2026 hiring guide · Brazil
How to Hire in Brazil From the US
A practical guide for US companies hiring employees or contractors in Brazil: the four legal ways to hire, what a hire costs in US dollars, and the labor rules you have to follow. Hiring now? LatamCent can find, vet and pay senior engineering, data and GTM talent for you.
- 1Choose how to hireEOR, contractor (PJ), local entity or hiring partner
- 2Budget the real costSalary in USD plus 28% to 36% employer on-costs
- 3Follow the CLT rulesContracts, probation, notice periods and payroll
- 4Make a competitive offerThe benefits senior candidates in Brazil expect
21-day average to hire · 93% placement success · 60-day replacement
At a glance
Brazil
- Time zoneUTC-3 (Brasília)No daylight saving time
- Overlap with US Eastern7 to 8 hours a day
- CurrencyBrazilian real (BRL)About 5.10 per US dollar, July 2026
- Talent hubsSão Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Florianópolis
- Employer on-costs28% to 36% above salaryPlus the 13th salary and vacation bonus
Trusted by US B2B SaaS teams
4 ways to hire in Brazil, compared
The right route depends on how many people you are hiring, how fast you need them and how much Brazilian compliance your team can absorb. Here is how the options compare for a US company.
| Hiring partner (LatamCent) | Employer of Record | Independent contractor (PJ) | Local entity (LTDA) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recruiting included | Yes, sourcing plus technical and English vetting | Usually not | No | No |
| Who holds the contract | LatamCent, under a contractor-on-record model | The EOR, under CLT | Your company, B2B contract | Your company, under CLT |
| Speed | 21-day average to signed offer | Fast once you have a candidate | Fastest to sign | Slowest: REDESIM, CNPJ and licenses |
| Compliance risk for you | Stays with LatamCent | Low | Highest (CLT arts. 2 and 3, pending STF ruling) | You own all of it |
| Best for | Teams that want recruiting and payroll handled by one partner | 1 to 10 employees, pilot hires | Short, project-scoped work | A significant, permanent team |
Based on Brazilian labor law (CLT) and LatamCent placement data. Details for each route are in the ways to hire section below.
How to hire in Brazil: the 4 routes
US companies have three legal paths for cross-border employment in Brazil: setting up a local entity, using an Employer of Record, or hiring independent contractors. The right choice depends on headcount, timeline, and the team’s ability to absorb compliance complexity. A fourth option, a hiring partner, combines recruiting with the compliance layer.
Hire employees in Brazil with an Employer of Record (EOR)
Low riskAn Employer of Record in Brazil is a third-party company that legally employs workers on your behalf under Brazilian law. Your company directs the work; the EOR in Brazil handles the rest of the employment relationship.
The EOR manages:
- Employment contracts compliant with the CLT
- Global payroll processing and eSocial filings
- INSS, FGTS, and RAT contributions
- Mandatory benefits administration
- Termination and severance calculations
Brazil’s employer on-costs add approximately 28% to 36% above gross salary, with a common benchmark near 35.3%. That uplift covers employer INSS, FGTS at 8.0%, and work-accident insurance. With an EOR you see the total employment cost before the first offer goes out.
The EOR model fits:
- Teams of one to ten employees
- Companies running a pilot hire before committing to a local entity
- Remote-first SaaS teams that need CLT-compliant contracts without building local infrastructure
- Companies that need to move fast without absorbing Brazil’s payroll complexity internally
Most global EOR platforms operate in Brazil, but an EOR won’t find candidates for you. Sourcing, vetting and closing the hire stay on your side.
Hire independent contractors in Brazil (PJ)
Highest riskHiring contractors in Brazil is fast and flexible, but it carries the most legal risk of the three options.
Contractor arrangements work best for:
- Short-term, project-scoped engagements
- Work that is genuinely non-recurring
- Early-stage pilots before a hiring decision is made
- Roles where deliverable-based payment is the natural structure
Worker classification in Brazil is governed by CLT articles 2 and 3, which presume an employment relationship exists whenever work is personal, non-occasional, paid, and subordinated to the client.
The local term for contractor arrangements, “PJ” (Pessoa Jurídica), has been a consistent target of labor litigation. In April 2025, the STF suspended related lawsuits pending a final merits ruling, which means employee vs. contractor classification remains an active, unresolved legal question at the highest court level.
If reclassification occurs, back-payment of FGTS, INSS, 13th salary, vacation, and severance applies retroactively from day one. Companies reduce exposure by:
- Scoping all work to specific deliverables with defined endpoints
- Avoiding fixed schedules and exclusivity clauses
- Ensuring the contractor operates as a genuine independent business
- Getting legal review before any long-term contractor engagement
Set up a local entity in Brazil
You own complianceThe standard vehicle for foreign companies entering Brazil is the LTDA (Sociedade Limitada), including its single-member variant, the SLU, introduced under Law 14.195/2021. Larger operations with external investors or complex governance requirements may use an S.A. Branch office, which is possible but requires federal authorization and is rarely the right fit for companies hiring a team.
Registration runs through REDESIM, Brazil’s integrated business registration system. The process covers a viability check and name reservation, constitutive documents, CNPJ registration with the Junta Comercial, state and municipal licenses, payroll and eSocial setup, and, where applicable, foreign investment reporting through the Central Bank’s SCE-IED. Each layer adds time. The municipal licensing step is the one that most often delays hiring plans.
From day one, the CLT (Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho) governs every employment relationship. Mandatory obligations include:
- Written employment contract in Portuguese
- FGTS (severance fund) contributions from the first month
- INSS (social security) registration and contributions
- Mandatory benefits: 13th salary, vacation, and transportation voucher
- eSocial payroll reporting obligations
Entity setup makes sense when you plan to hire a significant team, need local invoicing capability, or are building a permanent operational presence in Brazil. For companies hiring one to five people, the setup timeline rarely justifies the investment before the first hire is onboarded.
Hire through a nearshore hiring partner
Recruiting includedA hiring partner covers the part the other three routes leave to you: finding and vetting the right person. LatamCent recruits within the networks where senior Brazilian engineers, ML researchers, and GTM operators operate, then handles contract, payroll, and statutory filings under a contractor-on-record model, with one USD invoice each month.
- 21-day average from kickoff to signed offer
- Pre-vetted shortlists with technical and English screening built in
- 60-day replacement coverage on every hire
In short, an entity gives you the most control but takes the longest to set up, and an EOR covers compliance without one. Contracting is the fastest route, but Brazil’s CLT and the pending STF case make it the riskiest choice for any ongoing role.
What a Brazilian hire costs in US dollars
Convert Brazilian reais to US dollars at the July 2026 reference rate, estimate the employer cost on top of salary, then see what a decade of real movement means for what your Brazilian hire actually costs you.
Cost converter
On-costs use the common 35.3% benchmark (range 28% to 36%). The 13th salary and one-third vacation bonus add about 1.33 months of salary per year on top. These are CLT employer costs, which apply when you hire through an EOR or your own entity. LatamCent hires are priced as salary plus a service fee, quoted per role.
USD to BRL, 10-year trend
2016 to 2026 · the dollar buys 46% more reais
Higher line = weaker real = your dollar buys more Brazilian talent. The dollar buys about 46% more reais than in 2016, a strong tailwind for USD buyers.
Sources: OECD / US Federal Reserve (FRED) annual average USD/BRL; latest spot rate, July 2026. Rates are period averages and will differ from any single day’s quote.
Why this matters for hiring
A Brazilian salary of 15,000 BRL/mo costs a US buyer about $2,941/mo at the July 2026 reference rate. Because the real has weakened over the decade, that same local salary is meaningfully cheaper in dollar terms than it used to be.
These are reference rates and live FX moves daily. Figures use annual average mid-market rates for past years and a July 2026 reference rate for the latest year. Use them for planning, and confirm the rate before you sign a contract.
Employment laws in Brazil
Brazilian labor laws make termination without cause a calculable but significant liability.
The severance package includes prior notice worked or paid in lieu, proportional vacation and 13th salary, full FGTS withdrawal, and a 40% fine on the total FGTS balance accumulated during employment, due within 10 days of termination.
That 40% fine is the number most US employers underestimate. For a senior hire who may stay several years, model the severance exposure before you sign the first offer.
Onboarding process
Register the employee in eSocial by the start date. Update the digital CTPS within 5 business days. Fine for unregistered employees: BRL 3,000 per worker.
Contract details
Indefinite-term contracts are the market default. Fixed-term and intermittent contracts require documented justification under the CLT.
Probation period
Up to 90 calendar days via contrato de experiência under CLT art. 443. One extension permitted within that limit.
Notice periods
30 days for up to 1 year of service, plus 3 days per additional year of tenure, capped at 90 days under Law 12.506/2011.
Working hours and overtime
8 hours per day, 44 hours per week. Overtime capped at 2 additional hours per day, at a minimum 50% premium on weekdays. Sunday and public holiday work requires double pay unless a substitute day off is granted.
Employee benefits
13th salary, FGTS at 8.0% of gross salary, paid annual vacation of up to 30 days plus a one-third vacation bonus, INSS, paid weekly rest, and statutory leave entitlements.
Income tax
Progressive IRRF withheld monthly. From January 2026, effective tax is zero up to BRL 5,000 under Lei 15.270/2025, phasing out to BRL 7,350. Standard rates run from 7.5% to 27.5% above the exemption threshold.
Monthly payroll in Brazil
Payroll in Brazil runs through eSocial each month, and the obligations extend beyond salary disbursements. Employment compliance requires active management of contributions, withholdings, and filings on a fixed cycle:
Monthly salary payment in BRL
Deposit of 8.0% of gross salary each month
Contributions of 20.0% to 22.5%, depending on the sector
Income tax withholding processed through the monthly payroll
Payroll taxes and third-party charges filed via eSocial
Provisioned and paid in December
Companies hiring through an EOR transfer payroll execution and eSocial filing to the provider. Companies operating through a local entity own that compliance directly.
Plan for the full cost of employment from day one. Statutory benefits, social security contributions and severance exposure are fixed costs, and they grow with tenure.
Common benefits and perks in Brazil
Senior tech candidates in Brazil compare the whole package when weighing offers.
Employee benefits in Brazil reflect a market where candidates with international exposure know what competitive packages look like, and they compare. Work culture in Brazil’s tech sector has been shaped by years of US and European company presence, which means the baseline expectation has moved.
Private health insurance
The statutory INSS coverage is not a substitute for private health plans. Senior professionals expect employer-sponsored private health insurance covering the employee and immediate family. Many candidates won’t consider an offer without it.
Dental plan
Commonly bundled with health insurance. Candidates see it as part of the health package.
Meal and food vouchers (VR/VA)
The vale-refeição and vale-alimentação are deeply embedded in Brazilian work culture. Many collective agreements require them. Candidates read a missing voucher as a red flag.
Performance bonus or PLR
Variable compensation tied to individual or company performance is standard at mid and senior levels. The PLR (Participação nos Lucros e Resultados) structure is familiar to candidates who have worked with SaaS companies and aligns naturally with the revenue-linked incentive models US teams already use.
Home office and internet stipend
Not a statutory requirement under CLT art. 75-D, but an established market expectation. Employer-provided hardware plus a monthly internet stipend is the baseline for any remote role. Candidates who have worked with international companies expect it without asking.
Professional development budget
Certification reimbursement, online course access, and language training are active differentiators in technical hiring. Engineers evaluating AWS, Azure, or AI certifications weigh whether an employer funds that trajectory. A learning budget signals long-term investment in the hire.
Flexible working hours
Results-based scheduling is standard in Brazil’s tech sector. Engineers already operating on async-friendly rhythms with US teams expect flexibility by default.
Wellness and mental health programs
Gym subsidies, access to therapy, and wellness reimbursements are increasingly in demand, particularly among younger senior engineers. Not yet universal, but their absence is increasingly cited as a reason to decline at the final stage.
Senior candidates in Brazil have been exposed to international hiring standards through direct employment, freelance work, or peer networks. They notice a below-market package, and it tells them you haven’t researched the market.
Adding benefits usually works better than raising base salary. Acceptance rates go up, early attrition goes down, and benefits don’t carry the payroll tax a higher salary does.
Leave policy in Brazil
120 calendar days
Paid by INSS. Extendable to 180 calendar days under Empresa Cidadã. Job protection applies for the full period.
5 calendar days
Standard, employer-paid. Extendable to 20 calendar days under Empresa Cidadã.
15 days employer-paid
First 15 consecutive calendar days: employer-paid salary continuation. Day 16 onward: INSS temporary incapacity benefit with medical certification required.
No national statute
No national shared parental leave statute. Market practice relies on maternity and paternity entitlements plus employer or collective-bargaining extensions.
INSS carries most of the cost of maternity leave. The employer pays the salary upfront and recovers it through social security contributions. Job protection applies for the full 120 or 180-day period, meaning the position cannot be eliminated while the employee is on leave.
Paternity leave is where the legal minimum and market practice differ most. Five days is the legal floor. Tech companies competing for senior engineers routinely offer 15 to 20 days. Joining Empresa Cidadã closes that gap and removes it as a reason to decline an offer.
Sick leave creates a split obligation between the employer and INSS:
- First 15 consecutive days: employer pays full salary directly
- Day 16 onward: INSS covers the benefit with medical certification
Short absences that never exceed the 15-day threshold do not trigger INSS reimbursement. Recurring short-term sick leave stays entirely on the employer’s payroll budget.
When budgeting for Brazilian hires, factor in the employer-paid sick leave window, the cost of Empresa Cidadã participation, and temporary coverage planning for extended maternity periods.
Remote work regulations in Brazil
Hiring remote employees in Brazil is supported by a dedicated legal framework. CLT articles 75-A through 75-F, updated by Law 14.442/2022, regulate telework for both fully remote and hybrid arrangements. Terms must be formalized in the employment contract or a written addendum.
The CLT allows telework, but it leaves the details to your contract.
The contract is the operational document. Working hours, availability expectations, job duties, and work location must all be defined in writing. Anything left out of the contract isn’t protected.
Brazil has no standalone right-to-disconnect statute. The CLT’s general working-time rules apply, but they do not define async boundaries for remote work. For distributed teams, the employer has to set async norms, because the law doesn’t.
Equipment and infrastructure obligations fall under CLT art. 75-D. The contract must specify who provides hardware, who covers connectivity costs, and how expenses are reimbursed. Reimbursed tools and utilities do not integrate into salary and carry no payroll tax implications. Market practice in Brazil’s tech sector is employer-provided hardware plus a monthly internet stipend.
Remote hiring in Brazil benefits from a mature distributed work culture. In São Paulo, Florianópolis, and Curitiba, remote team collaboration with international clients has been standard practice for over a decade.
Statutory time off in Brazil
Brazil mandates 30 calendar days of paid annual vacation and observes 10 national public holidays in 2026. Both are easy to underestimate when you plan sprints and client coverage from the US.
Paid time off (vacation) in Brazil
Vacation entitlement is calculated in calendar days and accrues over a 12-month period. The CLT does not use seniority tiers. Instead, entitlement scales down based on unjustified absences during the accrual year:
Vacation must be taken within 12 months of the end of the accrual period. Employees receive a one-third vacation bonus on top of their regular salary during the vacation period. Accrued vacation not taken at termination is paid out in cash.
Brazil public holidays
Brazil observes 10 national public holidays in 2026. Employees who work on a public holiday are entitled to 200% pay unless a substitute day off is granted. Compensatory time off is permitted as an alternative.
Q4 has the heaviest holiday concentration, with three national holidays between November and December, along with the 13th salary payment obligation. For US SaaS teams managing year-end sprints or client renewals, that cluster requires active capacity planning.
Popular roles to hire in Brazil
Brazil is the largest tech labor market in Latin America. The senior bench in São Paulo, Florianópolis, Belo Horizonte, Recife, and Porto Alegre runs deeper than most US founders expect, with universities like USP, UNICAMP, ITA, and UFPE feeding a stable technical pipeline.
The Brazilian engineering industry has been shipping production software for global clients for over a decade. For US B2B SaaS companies the talent is there; the work is finding the right city, stack and seniority for the role. Below are the role categories that consistently perform outside Brazil, with sourcing notes relevant to B2B SaaS hiring.
Back-end engineers in Brazil: Java, Python and Ruby
Brazil’s fintech and banking sector built one of the world’s largest Java communities, and the local Rails scene rivals San Francisco’s at its peak. Python is everywhere on the data side, driven by Nubank, iFood, and the broader analytics wave.
Senior back-end profiles concentrate in São Paulo and Florianópolis:
Elixir was created by José Valim, a Brazilian engineer, and the local community is among the strongest globally. If your stack runs on Elixir or Erlang, Brazil is one of the best places to hire.
Senior offers in this category close in 7 to 14 days during competitive cycles, and slow processes lose candidates to Nubank, Stone, and US remote-first competitors.
Front-end developers in Brazil
Front-end talent concentrates in São Paulo and Florianópolis. Most senior profiles have shipped against high-traffic consumer products like Mercado Livre, iFood, or one of the country’s larger fintechs.
Most have production experience under heavy load.
Mobile is strong. React Native specifically, given the size of Brazil’s mobile-first consumer market. Native iOS and Android specialists are abundant in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, often with fintech or e-commerce backgrounds.
Full-stack engineers in Brazil
Full-stack is one of the deepest categories in the country.
The Rails community is especially strong. Founder-led Brazilian SaaS companies (RD Station, Resultados Digitais, Conta Azul) trained a generation of engineers who think in product cycles.
Brazilian full-stack engineers who came up through local SaaS startups tend to understand product trade-offs better than engineers trained at agencies.
AI and ML engineers in Brazil
Brazil’s ML talent pool has been growing for years.
Nubank’s data team alone is widely cited as one of the strongest in Latin America. USP, UNICAMP, and ITA all run serious applied ML research, and the senior shortlist gets attention from US, European, and Chinese employers simultaneously.
Decide quickly: speed matters more in Brazil than almost anywhere else in the region. Slow ML hiring loops lose candidates inside the first 10 business days.
Blockchain developers in Brazil
Brazil runs the most active retail crypto market in Latin America by transaction volume, with the largest exchange (Mercado Bitcoin), early ETF infrastructure (Hashdex), and a builder community that learned in production.
For SaaS companies with payment rails, tokenized assets or wallet integrations, there are enough senior engineers to hire from.
Senior crypto engineers are hard to find anywhere, but in Brazil a solid shortlist usually takes about two weeks.
Sales and GTM hires in Brazil
Brazil produced the first wave of true B2B SaaS sales talent in Latin America.
RD Station, Pipefy, Resultados Digitais, and the more comprehensive inbound-marketing scene built a generation of reps who understand MQL, SQL, ARR, and quota math in English. São Paulo is the hiring center.
English fluency in São Paulo’s senior GTM market is noticeably higher than the Brazilian average. Test for it in the interview.
Finance and accounting in Brazil
Brazil’s banking sector is the most sophisticated in Latin America, and the spillover into SaaS finance has been steady. Big-Four-trained accountants, FP&A leads with subscription modeling experience, and controllers familiar with US GAAP overlay are all sourceable in São Paulo.
Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC train a steady flow of senior finance talent in São Paulo. Look there first for controller and FP&A profiles.
Marketing hires in Brazil
Brazil’s digital marketing scene is one of the strongest in Latin America, with deep paid-media, lifecycle, and content operator pools. Local platforms like RD Station and Hotmart trained much of the regional bench. For US B2B SaaS, performance marketing and marketing operations are the best fit, along with demand generation.
For US-market editorial content writing, screen tightly for native or near-native English samples. The senior pool exists, but it is narrower than the operator side.
Specialty and hard-to-fill technical roles
Brazil is one of the few countries in Latin America where the senior bench runs deep enough to staff the roles most US founders give up on after a 4-month search.
Cryptography PhDs, distributed systems specialists, and applied research engineers have been training inside USP, UNICAMP, ITA, and the local fintech and trading-firm ecosystem for two decades.
For US B2B SaaS companies hiring against a deeply technical roadmap (latency-sensitive infrastructure, AI safety, or zero-knowledge cryptography), Brazil is one of the few practical sourcing markets outside the US itself.
These roles take longer than our 21-day average. The shortlist is small, the candidates are usually employed, and the negotiation runs longer because counter-offers are common. Plan for a 4 to 8 week sourcing window and a compensation band that respects what these profiles command on the open market.
The wait tends to pay off. A single senior distributed systems engineer or cryptography specialist often unblocks roadmap items that have been stuck for quarters.
If a US-equivalent search would mean a Bay Area bidding war against Anthropic, Stripe, or a quant fund, Brazil is one of the few markets with a real alternative at the same technical level.
Don’t see the role you need?
We hire across engineering, AI, GTM, finance and marketing in Brazil. Tell us what you’re looking for.
Why should US-based B2B SaaS companies hire in Brazil?
Few Latin American markets match Brazil’s size, and it shares most of the US workday. Its universities turn out enough engineers to staff teams at every seniority level.
Time zone overlap with the US
Brazil’s main hiring hubs run on UTC-3, which gives US Eastern teams seven to eight hours of daily overlap. That’s enough time for live code reviews and sprint rituals without anyone working odd hours.
Remote work is already normal there. Over 8.7 million Brazilians work remotely, most of them in the tech hubs.
Senior talent at a lower cost
Senior engineers in Brazil cost far less than their US equivalents.
A senior software engineer’s total cash compensation sits around 60% below US national medians depending on role. In practice, that puts a senior backend engineer within reach at a stage when a US hire at the same level wouldn’t fit the budget.
$835Ksaved a year by Monarch with 8 engineering hires in Brazil through LatamCent, 63% below US cost
For US B2B SaaS companies building:
- Back-end Developer and full-stack engineering teams
- Data engineering and ML pipeline roles
- DevOps and cloud infrastructure
- GTM roles including SDRs, Account Executive (AE), and CSMs
- Full-Stack QA Engineer
English skills vary by city
English proficiency in the tech sector runs higher than the national average, and it varies by city.
Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, and Curitiba consistently score above São Paulo on the EF EPI technology index. Screening for English by city as well as by role gets you to qualified candidates faster.
Tech talent in Brazil is best for technical depth and time zone-aligned collaboration. English-facing GTM roles are viable but require explicit proficiency screening, with secondary cities outperforming São Paulo on that dimension.
Brazil’s economy
Brazil has a GDP of approximately USD 2.186 trillion, the largest in Latin America. For hiring, the mix of sectors matters more than the size.
Services, information, and communication are the two sectors that built the engineering and finance pipeline now available for hiring engineers in Brazil. Manufacturing and agribusiness get more attention, but that isn’t where SaaS teams hire.
Information and communication ranked among the fastest-growing contributors to Brazil’s GDP, driven by Totvs, CI&T, and Stefanini building product and engineering capacity domestically rather than offshoring it.
That’s the talent pool US SaaS teams draw on in Brazil. Closing candidates from it isn’t cheap, though. Currency volatility is a permanent feature of the market, and senior candidates with international options price that risk into their expectations. Offers denominated only in BRL are more likely to be rejected by profiles worth hiring.
Lei do Bem and the Marco Legal das Startups built the tech talent pipeline that exists today. The first pulls multinational R&D investment into Brazil through federal tax incentives. The second formalized the legal structure that accelerated Brazil’s startup and scale-up layer.
Both laws helped build the companies that trained many of the senior engineers US teams hire in Brazil today.
Quick facts about Brazil
What it looks like once you hire
Monarch
Formerly TestBox · B2B SaaS · Series AHow Monarch built its engineering org in Brazil and saved $835K a year
After a major 2023 product pivot that required a complete engineering rebuild, Monarch needed senior engineers who could own core product systems without a Bay Area payroll budget. Job posts in Brazil brought volume, but not the experience and context the team needed.
LatamCent vetted every candidate through English testing, interviews and technical assessments before Monarch saw them, and built the engineering org around it:
- Engineering manager
- Senior software engineer
- Software engineer
- Core experience engineer
- Customer software engineers
- IT and compliance specialist
“We definitely noticed the difference in the level of the candidates that we get just organically from the candidates that we get from LatamCent.”
“I was blown away because LatamCent was able to find more than one qualified candidate who met all of it.”
Earlier chapter: how TestBox hired stronger engineers in Brazil.
Results as published in the client’s LatamCent case study. Savings are measured against the cost of equivalent US hires.
How LatamCent can help you hire in Brazil
Brazil is the deepest tech labor market in Latin America. It is also one of the most complex to hire into legally.
CLT contracts, FGTS deposits, 13th-salary obligations, and the unique PJ versus CLT classification debate are a lot to learn while you’re trying to close a senior engineer.
LatamCent handles the search and the compliance together. We recruit within the networks where senior Brazilian engineers, ML researchers, and GTM operators operate, then handle contract, payroll, and statutory filings under a contractor-on-record model. One USD invoice goes to you each month. The Brazilian compliance footprint stays with us.
The senior end of the Brazilian market moves fast. Nubank, Stone, iFood, and a steady stream of US remote-first companies are hiring from the same shortlist you are, which means slow processes lose candidates inside the first two weeks.
Working with a recruiter who already knows these candidates is often what gets an offer signed instead of leaving a role open for six months.
For US B2B SaaS teams, a Brazil engagement looks like this in practice:
How to hire in Brazil: FAQ
How do I hire in Brazil as a US company?
A US company can hire in Brazil through an Employer of Record, by contracting independent contractors (PJ), by setting up a local entity (usually an LTDA), or through a hiring partner that recruits the talent and handles contracts and payroll. For one to ten hires, an EOR or a hiring partner is usually faster and lower risk than an entity.
Do I need an Employer of Record to hire in Brazil?
No, but without an EOR or a hiring partner you need your own Brazilian entity to employ people under the CLT. An EOR legally employs workers on your behalf and manages CLT contracts, payroll, eSocial filings, INSS and FGTS contributions, benefits and severance.
Can I hire independent contractors (PJ) in Brazil?
Yes, for short, project-scoped work. CLT articles 2 and 3 presume an employment relationship when work is personal, non-occasional, paid and subordinated, and in April 2025 the STF suspended related lawsuits pending a final ruling. If a contractor is reclassified, FGTS, INSS, 13th salary, vacation and severance are owed retroactively from day one.
How much does it cost to employ someone in Brazil?
Employer on-costs add about 28% to 36% above gross salary, with a common benchmark near 35.3%, covering employer INSS, FGTS at 8.0% and work-accident insurance. The 13th salary and the one-third vacation bonus come on top. A 15,000 BRL monthly salary is about $2,941 at 5.10 BRL per USD, or roughly $3,979 a month with on-costs.
How long does it take to hire a developer in Brazil?
LatamCent averages 21 days from kickoff to signed offer. Senior offers in competitive back-end categories close in 7 to 14 days, while specialty roles such as distributed systems or cryptography engineers need a 4 to 8 week sourcing window.
Can I pay employees in Brazil in US dollars?
Contractors (PJ) and people hired through a hiring partner are commonly paid in USD. Employees on a Brazilian CLT payroll, through an EOR or your own entity, must be paid in reais through local payroll, though many employers set or index the salary in USD. Senior candidates who work with US teams often prefer USD-linked pay.
What is the 13th salary in Brazil?
The 13th salary is a mandatory extra month of pay for CLT employees, provisioned during the year and paid in December. It is also included proportionally in severance when an employee leaves.
What is the notice period and severance in Brazil?
Notice is 30 days for up to one year of service, plus 3 days per additional year, capped at 90 days under Law 12.506/2011. Termination without cause also triggers proportional vacation and 13th salary, full FGTS withdrawal and a 40% fine on the FGTS balance, due within 10 days.
Is Brazil a good time zone for US teams?
Yes. Brazil’s main hiring hubs run on UTC-3, which gives US Eastern teams seven to eight hours of daily overlap, enough for full sprint cycles, live code reviews and same-day unblocking.
Ready to hire in Brazil?
Contact us today and let’s start building your team in Brazil.
- 21 daysaverage from kickoff to signed offer
- 93%first-placement success rate
- 60 daysreplacement coverage on every hire
“We definitely noticed the difference in the level of the candidates that we get just organically from the candidates that we get from LatamCent.”
