home internship is Rs. 1000/Month."

That floor is one platform's listing rule. It is not a legal minimum and not a market average. Whether an unpaid arrangement is lawful is a separate matter, covered by the guide on the legality of unpaid internships.

Which government schemes offer a free internship for students?

NITI Aayog's NITI Internship Scheme guidelines say "The internship will be on unpaid basis." The Prime Minister Internship Scheme, run by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, pays monthly assistance, and a full-time college student can apply only in the final year.

NITI Aayog takes undergraduates who have completed or sat the end-term exams of the second year or 4th semester with a class 12 score of 85% or more, and admits postgraduates and research scholars under a separate marks condition. Its internships last from six weeks to six months, and interns who leave before the period ends get no certificate. Interns bring their own laptops, and a selected applicant shows original mark sheets and a college NOC on joining.

The PM Internship Scheme is the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' route into paid internships at large companies. In a Press Information Bureau release dated 22 April 2026, the ministry gives assistance of no less than ₹9,000 monthly, an age band of 18 to 25, and a place for final-year UG and PG students whose college issues them an NOC. Every other existing condition still applies.

The scheme's FAQ page keeps the pilot's first terms: 21 to 24 years, no full-time study, and ₹5,000 monthly over a 12-month internship. It admits students of online or distance programmes. Confirm the current terms on the official portal the release names, www.pminternship.mca.gov.in, before applying, and apply there rather than through a site that only carries the scheme's name in its address.

A government internship can also pay well. The Ministry of Women and Child Development publishes internship criteria under which every intern receives a lump sum stipend of Rs. 20,000/- per month, and is reimbursed the cost of travel by deluxe or AC bus or 3 Tier AC train to join the programme and to return home at the end. The ministry offers shared hostel rooms in Delhi; the criteria mention no application fee, and interns pay their own mess charges. Each batch takes up to 20 interns.

Eligibility is limited to women, whether students, scholars, social activists or teachers, between 21 and 40 years old and enrolled in or associated with an institution. Anyone from one of the eight Tier-I cities it lists, which include Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, is excluded.

Is it still free if you pay for the certificate, the test or the "kit"?

No. A charge at any stage makes it a paid programme, whatever it is called. Internshala's safety tips page lists "application fees, security deposits, training charges, or any other hiring-related costs" as a red flag, and adds that no genuine employer asks for payment in return for hiring.

The fee may not arrive in the first message. A listing can say free, with no registration fee and no hidden charges, the interview can go well, and only then comes a registration charge, a refundable deposit, a starter kit, an exam fee or a certificate fee. Each of these is a charge in the sense of Internshala's terms, which also rule out training programmes that make applicants pay an admission fee or a deposit.

A certificate fee deserves particular suspicion. On the National Internship Portal the completion certificate is inside the ₹0, and the portal warns that anyone who wants money to apply through it, agents and consultants included, is running a scam. A QR code proves only that it opens a page, so check that the page sits on the issuer's own official site, as the portal's verification page does.

For the usual fee patterns and a response to each, read the internship fee scam guide.

Is a free online course or job simulation an internship?

Not under the definitions India's regulators use, because both require supervision. The University Grants Commission's internship guidelines for undergraduates describe work with an organisation outside the college, supervised by an expert from that organisation. The AICTE Internship Policy calls internships "structured, short-term, supervised placements".

A self-paced course has no one supervising you, so it is a course, and a course can still be worth doing. Forage, for example, calls its product job simulations, and its home page says they cost nothing, are open access and go at your own pace. You "complete tasks that replicate real work", check what you did against model answers, and receive a certificate. The simulations it lists run from "30-60 mins" to "4-5 hours".

That is useful practice at a role's tasks. The trouble starts when a similar product is sold as a "free internship with certificate". When the product behind that label is videos, a quiz and a PDF, the label has promised supervised work that never arrives.

Before you sign up for any free internship online, find out who will check your work, by name. The UGC definition turns on that supervisor.

Read which heading a word sits under. The Skill India Digital Hub internship page, for example, offers "Free" and "Paid" as options under a filter headed "Internship Fee". Under that heading, "Paid" is a label about the fee, and the page does not say it means a stipend. Open the listing and check who pays whom before you assume a stipend.

Is a long unpaid "assignment" before selection a free internship?

No. Work done before any offer exists is a test, and it should be sized like one. Internshala's terms say an employer's assignment "should be fair and relevant to the Job profile" and prohibit "Any attempt to get work done for free from Applicants disguised as assessment", including app downloads and likes, shares or comments on the employer's social media.

Its safety page puts the same warning to students: "lengthy projects that resemble actual work should be approached with caution." The advice there is to "Ask how your submission will be evaluated" and to pause and verify if the assignment feels unreasonable. Its help centre lists "Promotional/sales work given as assignment" as a complaint type of its own.

A practical test for yourself: if the task is something the organisation could publish or sell as it stands, a full set of social media posts for the week, twenty product listings, a sales call list, then you are being asked to do the job before being hired for it.

Take a B.Com student asked to "prepare the monthly reconciliation" as a screening task. A sample of five entries tests the skill; the whole month is the work. For a social media role, set the task beside what a social media internship involves once you are hired: a fair screening task is a small slice of that.

Before you start any assignment, ask two things in writing: roughly how long it should take, and how it will be judged. Keep a copy of what you submit.

Which routes to a free internship pay, supervise or teach you something?

Four routes cost nothing to join, and they part ways on everything else. The government portal and a listing platform that bars fees put pay in writing before you start. A job simulation has you check your own work against model answers, with no supervisor. A non-profit's own programme sets its own terms, so read them against the same list.

Judge each route on five criteria: (a) nothing to pay to join, (b) pay stated in writing before you start, (c) real work under a named supervisor, (d) a certificate a third party can check, and (e) teaching of subject-specific technical skills.

• The National Internship Portal passes (a) by its own FAQ, which puts every stage at ₹0. On (b), the portal says stipends are declared up front and paid into the intern's bank account. A QR code on its certificate leads to a checking page on the portal naming the ministry, the host and the dates, which passes (d). Supervision and subject depth depend on the host posting the role.
• Among free internship websites, a listing platform whose terms bar fees, such as Internshala, passes (a) for applicants and (b), since each listing states its pay and the terms forbid offering less than was advertised. Supervision, subject skills and the completion certificate come from each employer, so (c), (d) and (e) vary listing by listing.
• A free job simulation, such as Forage's, passes (a) and can teach a role's tasks, which helps with (e) for some subjects. It loses on (b) and (c): its home page mentions no pay, and it describes checking your own work against model answers. The certificate records that you completed the simulation, which is different from supervised work.
• The fourth route is to approach a non-profit and join the programme it runs itself. Pledge A Smile Foundation (the publisher of this guide) runs an online internship that is open to students of any stream and free to apply to and to do. Interns own a weekly target, send a weekly report and get feedback on it. There is a performance-based stipend and a certificate on completion. It does not teach subject-specific technical skills.

Which criterion matters most depends on you. If your college needs a supervised internship for credit, criterion (c) decides. If you need money this term, (b) does, and the pay line of each offer is the one to read closely. Starting with nothing on your CV is covered in getting an internship with no experience, and the order of applying in a step-by-step plan for landing an internship.

What do you do if a "free" internship asks you to pay?

Stop, pay nothing, keep the evidence and report it. If money has already gone, call the helpline 1930 the same day. Internshala's help centre, answering a student whose employer asked for "money/security deposit", tells the student to pay nothing, since charging students breaks the platform's policy.

1. Refuse the payment in writing, politely. Internshala's safety page warns against sharing Aadhaar, PAN, bank details or OTPs early in hiring, so send none of them while you check.
2. Keep the evidence. Internshala's safety page tells students to hold on to the offer letter and every written message, as the record of what was agreed. Screenshot the listing too, before it is edited.
3. Report it where you found it. Internshala's complaint form has a type called "Asking for money/security deposit/fee" and asks for the offer letter and the conversation. For the National Internship Portal, the portal names [email protected].
4. If money has already gone, act the same day. The Ministry of Home Affairs, in a Press Information Bureau release of 5 December 2023, describes 1930 as a toll-free number for help in filing online cyber complaints.

The same release says the Ministry operationalised the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal on 30 August 2019 for "online reporting of all types of cyber crime incidents". The portal has a separate complaint route for financial fraud, and a "Report & Check Suspect" menu for checking a phone number, email or website before you deal with it.