INSS, FGTS and employer charges in Brazil, line by line

For most service employers, statutory employer charges add about 35.8% to every payment of remuneration. The figure is the sum of four items: employer INSS at 20%, the accident contribution RAT at 2% (with an accident factor of 1.0), 5.8% in third-party levies and an 8% FGTS deposit.

Those percentages rest on assumptions that should be stated each time the number is used. The employer files its corporate income tax under one of the two ordinary regimes (lucro real or lucro presumido) rather than Simples Nacional, is classified under FPAS code 515 for commerce and most services, and is outside the payroll-tax relief regime known as desoneração. A different code, a higher accident risk or a different tax regime changes the result.

The rate is applied to more than the monthly salary. The 13º salário and the pay for férias, including the constitutional one-third bonus, all carry the same charges. That is why a Brazilian annual budget starts from roughly 13.33 salaries, not 12, and then adds 35.8% on top.

Hiring through Employer of Record Brazil means the charges are paid by us, as legal employer, under the employer’s tax registrations; the cost passes to you in the monthly invoice alongside salary. The rest of this guide takes each of the INSS, FGTS and employer charges in Brazil in turn, then puts them together in a worked example.

Employer INSS, the contribuição previdenciária patronal, is 20% of the total monthly remuneration paid or credited to employees, and there is no upper limit on the base (Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22, I). A salary of R$ 15.000,00 costs R$ 3.000,00 a month in employer INSS; a salary of R$ 50.000,00 costs R$ 10.000,00.

The employee side works quite differently. For employees, 2026 INSS is levied progressively at 7.5%, 9%, 12% and 14% across four slices of pay, and nothing is charged above R$ 8.475,55, which limits the deduction to R$ 988,09 (Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 13/2026). That amount is deducted from the employee’s pay; the employer’s 20% is paid in addition to gross salary.

The contrast matters for senior hires. Because the employee’s contribution stops at the ceiling while the employer’s continues, the employer’s share of social security grows faster than the employee’s as salaries rise. At R$ 15.000,00 a month the employer pays R$ 3.000,00 against the employee’s R$ 988,09. Double the salary to R$ 30.000,00 and the employer’s share doubles to R$ 6.000,00, while the employee still pays R$ 988,09.

One benefit is handled inside the INSS calculation. Employees earning no more than R$ 1.980,38 in 2026 receive salário-família, R$ 67,54 for each child aged up to 14, paid out by the employer, which then offsets it against INSS contributions, so it rarely affects the cost of skilled hires.

RAT (Riscos Ambientais do Trabalho, formerly SAT) is the employer’s work-accident contribution, levied at 1%, 2% or 3% of payroll, with the band fixed by how hazardous the company’s main activity is, as identified by its CNAE code (Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22, II). The employer of record’s own classification, not your company’s, decides the rate for your hire.

Each employer’s RAT is then adjusted by the FAP (Fator Acidentário de Prevenção), a factor set per company per year and commonly given as ranging from 0.5 to 2.0 (Decreto 3.048/1999, art. 202-A). On that basis the effective accident contribution can sit anywhere from 0.5% to 6%. We flag the FAP because a given employer’s 2026 factor is company-specific and not published, so ask for it when you want a precise quote.

Our standard example uses RAT at 2% and a FAP of 1.0, giving an effective 2%. For the R$ 15.000,00 salary in our São Paulo example, each percentage point of RAT moves the annual employer cost by about R$ 2.000,00, because the charge applies to R$ 200.000,00 of annual remuneration.

The point for finance teams is that two quotes from two providers can legitimately differ on this line. A provider that shows 35.8% everywhere without naming its RAT and FAP assumptions is giving you a rounded figure, which is fine for a budget and less fine for a contract.

The third-party levies, called terceiros, are contributions collected with employer INSS and passed to other public and training bodies. For employers in FPAS code 515, the classification for commerce and most service businesses, they total 5.8% of payroll (IN RFB 2.110/2022, Anexo III).

• Salário-educação: 2.5%.
• INCRA: 0.2%.
• SENAC: 1.0%.
• SESC: 1.5%.
• SEBRAE: 0.6%.

Industry, under FPAS 507 with SENAI and SESI in place of the commerce bodies, also totals 5.8%. Other FPAS codes differ: FPAS 566, for example, totals 4.5%, which would cut about R$ 2.600,00 a year from the employer cost in our R$ 15.000,00 example. The employer’s FPAS code is set by its own activity, which is another reason to ask a provider exactly how its quote was built.

Two regimes sit outside this picture. Companies in Simples Nacional are generally described as paying most employer contributions inside a single monthly tax payment, and 17 sectors have had a payroll-tax relief scheme that Lei 14.973/2024 is reported to phase out gradually. We have not researched either in detail for this article, and neither applies to the standard figures here.

FGTS, short for Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço, is an 8% deposit the employer makes each month into an account linked to the individual employee, calculated on remuneration paid or due (Lei 8.036/1990, art. 15). Nothing is deducted from the employee’s pay for it; the full 8% is employer cost.

The deposits build up in the worker’s own account. That is why FGTS behaves differently from INSS in a dismissal. When an employer ends a contract without cause, it owes a further deposit equal to 40% of everything paid into the worker’s FGTS account over the whole contract (Lei 8.036/1990, art. 18). Where both sides agree to end the contract under CLT art. 484-A, the fine drops to 20%.

The fine is easy to underestimate. On a R$ 15.000,00 salary the annual FGTS deposits are R$ 16.000,00, so after three years of steady pay the deposits total around R$ 48.000,00, ignoring any returns credited, and ending the contract without cause would trigger roughly R$ 19.200,00 on top. That is separate from aviso prévio, final salary and accrued leave.

Deposits are made through FGTS Digital, in production since 1 March 2024 and fed by eSocial data, and the Pix payment must be made by the 20th after each month closes. The employer of record runs this each month; you should see the deposit as a separate line in the cost breakdown.

On a monthly salary of R$ 15.000,00, a São Paulo city employee under the CLT costs the employer about R$ 271.600,00 a year, or roughly R$ 22.633,33 a month, before any EOR fee or optional benefits. That is about 1.51 times twelve monthly salaries.

Finance teams that budget month by month can reach the same figure with provisions. Each month, set aside one-twelfth of salary for the 13º salário (R$ 1.250,00) and one-thirty-sixth for the holiday bonus (R$ 416,67), so the monthly pay base becomes R$ 16.666,67. Applying 35.8% to that base gives charges of R$ 5.966,67 and a monthly cost of R$ 22.633,33, which matches the annual total. A monthly quote that shows only salary plus 35.8%, at R$ 20.370,00, is therefore short by more than R$ 2.200,00 a month.

The assumptions: employer on lucro real or lucro presumido, FPAS 515, no desoneração; RAT 2% with a FAP of 1.0; a full year worked; 30 days’ férias taken in one month with the one-third bonus; no abono pecuniário; no meal vouchers, health plan, transport voucher or CCT extras; no dismissal.

• Annual gross: R$ 200.000,00 (R$ 180.000,00 in regular pay, R$ 15.000,00 for the 13º salário and R$ 5.000,00 as the holiday third).
• Employer INSS at 20%: R$ 40.000,00.
• RAT at 2%: R$ 4.000,00.
• Terceiros at 5.8%: R$ 11.600,00.
• FGTS at 8%: R$ 16.000,00.
• Total charges: R$ 71.600,00, giving R$ 271.600,00 in employer cost.

The example applies every charge to the one-third holiday bonus, following the Supreme Federal Court’s 2020 ruling (Tema 985) that employer contributions are due on it. On the employee side, the worker takes home about R$ 147.500,68 over the year; a typical month nets R$ 11.067,36 once INSS and IRRF are deducted.

Our monthly fee from USD 560 comes on top; converted with ECB reference rates from 24 September 2026 it is close to R$ 2.901,24. For the month-by-month payroll run, see what a CLT hire in São Paulo really costs, while our side-by-side of US and Brazilian employer charges puts the figures beside FICA.

Employer charges are settled monthly, each payroll period’s amounts falling due on the following month’s 20th. Employer INSS, RAT and the terceiros levies go on a single DARF payment slip generated by DCTFWeb, and FGTS goes separately through FGTS Digital.

Both systems are fed by eSocial, the one system through which employers report labour, social security and tax data. The payroll team sends the monthly payroll events to eSocial, closes the period, and DCTFWeb then calculates the federal contributions due (Receita Federal on DCTFWeb). If the 20th falls on a non-business day, the DARF deadline moves earlier.

Some payments sit outside the base. Transport vouchers fall outside the base altogether: vale-transporte is not salary, so no INSS, FGTS or income tax attaches to it. Meal vouchers under the PAT follow their own rules, and any voluntary benefit should be checked with the employer of record before you promise it, because classification decides whether the 35.8% applies.

The monthly calendar, with salary due by the 5th business day and IRRF withholding, is laid out in our payroll, eSocial and FGTS guide. Ask the employer of record to show the DARF and FGTS Digital totals as separate lines on each invoice, so you can reconcile them.