Hiring employees in Brazil: what it actually costs

The short answer

Four sourced components sit on top of gross salary for a CLT employee in Brazil: a monthly provision for the 13th salary, a monthly provision for paid vacation plus its constitutional one-third addition, mandatory social security and payroll contributions on that combined base, and FGTS, an 8% monthly deposit into an account the employee can access on termination, backed by a further 40% fine if the employer terminates without cause. The employer cost calculator runs the full calculation, including the INSS, RAT and third-party contributions this page does not repeat in full; this page states only the parts with a direct, named source.

The national minimum wage

R$ 1,621.00 per month, from 1 January 2026, under Decreto 12.797/2025. No salary can be set below this figure.

The 13th salary

An extra month's salary, mandatory across Brazil, under Lei 4.090/1962. For cost-modelling purposes, it provisions monthly at one twelfth of salary, 8.33%, even though it is typically paid out to the employee in two instalments during the year rather than accrued visibly month by month.

Paid vacation plus one-third

Every employee is entitled to paid vacation plus a constitutional bonus of one-third of the vacation pay, under Constituição Federal article 7 XVII and CLT articles 129-130. As a monthly provision this works out to four thirds of monthly salary divided by twelve, 11.11% of salary.

FGTS and the termination fine

FGTS, the Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço, requires the employer to deposit 8% of the contribution base into an account in the employee's name every month, under Lei 8.036/1990 article 15. If the employer terminates the employee without cause, an additional 40% of everything ever paid into that account is due as a fine, under article 18 §1. That liability exists from the first day of employment, not only at the point of termination, which is why a cost model that provisions for it monthly, at a further 3.2% of the base (8% times 40%), gives a more honest ongoing figure than one that ignores it until a termination actually happens.

What this page leaves to the calculator

INSS employer contributions, the RAT risk-class charge multiplied by a company-specific FAP factor, and third-party contributions set by FPAS code all sit on top of the same base as the figures above, and all carry their own acts and their own company-specific inputs. Rather than restate them here without the interactive context that makes them useful, they are covered, with a worked example and a unit-tested calculation, on the employer cost calculator.

What this page does not state without a source

Notice periods, standard working hours, and what a specific collective bargaining agreement (convenção coletiva) adds are all real costs of employing someone in Brazil, and all of them vary by sector, region and the specific agreement in force. None of them is stated here, because no source for a general figure was opened while preparing this page; a sector-specific convenção coletiva has to be checked for the actual role and location before it can be priced.

Sources

• National minimum wage: Decreto 12.797/2025, confirmed on planalto.gov.br.
• 13th salary: Lei 4.090/1962.
• Paid vacation and the one-third addition: Constituição Federal article 7 XVII; Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (CLT), articles 129-130.
• FGTS and the termination fine: Lei 8.036/1990, articles 15 and 18 §1.
• INSS, RAT, FAP and third-party contributions: see the employer cost calculator for the full sourcing and the worked example.

Rates verified 23-24 September 2026. This page is not a substitute for a sector-specific collective bargaining agreement or your own accountant's calculation for a specific hire.