Employee Offboarding Checklist in 30 Steps, Free PDF (2026)

When someone leaves, each team starts its own list, and final pay runs late and laptops go missing in the gaps. An employee offboarding checklist lists what HR, the manager, payroll, legal and IT do when someone leaves, each task with an owner and a deadline. The 30 steps below come as a PDF or an editable Word offboarding checklist template.

Employee Offboarding Checklist by Phase

The checklist starts on the day notice is given and ends about 30 days after the last day, when final pay, benefit notices and the device are closed. Most steps sit in the notice period, while the leaver can still explain open work, sign documents and give the courier an address.

Download the employee offboarding checklist as a PDF (US Letter)

Download the employee offboarding checklist as a PDF (A4)

Download the employee offboarding checklist as a Word file

Phase 1: Notice Day

Days 0 to 2 decide which clocks apply. In some places final pay falls due on the last day, or at the termination meeting itself, so the legal look-up comes before almost everything else.

The personal email matters later: once the work account closes, the payslip, the tax form and courier messages still need to reach the leaver.

Phase 2: Handover

Handover comes first, while the leaver can explain open work. The return letter travels with the pickup details, so one message says what to give back and how.

The exit interview is booked for the last week, with an online form as a second route, because many leavers never attend in person; Capterra suggests an online survey tool instead.

Phase 3: The Last Week

NIST's personnel termination control, PS-4, uses the exit interview for "reminding individuals of nondisclosure agreements". Yet of 219 HR workers in Capterra's survey who had offboarded someone in the past year, 86% had at least one leaver who did not show up to it.

Phase 4: The Last Day

Final wages may be due today. The order in which IT removes access is set out in the IT onboarding and offboarding checklist.

Phase 5: The 30 Days After

Three deadlines stay open after the leaver goes: final pay, benefit notices and the device.

Pro tip: decide a returned laptop's future the day it arrives. If it is young against your hardware refresh cycle and someone will soon start in that country, store it. If not, sell it back as a used laptop.

Who Owns Each Step of Employee Offboarding

Six parties take part, and HR offboarding work is the largest share.

Name one coordinator, usually in HR, to track every row. A poster in r/ITManagers described the result in a September 2026 thread: "HR knows when someone is leaving but IT often finds out late then someone has to contact the former employee ... and keep following up until the laptop arrives."

Put the coordinator's name on page 1 of the PDF and in the first message to every owner.

Replies disagreed. One reply split the work: "HR should trigger the offboarding, IT should define the security requirements and someone needs clear ownership of the pickup." A 2024 r/humanresources comment: "This should be an IT function - HR does not manage hardware/inventory nor should they."

The manager's rows (handover, contacts, telling the team, badges and keys) double as an offboarding checklist for managers.

In many teams the laptop has no lead. Steps 5, 23, 28 and 29 give it one, and the recovery section below sets out HR's part. A roundup of remote equipment management platforms compares services that collect and store them.

How the Checklist Changes by Departure Type

The steps stay the same; timing and legal rules change.

Resignation

Pay timing follows local law. In California, an employee without a written contract for a definite period who gives 72 hours' notice and quits on the day named is paid at the time of quitting; otherwise pay is due within 72 hours, according to the state's Labor Commissioner's Office.

Involuntary Termination

Everything in the first four phases moves into the days before the meeting, so prepare the return plan, the access hour and the final pay figure in advance. California's Labor Commissioner, for example, says all earned wages, including accrued vacation, are due "immediately at the time of termination". Check the law where the employee works before you set the date.

Layoff or Redundancy

US employers with 100 or more employees must give "at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing and mass layoff" under the WARN Act, according to the Department of Labor. Not every layoff is covered. When many leave at once, batch the collections.

Remote and International Departures

Remote employee offboarding changes three things when the leaver lives in another country. The return goes through a courier there, often a laptop retrieval service, and the device often stays in that country, because sending used equipment across a border adds customs paperwork.

Pay and paperwork follow local law: in the UK, the employer must give every leaver a P45, according to GOV.UK, and the UK's holiday rules say employers "must pay for untaken statutory leave, even if the worker is dismissed for gross misconduct" (GOV.UK holiday entitlement). Book calls and the courier in the leaver's time zone.

Offboarding Security and Compliance Steps

The lists below form a short offboarding security checklist and offboarding compliance checklist. This is not legal advice; rules vary by place.

Access and Data

NIST's PS-4 control asks organizations to disable system access within a set time, revoke the person's credentials, and "retain access to organizational information and systems formerly controlled by terminated individual". Miss it and data can leave: in an April 2022 SEC filing, Block said reports from its Cash App Investing subsidiary "were accessed without permission after their employment ended" by a former employee.

• Files, mailbox and any legal hold, decided before access ends.
• IT's written confirmation of the hour access ended.
• A wipe or destruction record for every returned device, or an IT asset disposition service for devices not reused.

Final Pay and Benefits

"Employers are not required by federal law to give former employees their final paycheck immediately," the US Department of Labor says, but some states require it. Paying late costs money: in California, an employer who willfully misses the deadline can owe the employee's daily rate "for each day the wages remain unpaid, up to a maximum of thirty (30) calendar days", according to the Labor Commissioner.

Health cover has its own clock. COBRA covers group health plans of employers with 20 or more employees: the employer tells the plan administrator within 30 days, the administrator has 14 days to send the notice, and cover usually lasts up to 18 months, according to CMS.

• Final pay deadline for the work state or country, found on notice day.
• Benefit continuation notices, sent by their legal deadline.
• The country's leaver tax form, such as the UK P45.

Signed Agreements

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 covers the property side in Annex A control 5.11, "Return of assets", and ISO describes certification as "one way to demonstrate to stakeholders and customers that you are committed and able to manage information securely and safely". Without a dated return record, the file cannot show control 5.11 was met.

Restrictive terms such as non-solicitation depend on the contract and local law, so take legal advice before relying on one. Keep three documents in the leaver's file:

• The equipment terms the employee signed at issue.
• A written NDA reminder, sent even if the exit interview happens.
• A dated record of what came back.

How to Recover Company Equipment From Offboarding Employees

Capterra's 2022 survey of 287 HR employees found that 71% of those who had offboarded someone that year had at least one leaver who kept company equipment, such as a laptop or phone. By their own unaudited estimate, that equipment was worth $1,963 per leaver on average. Hybrid and remote leavers were 17% more likely to keep it. Of the HR workers who saw it happen, 61% said their employer threatened criminal or legal action, 48% that it filed a police report and 21% that it sued.

Buyers in evaluation calls with Tequipy describe their returns in one line: "Our offboarding process is 'please mail it back' and hope for the best". HR's laptop retrieval checklist does more:

1. Confirm the devices and accessories the leaver holds, with serials.

2. Copy the equipment terms the employee signed at issue to the file.

3. Send the return of company property letter with the pickup details.

4. Give the courier the leaver's address after the last day, and a time window.

5. File IT's confirmation that the device arrived and was wiped.

6. Agree with finance whether the device is stored, redeployed or sold back.

The r/ITManagers reply quoted above put it plainly: "A label alone isn't a process, especially if the former employee has no box or needs to visit a courier." When a leaver keeps the device anyway, follow the escalation steps for a terminated employee.

Pro tip: book the courier before you send the return letter, so the letter can name a pickup date.

Tequipy handles the physical return for globally distributed teams. Its co-founder ran IT at Revolut from 100 employees in 2 offices to 5,000 across 17, with about 300 people rotating each week, and no laptop was lost.

HR clicks offboard and enters the last day and the leaver's personal email. Tequipy contacts the leaver, arranges packaging and a label, and a courier collects in any of 180+ countries. With the optional HR sync (HiBob, BambooHR or Workday), a departure can raise the request on its own.

For the data, HR chooses no wipe (for a legal hold), the basic wipe included in the price, a Blancco certified wipe, or destruction with a certificate. The laptop then sits in storage at $12 per device per month, goes to a new hire in the same country, or is sold back for 20-70% of the initial device value, depending on age and condition.

Every move shows on its record in the device lifecycle management software, including for laptops bought elsewhere. Khachik Yenigbaryan, an IT Operations Engineer at Tabby, says the dashboard "is clean, intuitive, and gives us everything we need ... from device tracking to offboarding flows."

Offboarding costs $70 to $150 per device by country. For the platform, a team pays $99 a month flat however many devices it adds, and nothing while it has fewer than 100. The HR sync is optional at $199 a month. All of these rates are on Tequipy's pricing page.

Common Employee Offboarding Mistakes

All three have one cause: a step that depends on a single message, calendar or meeting.

IT Hears Late

HR often knows about a departure well before IT, the gap the r/ITManagers post describes, so the courier booking is rushed and the access hour is a guess. Send one leaver notice to every owner on day 1.

Final Pay Follows the Payroll Calendar

The law may not wait for the payroll run. California's Labor Commissioner says it is not permissible to delay payment of a discharged salesperson's earned commissions "until the next regularly scheduled payday". Check the deadline on notice day, then plan the payroll run around it.

The NDA Reminder Lives Only in the Exit Interview

A leaver who skips the meeting never hears the reminder, and in Capterra's survey 86% of HR workers who had offboarded someone had at least one leaver who did not show up. Put the reminder in the exit email as well.

Pro tip: make the day-1 leaver notice a template with the checklist's three fields: last day, country and coordinator. All three also appear on page 1 of the PDF.

Free templates for the rest of the device's life

• To track each device: the IT inventory template (Excel), or the IT asset inventory Excel template (Excel), which adds a returns tab for leavers.
• After the last working day: the return of company property letter (Word), six letters that ask for the devices back.
• When a device will not be reused: the asset disposal form (PDF, Word or Excel), the signed record that it was wiped and left the business.
• At month end: the fixed asset register template (Excel), with cost, depreciation and book value for each device.
• For the whole process: the IT asset management checklist (PDF), 40 tasks from purchase to disposal.

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What Is an Employee Exit Checklist?

The same thing as an offboarding checklist. Some companies use the name for the leaver's own copy: what to return, sign and leave as contact details.

What Do I Need to Do When an Employee Quits?

Start with the rules where the employee works, because they set the final pay date. Then plan the handover and book the laptop return while the employee still answers messages.

What to Avoid When Terminating an Employee?

Gaps in the record: a decision with nothing in writing, a meeting with no note of who attended, a return with no signed record. Check local law first.

How Long Does It Take to Get a Laptop Back From a Leaver?

Through Tequipy, usually one to three weeks: 7 to 21 days from the offboarding request to completion if the leaver responds, up to 30 if not, including 5 to 10 business days after collection.

How Is Contractor Offboarding Different?

A contractor offboarding checklist follows the contract, not payroll law: the contractor sends a final invoice. NIST's PS-7 control asks providers to report when their people holding your credentials leave.