Working Hours in Brazil: The CLT and the Electronic Time Clock

Brazil is one of the few countries where the law does not merely permit a time clock, it specifies one. The Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (CLT) requires employers above a headcount threshold to record working hours, and a 2021 ministerial ordinance sets out exactly what a compliant recorder looks like, including a fully software-based option.

That combination makes Brazil unusually consequential for anyone choosing a time tracking tool. Get it right and your records are evidence. Get it wrong and, under settled labor-court doctrine, the employee's version of their hours is presumed true.

#Quick Reference

#The Core Rules

#44 Hours, Falling to 40

The constitutional standard has been 8 hours a day and 44 hours a week, and the 44 hours still apply until mid-December 2026. Constitutional Amendment 141, promulgated on 16 October 2026 to end the 6x1 schedule (six working days, one day off), cuts the weekly limit in two steps: 42 hours from two months after publication (mid-December 2026) and 40 hours a year after that (mid-December 2027), with no reduction in pay. Until the first step, a common pattern is 8 hours Monday to Friday plus 4 hours on Saturday, or the extra four hours spread across the week to give staff their Saturdays.

Anything above the contractual normal time is hora extra. The constitutional floor is 50 percent above the ordinary hourly rate, and collective agreements may set a higher rate. Work on Sundays and public holidays that is not compensated with another day off is paid double (Lei 605/1949, art. 9, and TST Súmula 146).

#The Two-Hour Overtime Ceiling

Article 59 caps overtime at two hours per day. This is a limit on the working day itself, not just on what is payable: a 12-hour day is not made lawful by paying for it.

#The Banco de Horas

Instead of paying overtime, an employer may bank the hours and give time off later. Article 59 allows this through:

• an individual written agreement, where the hours must be compensated within six months, or
• a collective agreement, where the window extends to twelve months.

The banked hours must be compensated hour for hour within the window. If they are not, they revert to payable overtime at the premium rate, which is the usual way a poorly tracked banco de horas becomes a liability.

#Rest Periods

• Between shifts (art. 66): 11 consecutive hours. Split shifts and late finishes followed by early starts can easily breach it.
• Weekly (art. 67): 24 consecutive hours, preferably on Sunday. From mid-December 2026, Constitutional Amendment 141 raises this to two days of paid weekly rest, one of them preferably a Sunday (Constitution art. 7, XV); a collective agreement may average the two days over the calendar month, as long as at least one rest day falls within every week of work.
• Within the day (art. 71): a meal and rest interval of at least 1 hour and, unless a written or collective agreement allows more, at most 2 hours where the shift exceeds 6 hours, and 15 minutes where the shift runs 4 to 6 hours. Collective bargaining may reduce the longer interval, but not below 30 minutes.

Since the 2017 reform, failing to grant the full intra-shift interval means paying only the suppressed portion, at a 50 percent premium, and that payment is indemnity in nature rather than salary.

#Annual Leave

Thirty calendar days per twelve-month period (fewer if the employee had more than five unjustified absences, art. 130), plus the constitutional bonus of one third of salary. Since 2017 leave can be split, with the employee's agreement, into up to three periods, one of which must be at least 14 days and none shorter than 5 days.

#Time Recording: Who Must, and How

#The Threshold

Article 74, paragraph 2 requires time records where the establishment has more than 20 employees. The threshold used to be 10; it was raised to 20 in September 2019. The statute counts per establishment, but in May 2026 a TST panel counted the employer's whole workforce rather than the single branch (Seventh Panel, RR-604-85.2018.5.21.0012).

Below the threshold, recording is not mandatory. Above it, it is, and the record must show actual times, not a pre-printed schedule everyone signs. The break may be pre-recorded rather than punched, and a written individual agreement or a collective agreement may allow recording only the exceptions to the regular schedule (ponto por exceção, art. 74, para. 4).

#Portaria 671/2021

Portaria 671/2021 consolidated the earlier ordinances 1.510/2009 and 373/2011 into a single instrument, and it recognizes three kinds of electronic recorder:

The REP-P is the route for software. A software time clock, including one where staff punch in through a phone app, is a first-class compliant option and does not need union sign-off, provided it meets the technical conditions, which include registration of the program with the INPI, generation of the Arquivo Fonte de Dados (AFD) with a digital signature, a receipt to the worker for each punch, and the developer's Atestado Técnico e Termo de Responsabilidade.

An electronic receipt must be a signed PDF, available to the worker after every punch without having to ask, and the employer must let the worker download the receipts for at least the last 48 hours (art. 80).

One thing to be clear about, since the distinction is easy to blur: a general time tracking tool is not automatically a REP-P. Timesheet records working time, breaks, and overtime and exports those records, which serves internal control, project costing, and anyone outside the REP requirement. An establishment above the 20-employee threshold that records hours electronically needs a system that meets the Portaria's technical conditions, and should confirm that with the vendor rather than assume it.

#The Five-Minute Tolerance

Article 58, paragraph 1 tolerates variation of up to 5 minutes per marking, capped at 10 minutes a day: within those limits, the minutes are neither deducted nor counted as overtime. TST Súmula 366 added that once the limit is crossed, the whole period counts as overtime, not merely the excess, but the TST cancelled that Súmula in June 2025 (Resolução 225/2025) as superseded by the 2017 reform.

This is the detail that punishes rounding. The tolerance is measured against the actual punch times, so a system that quietly rounds every punch to the nearest quarter hour hides exactly the minutes the rule is about.

#Who Falls Outside the Working-Time Chapter

Article 62 excludes three groups from the chapter on working hours, and therefore from overtime:

• external staff whose hours genuinely cannot be controlled
• managers with real autonomy and a salary premium
• remote workers paid by production or task rather than by time

The third category came from the 2017 reform and was refined in 2022. It is narrower than employers often assume: a remote worker on a fixed monthly salary who is expected to be available during business hours is not paid by task, and remains inside the chapter.

Constitutional Amendment 141/2026 adds a further group from its publication on 16 October 2026: employees with a university degree who earn at least two and a half times the ceiling of general social security benefits fall outside the rules on working time and time control, unless the employer opts in or a collective agreement provides otherwise. Their weekly rest remains protected.

#Why the Records Decide the Case

This is the part that makes Brazilian time tracking different from a filing obligation.

Under Súmula 338 of the Tribunal Superior do Trabalho, an employer who is required to keep time records and, without justification, does not produce them creates a relative presumption that the hours claimed by the employee are true. The employer can rebut it with other evidence, but the burden has moved. Item III of the same Súmula goes further: punch cards showing uniform entry and exit times are invalid as evidence, and the burden of proof on overtime shifts to the employer.

The Súmula's own text still refers to the old 10-employee threshold, since it predates the 2019 amendment; TST decisions apply the 20-employee rule to periods from 20 September 2019, when Lei 13.874/2019 took effect.

The practical consequence: in a country with a high volume of individual labor claims, your time records are not compliance paperwork. They are the defence file. Records that are complete, contemporaneous, and per-day are worth considerably more than a reconstruction produced after a claim lands.

#Inspection and Penalties

Enforcement runs on two tracks.

Administrative. The Auditor-Fiscal do Trabalho, under the Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego, inspects and issues infraction notices. Fines for breaches of the working-time chapter are set per infraction, graded by the nature, extent and intent of the breach, and doubled for repeat offences or obstruction of the inspection (CLT art. 75).

Judicial. The Justiça do Trabalho hears individual claims. This is where the larger exposure usually sits, because unpaid overtime carries knock-on effects: it feeds the FGTS deposit, the 13th salary, holiday pay, and the associated social contributions, so a successful overtime claim is rarely just the overtime.

#Practical Compliance Checklist

1. Count your headcount per establishment and company-wide. Above 20 employees, recording is mandatory, and the 2026 TST ruling counted the whole company rather than the branch.
2. Pick a recorder type deliberately. REP-P if you want software with no union agreement; REP-A only if you have the collective agreement to support it.
3. Record real times. Identical daily punches undermine the record's credibility more than an untidy one does.
4. Watch the 11-hour rest when rostering late finishes against early starts.
5. Reconcile the banco de horas monthly and clear balances inside six or twelve months, depending on the instrument.
6. Keep records retrievable per employee, per day. That is the form a labor court will ask for.

#Common Questions

Is a phone app a legal time clock in Brazil? Only as part of a compliant system, usually a REP-P under Portaria 671/2021: a program registered with the INPI that generates the AFD with a digital signature, gives the worker a receipt for each punch, and comes with the developer's Atestado Técnico e Termo de Responsabilidade. A general time tracking app, a notes app, or a spreadsheet does not qualify simply by recording hours. Ask the vendor directly whether their product is a REP-P.

Do we need a union agreement to use software? Not for a REP-P. The collective agreement requirement attaches to the REP-A, the alternative system. This is the main practical advantage of the REP-P route.

What if we have 20 employees or fewer? Recording is not mandatory. Many smaller employers still record, precisely because of Súmula 338: without records you have less with which to rebut a claim, even where you had no duty to create them.

Are remote workers exempt from overtime? Only where they are genuinely paid by production or task under article 62. A remote employee on a fixed salary with expected availability is inside the working-time chapter, so time tracking for remote employees applies as it would on site.

How long do we keep the records? The CLT sets no specific retention period for time records. Keep them for at least five years: a claim can be filed up to two years after the employment ends and reaches back five years from the date it is filed (Constitution art. 7, XXIX, and CLT art. 11).

#Summary

• The normal limit is 8 hours a day and 44 hours a week, falling to 42 in mid-December 2026 and 40 in mid-December 2027 (EC 141/2026), with overtime at 50 percent or more
• Overtime is capped at 2 hours a day; the banco de horas defers payment but not the obligation
• 11 consecutive hours between shifts, 24 hours weekly rest (two days from mid-December 2026), and a 1 to 2 hour meal interval above 6 hours
• Time recording is mandatory above 20 employees per establishment under CLT art. 74
• Portaria 671/2021 recognizes software recorders (REP-P) without a collective agreement
• Under Súmula 338 TST, missing records shift the presumption to the employee's account of their hours

#Sources

• Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (Decreto-Lei 5.452/1943) on planalto.gov.br
• Constituição Federal, art. 7
• Emenda Constitucional 141/2026 (40-hour week, two rest days)
• Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego: Perguntas e Respostas, Portaria 671/2021
• Súmula 338, Tribunal Superior do Trabalho
• TST Resolução 225/2025 (cancellation of Súmula 366)
• Lei 13.467/2017 (labour reform) and Lei 13.874/2019 (threshold raised to 20 employees)

#Where to Go Next

• Spain's time tracking law: Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 for the other jurisdiction that made daily records unambiguous
• The ECJ CCOO ruling: why time tracking is mandatory for the European parallel to Súmula 338's evidential logic
• FLSA overtime in the USA for the closest large-economy comparison in the Americas