Brazil ends six-day workweek; companies have until December to cut to 42 hours

Brazil's National Congress on Friday (Oct. 16) enacted Constitutional Amendment 141, which ends the so-called 6x1 schedule — six workdays followed by one day off — and lowers the maximum workweek from 44 to 40 hours with no pay cut. Published the same day in a special edition of the Federal Official Gazette, the text gives companies two months to adopt an interim cap of 42 hours and two paid rest days per week. The 40-hour limit takes effect one year later, in December 2027.

The amendment stems from PEC 221/2019, a proposed constitutional amendment by Deputy Reginaldo Lopes (PT-MG), which was processed together with PEC 8/2025 by Deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP). The lower house approved it in May, and Brazil's Senate confirmed it on Wednesday (Oct. 14) in two rounds, by 75 votes to 1 in each; the only vote against came from Senator Hamilton Mourão (Republicanos-RS). Because Senate rapporteur Omar Aziz (PSD-AM) kept the lower house's text, the proposal went straight to promulgation, a step that does not require presidential approval.

It is the first cut to the constitutional limit on working hours since 1988, when the Constitution lowered the cap from 48 to 44 hours a week. According to the Ministry of Labor and Employment, cited by Agência Senado, about 14.9 million of the 44.7 million workers with identified hours work the 6x1 schedule, and 38.6 million work more than 40 hours a week. Retail, services, manufacturing and logistics account for most of the affected jobs.

What changes for companies

The new wording of Article 7 of the Constitution sets regular working hours at up to 8 a day and 40 a week and guarantees two paid rest days per week, one of them preferably on Sunday. The rule applies to existing contracts and prohibits any pay cut, including to minimum wage floors set for each profession. Companies already operating at 40 hours or less do not need to reduce hours, but they must also guarantee the two weekly days off.

Collective agreements — rules negotiated between unions and employers — gain weight during the transition. Clauses that conflict with the amendment stop applying two months after publication. During the 42-hour phase, collective bargaining may lengthen the workday to spread the weekly load. As an exception, it may also create compensation schemes that guarantee, on a monthly average, two rest days per week, with at least one day off in every workweek. Labor lawyers interviewed by legal news site Migalhas point to another effect: the divisor used to calculate the hourly wage falls from 220 to 210 and, at the end of the transition, to 200, making a regular hour — and therefore overtime — about 10% more expensive.

The text addresses three specific situations. Employees with a university degree earning at least two and a half times the ceiling of INSS, Brazil's social security system (R$21,188.87, according to SBT News), are exempt from the rules on working hours and time tracking unless a collective agreement says otherwise, but they keep the two days off. Government contracts that directly employ workers will have up to one year for rebalancing amendments. For MEIs (individual microentrepreneurs), microenterprises and small businesses, a complementary law may create transitional measures conditioned on preserving jobs; that law does not yet exist.

Business groups project a significant impact. CNI estimates additional costs of up to R$267.2 billion, an average 6.2% rise in consumer prices and a 0.7% drop in GDP. Abrasel, which represents bars and restaurants, calculates the sector would need 3 million more workers to maintain current service levels. Supporters argue the 44-hour limit no longer fits a labor market transformed by technology; Senator Vanderlan Cardoso (PSD-GO), a businessman, said he had abolished the 6x1 schedule at his companies and reported higher productivity. At the enactment session, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that “nobody wants a company to go bankrupt, but nobody wants a worker to die from lack of rest either.”

“It is not advisable to treat the change as a simple schedule swap.”

— Tatiana Sant'Anna, labor lawyer, to Migalhas (translated from Portuguese)

What to watch next

• Mid-December 2026: the 42-hour cap and two rest days take effect; conflicting collective-agreement clauses lose effect.
• December 2027: the cap falls to 40 hours a week.
• By October 2027: deadline for amendments to government contracts that directly employ workers.
• Next two months: companies and unions need to review schedules, hour banks and compensation schemes.
• Congress: business groups are calling for more flexible transition rules, and the complementary law for small businesses has yet to be proposed.