Teletrabalho rules in Brazil for companies hiring remote staff

Teletrabalho is the CLT’s term for remote work, and the labour code gives it a dedicated set of provisions, arts. 75-A to 75-F. A person working from home under that chapter is still a CLT employee with every ordinary right: salary, the 13º salário, férias with the extra third, FGTS deposits and INSS cover.

The chapter exists because remote work raises questions an office contract never has to answer. Who buys the laptop, who pays the electricity, how hours are counted, which collective agreement applies when the employee lives in a different city from the employer. The CLT answers some of those itself and leaves others to the written contract, which is why the drafting matters more for a remote hire than for anyone else.

For foreign companies the remote model is often the whole point. You may have no Brazilian office at all, and the person you hire will work from home in Curitiba, Recife or São Paulo. Through Employer of Record Brazil, your new hire signs a CLT contract containing a teletrabalho clause with us as employer of record, and we act as legal employer while your team directs the day-to-day work.

The rest of this guide sets out the teletrabalho rules in Brazil that shape that contract, and marks the points we have not re-verified for 2026 so you know what to confirm before signature.

Remote work has to be stated expressly in the individual employment contract. That is a firm requirement of the teletrabalho chapter, and it applies even though the CLT otherwise tolerates contracts that are not written down.

The contract should describe the arrangement plainly: that the role is performed remotely, whether it is fully remote or hybrid, and where the employee’s normal place of work is. The equipment and expense arrangements must also be recorded in writing, which is covered in the next section.

Changing an existing employee from office-based to remote, or bringing someone back to the office, should be agreed in writing through the employer of record, with a contract amendment, before the employee changes where they work. A manager telling someone to work from home indefinitely by message is not a substitute.

Write it in Portuguese. A bilingual version helps your managers, but the employee’s signed version should be in the language they will rely on in any dispute. Our article on CLT contract terms and probation lists the other clauses a foreign employer should ask the employer of record to include.

The CLT does not fix a sum. It requires the arrangements for providing equipment and infrastructure, and for reimbursing any expenses the employee incurs, to be set out in writing. How generous those arrangements are is for the parties, and sometimes the CCT, to decide.

Most foreign employers settle the question with a short list agreed before day one:

• Company laptop, headset and any second screen, shipped to the employee and recorded as company property.
• A stated rule on internet and electricity, either a fixed monthly allowance or reimbursement against receipts.
• Who repairs or replaces equipment, and how it is returned when the contract ends.
• Any furniture budget, such as a one-off amount for a desk and chair.

Before fixing an allowance, ask the employer of record how it will be treated for INSS, FGTS and income tax. Payments that are genuinely reimbursements may be handled differently from payments that look like extra salary, and the employer of record’s payroll team will know how its accountants classify them. A fixed amount that is later treated as pay would add the employer charges of around 35.8% on top.

Sending hardware across a border can mean customs paperwork and a wait. Some employers ask the employer of record to buy equipment in Brazil and bill it back, so the new starter has a working laptop on day one.

The ordinary CLT limits are a 44-hour week and an eight-hour day (CLT art. 58), and overtime may not exceed two hours in a day (art. 59). How those limits play out for a home-based employee depends on how the remote arrangement is framed in the contract.

Ask the employer of record to confirm, for your specific contract, whether the employee’s hours will be controlled and recorded. Where they are, overtime above the agreed schedule is payable at a premium of at least 50% under the Constitution (art. 7º, XVI), a rule we treat as stable but have not re-read for 2026. The CCT may set a higher rate.

Time zones are the practical issue for foreign employers. A team lead in London or New York who books calls at the end of their own day may be booking them late in the Brazilian evening, and repeated late calls can turn into overtime or night work. Hours worked late at night cost at least 20% more under CLT art. 73.

A simple fix works for most teams: agree core hours that overlap with head office, write them into the contract, and ask managers to keep meetings inside them. It protects the employee’s evenings and keeps your cost forecast clean.

Watch the proposal for a shorter week too. PEC 221/2019 would reduce the maximum to 40 hours, but it had not been voted on by the Senate plenary at 25 September 2026.

The collective agreement for a remote employee is generally the one that applies to the employer’s establishment where the employee is registered (CLT art. 75-B §7). That paragraph is on our list of points not re-read for 2026. In practice, for an EOR hire, the employer of record’s category usually drives the CCT, whatever city the employee lives in.

That matters because the CCT, the convenção coletiva de trabalho, often decides minimum pay, when yearly increases happen and extras such as meal cards. Meal and food vouchers (vale-refeição, vale-alimentação) are not a statutory duty, though many agreements impose them, and they do not disappear because the employee works from home.

The transport voucher works differently. Vale-transporte is mandatory only when the employee requests it, and the employer covers whatever the commute costs beyond 6% of the employee’s basic pay (Lei 7.418/1985). A fully remote employee who never travels to a workplace has no commute for it to cover; a hybrid employee who goes into a co-working space on set days may request it for those journeys. Because it is not treated as salary, it attracts neither INSS nor FGTS.

Health plans, life insurance and any home-office allowance sit on top as contractual benefits. Agreeing the full list with the employer of record before the offer avoids a package that looks different on the payslip from what the candidate was told.

Yes, but each direction raises a different question, and neither is solved by the teletrabalho chapter alone.

A Brazil-hired employee who moves abroad and keeps working remotely is, by default, still governed by Brazilian law unless otherwise agreed, under CLT art. 75-B §8 (added by Lei 14.442/2022). We list that provision as not re-read for 2026. It does not settle immigration, tax or social security in the other country, so a request to work from abroad for more than a short trip should go to the employer of record for review before anyone agrees to it.

A foreign national living in Brazil is a separate case. Brazil offers a residence route for digital nomads who work remotely without a Brazilian employment link (Resolução CNIg MJSP nº 45/2021). Once the same person is hired under a CLT contract, the employment-based route applies instead. That is an autorização de residência tied to the job, which Resolução Normativa CNIg nº 2/2017 governs; applications go to the labour immigration team at the Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública. As legal employer, the employer of record is the party involved on the employment side, so confirm the steps and timing with it early.

Tax residence follows its own rules. Tax residence starts on the day of arrival for a foreigner whose temporary visa comes with an employment contract; other temporary-visa holders become resident after 184 days in Brazil within 12 months. Once resident, their income from anywhere in the world falls under the ordinary progressive table. When a candidate is relocating to Brazil for the job, build the residence authorisation and the tax position into the start date from the first conversation.

A remote start goes smoothly when five decisions are made before the contract is drafted. Share them with the employer of record in one message so nothing is lost between teams.

• Fully remote or hybrid, and the employee’s normal place of work.
• Equipment list, allowance amount and who owns what.
• Core hours and how overtime is approved.
• Benefits on top of the CCT, including any health plan.
• A rule for trips abroad and requests to relocate.

Registration works exactly as for an office hire. Within five business days the employer of record logs the new starter on the digital CTPS (CLT art. 29), which in practice happens through eSocial ahead of the start date, and payroll then runs through eSocial, DCTFWeb and FGTS Digital each month. The only difference for a remote starter is logistics: equipment has to arrive before day one, and the welcome session happens on a video call. Our guide to CLT onboarding through an EOR walks through that sequence, including when the contract is signed and when the first salary is paid.

Data handling deserves a line in your own policy. The LGPD (Lei 13.709/2018) is generally treated as applying to employee data, and is enforced by the ANPD; its text was outside what we re-checked for 2026. A remote employee using company systems from home should know which devices are allowed and how to report a lost laptop.

Cost follows the same pattern as any CLT hire: salary, employer charges of about 35.8% and accruals for the 13º salário and férias. Our breakdown of INSS, FGTS and employer charges in Brazil shows where that percentage comes from.