Brazil's 40-hour workweek (Constitutional Amendment 141): what changes for employers

Two rights in article 7 of the Constitution. The workweek limit, 8 hours a day and 44 a week since 1988,[3] becomes 8 hours a day and 40 a week, still with hours compensation and reductions allowed by collective agreement. The weekly paid rest, one day preferably on Sunday,[3] of at least 24 consecutive hours under Lei 605/1949,[4] becomes two paid days a week, one of them preferably on Sunday.[1] The boards of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate promulgated the amendment on October 16, 2026.[1]

The amendment counts its deadlines from publication rather than printing calendar dates:[1]

Until the 40-hour step, collective agreements may extend the daily hours so that the 42-hour week can be distributed, as long as the two rest days are respected.[1] The rest of the amendment applies from its publication.[1]

No. The shorter week and the extra rest day apply to contracts already in force and must be implemented without any reduction in pay, nominal, proportional or of any other kind, including salary floors.[1] Jobs already at 40 hours or less keep their hours and still get the two rest days.[1]

The same monthly salary therefore buys fewer hours: going from 44 to 40 hours a week raises the cost per hour worked by 10% (calculated). The 2026 minimum wage decree sets BRL 7.37 an hour, which corresponds to 220 hours a month at the monthly minimum of BRL 1,621.[5] Overtime keeps its limit of 2 hours a day and its premium of at least 50%.[6]

Collective-agreement clauses on working time and weekly rest that conflict with the amendment lose effect two months after publication.[1] As an exception, a collective agreement may set a compensation scheme that guarantees, on average, two paid rest days a week within the calendar month, with at least one of them within every week of work, including for workers in special regimes set by law.[1] That ends the six-days-on, one-off schedule as the general rule.

The amendment also leaves room for further laws: an ordinary law may define special regimes within the constitutional limits, and a complementary law may set transitional measures, tied to keeping jobs, for individual micro-entrepreneurs and micro and small companies.[1]

Employees with a university degree who earn at least 2.5 times the social security benefit ceiling are not subject to the working-hours and time-control rules, unless the employer chooses to apply them or a collective agreement provides for it; the two rest days still apply.[1] With the 2026 ceiling of BRL 8,475.55 a month,[2] the line is BRL 21,188.88 a month (calculated). The exception does not cover public-sector employees, and disputes over it go to the labor courts.[1]

Remote employees who work by task or output, rather than by time, were already outside the hours chapter of the labor code.[6]

• Map contract hours. Anyone on more than 42 hours a week needs a new schedule by mid-December 2026, and anyone above 40 by mid-December 2027, with the same monthly pay.
• Plan the second rest day from mid-December 2026, or a collective-agreement scheme that averages two a week.
• Check senior hires against the degree requirement and the BRL 21,188.88 monthly line for 2026, which moves with the social security ceiling.
• Ask your employer of record or outsourcing provider how it will apply the change; remote employees follow the collective agreement of the establishment they are assigned to.[6]
• Watch for the implementing laws the amendment allows, and for any decree updating the hourly minimum wage.

The amendment reaches a large workforce: Brazil had 39.4 million private-sector employees with a signed work card in July-September 2026.[7] The Brazil hiring guide covers contracts, costs, termination and contractors.