Sick leave and INSS benefit in Brazil: what the employer covers first

The split most payroll teams apply is simple: the employer pays salary for the first 15 days of an incapacity, and from day 16 the Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS, the social security institute) pays a benefit called auxílio por incapacidade temporária. The rule is usually traced to Lei 8.213/1991, art. 60 §3. That article was not re-checked when we updated this page in 2026, so use the day count as a working position and confirm it with the INSS before it goes into a handbook.

For a company hiring through Employer of Record Brazil, the question of who pays has two layers. Legally, the worker’s employer is the employer of record, and it contracts the worker under the Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (CLT, Brazil’s labour code), so its payroll carries the employer-paid days and it deals with the INSS on the worker’s behalf. You fund those days in the usual way, because the salary cost flows through the monthly invoice whether the person is at their desk or at home with a fever.

That arrangement changes the admin, not the entitlement. The employee has the same rights they would have with any Brazilian employer, and the manager on your side still approves the absence in the diary, reassigns work and keeps in touch. What the manager should not do is set sick-pay terms privately, because anything promised outside the employer’s payroll creates a second, unrecorded obligation.

During the employer-paid stretch the worker receives normal salary, paid through the regular monthly run. Payday for a monthly salary can fall no later than business day five of the month that follows (CLT art. 459 §1), and a sick absence does not move that date.

A quick illustration shows the scale. Take a São Paulo city employee earning R$ 15.000,00 monthly under the CLT, with no dependants and no sector top-up. If the 15 employer-paid days fall inside one calendar month and are counted on a 30-day basis, roughly R$ 7.500,00 of that month’s salary relates to sick days. The employer cost is no higher than usual; the difference is that you receive no work for that half-month, and a cover arrangement may add expense elsewhere.

Two things can push the cost up. The first is the convenção coletiva de trabalho, or CCT, negotiated sector by sector, which may add a top-up, a benefit continuation clause or a deadline for handing in medical certificates. The CCT follows the employer’s main activity and place of work, so in an EOR set-up it is normally the employer of record’s category that counts, and the employer of record should confirm which agreement applies per hire. The second is a benefits package you chose to offer, such as a private health plan, which may keep running during the absence depending on the plan terms.

Plan for the half-month you pay directly and model the rest as a staffing gap. That is the practical budget line finance teams need, and it avoids surprises when a long absence runs past the second week.

From day 16 the INSS benefit takes the place of salary, so the employer stops paying wages for those days. The INSS decides whether the benefit is granted, how long it lasts and how much it pays; the employer does not set or top up the amount unless a CCT or the contract says so.

We deliberately do not quote a benefit figure. The amount depends on the individual’s contribution history and on formulas that the INSS publishes and revises, so the only reliable source for a particular case is the INSS itself. What we can say is how contributions are collected in 2026: the employee’s own INSS deduction rises through four bands from 7.5% to 14% and stops growing once pay reaches the teto of R$ 8.475,55, so no one pays more than R$ 988,09 a month (Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 13/2026). High earners should therefore not assume the state benefit will mirror their salary.

The employer of record’s payroll team handles the employer-side steps: recording the absence, stopping salary at the right day and restarting it when the worker returns. Ask them to tell you, in writing, the date the INSS phase began for each long absence. That single date drives your cost forecast, your headcount reporting and any conversation about cover.

If your company wants to keep paying something on top of the benefit as a goodwill gesture, raise it with the employer of record first. A voluntary payment has tax and contribution consequences, and it has to go through the legal employer’s payroll to be recorded properly.

A sick absence is normally backed by a doctor’s certificate, the atestado médico, handed to the employer. In an EOR arrangement that means the employer of record’s HR team receives it, logs it and applies the pay rules; your manager only needs to know the dates.

Keep the medical detail away from the client side. Health information is sensitive, and Brazil’s data protection law, the LGPD (Lei 13.709/2018), is widely treated as covering employee records and is enforced by the ANPD. The LGPD text was not re-checked for this page, so ask the employer of record’s data protection contact how certificates are stored and who may see them. A sensible default is that line managers see the absence dates and nothing about the diagnosis.

Your absence policy should tell the employee three practical things: whom to notify on the first morning, where to send the certificate, and how quickly. If the applicable CCT sets a submission deadline, that deadline wins, so write the policy after the employer of record has confirmed the agreement.

Write the policy in Portuguese, with an English copy for your managers if they need one. An employee reading a rule in their own language is far less likely to miss a step, and a clear written process helps if the absence is ever questioned later.

Yes, a work-related incapacity brings extra consequences for the employer, even though the day-count split described above is the same starting point. Brazil funds accident cover through a separate employer contribution, and an accident can also trigger job protection after the worker returns.

The contribution is RAT (Riscos Ambientais do Trabalho, formerly SAT), set at one of three rates, 1%, 2% or 3% of payroll, according to how risky the employer’s main activity is (Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22, II). Each company’s RAT is then multiplied by a factor called the FAP (Fator Acidentário de Prevenção), which is set per company per year within a range usually quoted as 0.5 to 2.0. The FAP applying to any given employer is not public, so a cost estimate should state the assumption used; our own examples assume RAT at 2% and a factor of 1.0.

After a work-accident benefit, the employee is generally described as protected from dismissal for 12 months under Lei 8.213/1991, art. 118. We flag that point as unverified for 2026, and it is exactly the kind of rule where an employment lawyer should confirm the position before any decision about the role.

For desk-based and remote teams the accident risk is low, but commuting and home-office injuries do happen. Agree with the employer of record who reports an incident, and to whom, so that nothing depends on a manager remembering to forward an email.

Sick leave sits alongside several other paid absences, and each has its own payer and rules. Mixing them up is where most budgeting errors start.

Férias (annual leave) gives the employee 30 calendar days for every 12 months worked, and the pay for those days carries a one-third bonus, the terço constitucional (CLT art. 130; Constitution art. 7º, XVII). The entitlement shrinks on a sliding scale when a worker misses more than five days without justification during the acquisition period. Because that scale depends on whether an absence counts as justified, ask the employer of record how a certificated absence and a long INSS period are recorded against the acquisition period for your employee.

Maternity works differently from sickness. Licença-maternidade is 120 days (CLT art. 392), and the employer pays the salário-maternidade itself, then recovers it by deducting it from the INSS contributions it owes. Where a birth-related hospital stay for mother or newborn exceeds two weeks, Lei 15.222/2025 starts the 120 days from discharge.

The CLT also lists short paid absences that have nothing to do with illness, in art. 473: two consecutive days when a close family member or dependant dies, three consecutive days to get married, and several more. These are employer-paid and never pass to the INSS.

Keeping these categories separate in your reporting makes monthly cost reviews much easier to read, and it helps the employer of record code each day correctly in payroll.

Settle the process while everyone is healthy. A short checklist agreed with the employer of record at the start of the relationship covers almost every sick-leave question you will face.

• Confirm with the employer of record which CCT applies to each hire and whether it adds sick-pay top-ups or certificate deadlines.
• Agree the notification route: employee to manager for the dates, employee to the employer of record’s HR team for the atestado médico.
• Ask for a written note of the INSS start date whenever an absence passes two weeks.
• Keep a budget line for the employer-paid days and a separate one for temporary cover.
• Never act on performance or role changes during a long absence without the employer of record’s legal review.

The last point matters because a claim may be filed up to two years after employment ends and can cover the final five years worked (Constitution art. 7º, XXIX). A dismissal that looks linked to illness is the sort of decision that resurfaces later. If a role does have to end, see our explainer on notice periods and dismissal costs before talking to anyone.

New starters are the easiest place to begin. The employer of record can include the absence policy in the welcome pack during CLT onboarding through an EOR, and the cost side is already built into the figures in our São Paulo cost example.