This article analyzes the labour regime that has taken shape in the construction sector in post-reform India and China. In both countries, expansion of the urban sector has entailed large-scale labour mobilization of wage workers from the lowest agrarian strata. Based on an examination of flexibilities in labour con-tracts, wage-related issues and the enclosures built into the worksites, it argues that there is a striking parallel in India and China, both in the process involved in the formation of labour regimes as well as in the outcome it has produced for the workers in the construction sector.