Brazil Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

WHAT A PAYROLL ENGINE GETS WRONG IN BRAZIL 1. TWO CONSOLIDATED-TEXT TRAPS, BOTH SEVERE. (a) Lei 8.212/1991, art. 20 — the consolidated statute on planalto.gov.br still reads, verbatim: "Salário-de-contribuição / Alíquota em % — até 249,80 → 8,00; de 249,81 até 416,33 → 9,00; de 416,34 até 832,66 → 11,00", applied "de forma não cumulativa", i.e. one single rate on the whole salary. Every element of that is dead: the rates, the 1995 amounts and the method. The operative rule is EC 103/2019, art. 28: rates 7,5/9/12/14 applied progressively (§1º: "incidindo cada alíquota sobre a faixa de valores compreendida nos respectivos limites"). An engine reading art. 20 computes an 11% flat deduction instead of a banded one. OPERATIVE: EC 103/2019 art. 28 + Portaria MPS/MF 13/2026 art. 7º and Anexo II. (b) Lei 8.212/1991, art. 28 §5º states the ceiling as "Cr$ 170.000,00" — a 1991 cruzeiro figure superseded by index-linked annual uprating. OPERATIVE: R$ 8.475,55 for 2026. 2. A THIRD TRAP, IN THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF. EC 103/2019, art. 28 states its band boundaries as nominal 2019 amounts ("acima de 1 salário-mínimo até R$ 2.000,00 → 9%; de R$ 2.000,01 até R$ 3.000,00 → 12%; de R$ 3.000,01 até o limite do salário de contribuição → 14%"). Those are NOT the boundaries in force. §2º indexes them, and for 2026 they are R$ 2.902,84 and R$ 4.354,27. The rates come from EC 103; the boundaries come from the annual Portaria. Two instruments, one table — you need both. 3. PROGRESSIVE, NOT FLAT — AND CHANGED IN 2020. Since 1 March 2020 each rate applies only to the slice inside its band, like income tax. Pre-2020 Brazil applied a single rate to the whole salary, so legacy logic and older vendor documentation are wrong. On the 2026 table an employee on R$ 6.000,00 pays 1.621,00×7,5% + 1.281,84×9% + 1.451,43×12% + 1.645,73×14% = R$ 641,51, not 6.000×14% = R$ 840,00. 4. THE MAXIMUM DEDUCTION IS A DERIVED NUMBER AND ITS ROUNDING IS UNSETTLED. No authority — not the INSS table page, not the Portaria — publishes a maximum monthly employee contribution. Summing the four bands unrounded gives 121,575 + 115,3656 + 174,1716 + 576,9792 = 988,0914, so a single final rounding yields R$ 988,09 (11,66% of the ceiling) and, on the same convention, R$ 641,51 at a R$ 6.000,00 salary. Rounding each band to the centavo first instead yields R$ 988,10 and R$ 641,52. Both circulate in Brazilian practice (988,09 predominates) and no instrument prescribes either. This dataset uses single-final-rounding consistently. Whichever an engine adopts, it must adopt it for the cap AND the per-salary calculation — mixing them is how a dataset ends up serving 988,09 with a 641,52 worked example. 5. THE FLOOR IS NOT AN EXEMPTION THRESHOLD, AND THE CEILING IS NOT A REGISTRATION THRESHOLD. There is no tax-free allowance: the 7,5% band starts at R$ 0,01 and every insured employee contributes from the first real. R$ 1.621,00 is simultaneously (i) the national minimum wage (Decreto 12.797/2025, art. 1º) and (ii) the first band boundary — it is not an amount you subtract. Separately, Lei 8.212/1991, art. 28 §3º sets the MINIMUM salário-de-contribuição as "o piso salarial, legal ou normativo, da categoria ou, inexistindo este, ao salário mínimo" — where a collective agreement sets a higher category floor, THAT is the floor. This is a base-flooring rule, not an exemption. There is no opt-out and no registration threshold in the RGPS for CLT employees: coverage is compulsory from day one. 6. THE CEILING BINDS THE EMPLOYEE ONLY. The single most expensive error in Brazilian payroll. R$ 8.475,55 caps the employee deduction and nothing else. Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22 I reads "vinte por cento sobre o TOTAL das remunerações pagas, devidas ou creditadas a qualquer título, durante o mês" — no ceiling. Same for RAT (art. 22 II), all terceiros, and FGTS. An executive on R$ 60.000/month generates an employee deduction of R$ 988,09 and employer charges on the full R$ 60.000. Note this dataset therefore carries rate_employer null and employer_matched false on the employee row: the employer leg is a separate scheme, not a match. 7. THE 13TH SALARY IS A SEPARATE CONTRIBUTION EVENT WITH ITS OWN CEILING. Lei 8.212/1991, art. 28 §7º makes the gratificação natalina part of the salário-de-contribuição; Decreto 3.048/1999, art. 216 §1º requires that it be "calculada em separado" and remitted by 20 December. It does not merge into December's salary: it gets its own pass through the progressive table and its own application of the R$ 8.475,55 ceiling, so an employee at the ceiling pays the maximum twice in December. 8. RAT IS NOT A FIXED 1–3%. The 1/2/3% in Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22 II is only the starting point, multiplied by the FAP (Decreto 3.048/1999, art. 202-A; Lei 10.666/2003, art. 10), a per-CNPJ multiplier from 0,5000 to 2,0000 truncated at the fourth decimal. Effective 2026 RAT is anywhere in 0,5%–6,0%, is establishment-specific (art. 202 §3º — per establishment on its own preponderant activity, not once per company), is re-published every September for the following calendar year (Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 10/2025 governed the 2026 index), and must be pulled per employer from fap.dataprev.gov.br. The RFB's own FPAS table prints this column as "Variável". Hard-coding "2%" is wrong for almost everyone. Employees in qualifying hazardous conditions attract a further 12, 9 or 6 percentage points for 15-, 20- or 25-year aposentadoria especial (art. 202 §1º) applied ONLY to those individuals' remuneration (§2º). 9. TERCEIROS DEPEND ON THE FPAS CODE, NOT ON THE COUNTRY. IN RFB 2.110/2022 art. 85 sets the two-step rule: Anexo II assigns the FPAS code from the activity, Anexo III gives the rates for that code. The familiar 5,8% holds for industry (507), commerce (515) and transport (612) only — 2,5 salário-educação plus 3,3 of Sistema S. Other codes are materially different: 2,5 (590, 620, 655), 2,7 (523, 736 — the financial-sector code, which also carries 22,5% not 20% on the Previdência column), 4,5 (566, 574), 5,2 (531, 540, 558, 680), and nothing at all (582). Simples Nacional optants owe no terceiros (LC 123/2006 art. 13 §3º) and pay CPP inside the DAS (art. 13 VI) unless they fall under art. 18 §5º-C. Do not apply a flat 5,8% without the employer's FPAS. 10. FGTS IS NOT SOCIAL INSURANCE BUT IS MANDATORY. 8% of remuneration, employer-only, deposited to the worker's own account by the 20th day of the following month (Lei 8.036/1990, art. 15 caput, redação dada pela Lei nº 14.438, de 2022). Not deducted from the employee, uncapped, includes the 13th. Apprentices 2% (art. 15 §7º); 40% penalty on the accumulated balance on dismissal without cause (art. 18 §1º) is a termination cost, not a monthly charge. The extra 10% LC 110/2001 contribution was EXTINGUISHED from 1 January 2020 by Lei 13.932/2019, art. 12 — do not accrue it. 11. DEDUCTIBILITY. The employee INSS contribution IS deducted from the base before IRRF — Lei 9.250/1995, art. 4º, IV for monthly withholding and art. 8º, II, "d" for the annual return. FGTS is not an employee deduction so the question does not arise; employer contributions are deductible business expenses for IRPJ/CSLL. 12. LIABILITY DOES NOT DEPEND ON NATIONALITY. Brazil covers every employee under a CLT contract regardless of nationality or residence. The only relief is a certificate of coverage under a totalization agreement (including the Ibero-American Convention and agreements with Germany, the US, Japan, Portugal, Italy and the Mercosur states), which exempts a posted worker for a limited period. Liability DOES depend on employee category: this dataset is the ordinary private-sector CLT employee. Domestic workers run a different regime under LC 150/2015 (employer 8% + 0,8% GILRAT + 8% FGTS + 3,2% severance advance via eSocial/DAE). Contribuintes individuais and pró-labore takers do not use the progressive table: per the INSS's own current table the 20% contribution runs between R$ 324,20 (on the minimum wage) and R$ 1.695,11 (on the teto); the 11% Plano Simplificado gives R$ 178,31 on the minimum wage, and the 11% retention a contracting company makes on a CI's invoice is capped at R$ 932,31 (11% of the teto) — that cap is NOT a maximum CI contribution. MEI pays 5% of the minimum wage (R$ 81,05). Rural, cooperative and Simples employers each differ again. 13. DESONERAÇÃO DA FOLHA IS STILL LIVE IN 2026. Under Lei 12.546/2011 art. 9º-A as inserted by Lei 14.973/2024 art. 1º, a company in an eligible sector that opts for the CPRB pays, from 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2026, 60% of the CPRB rates on gross revenue PLUS 50% of the rates in Lei 8.212/1991 art. 22 incisos I and III — i.e. 10% patronal instead of 20%. The substitution reaches only art. 22 I and III: RAT, terceiros and FGTS remain due in full. Verify whether the employer has opted before applying 20%. 14. THINGS THAT ARE NOT PAYROLL CHARGES AND SHOULD NOT BE ADDED. Unemployment benefit (seguro-desemprego) is funded from PIS/PASEP, which for ordinary private companies is levied on faturamento, not payroll (Lei 9.715/1998, art. 2º, I) — only non-profits pay PIS at 1% on payroll. The contribuição sindical ceased to be compulsory with Lei 13.467/2017 and requires express individual authorisation. Financial institutions and insurers do owe an extra 2,5% on the art. 22 I base (Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22 §1º). 15. ADJACENT BUT OUT OF SCOPE — RURAL. IN RFB nº 2.321/2026 (which is also the instrument that re-issued the terceiros table) raised the Funrural patronal rate on gross rural commercialisation revenue from 1,7% to 1,87% and its GILRAT substitute from 0,1% to 0,11%, both from 1 April 2026, under LC nº 224, de 26/12/2025. That is a revenue-based rural substitution, not a payroll charge, and is not modelled in these schemes. 16. INDICATIVE TOTALS. Employee: R$ 0 to R$ 988,09 per month, effective 7,5% rising to 11,66% at the ceiling. Employer, typical industrial/commercial company at FAP 1,0000: 20% + 1–3% RAT + 5,8% terceiros = 26,8%–28,8% of uncapped gross, plus 8% FGTS, giving roughly 34,8%–36,8% before vacation/13th provisioning. At the FAP extremes the social-insurance leg spans 26,3%–31,8%. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: None. All schemes here are federal and uniform across all 26 states and the Distrito Federal — Brazil has no state or municipal payroll social-insurance contribution for private-sector employers. The two sources of employer-rate variation are NOT geographic: RAT/SAT varies by the establishment's preponderant CNAE activity (Decreto 3.048/1999, Anexo V; replicated at IN RFB 2.110/2022, Anexo I), and FAP varies per CNPJ establishment by its own accident experience. A company with establishments in different states may therefore pay different RAT rates, but that is driven by activity and experience, not by the state. Terceiros likewise vary by FPAS code (activity), not by location. The only municipality-linked rate in the statute is Lei 8.212/1991 art. 22 §17, and it is narrow: it applies solely to municipalities "enquadrados nos coeficientes inferiores a 4,0 (quatro inteiros) da tabela de faixas de habitantes do § 2º do art. 91 da Lei nº 5.172, de 25 de outubro de 1966" — small municipalities in their capacity as employers of their own staff, subject to the fiscal-regularity condition in §18 — at 16% in 2026 and 20% from 1 January 2027. It is not a rate that varies by where a private employer operates. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: 1) RAT/SAT effective rate (rate_employer null): there is no single national rate, and the administering authority says so itself — IN RFB 2.110/2022 Anexo III prints this column as "Variável". The statutory rate is 1%, 2% or 3% by the establishment's preponderant CNAE (Lei 8.212/1991, art. 22 II; Decreto 3.048/1999, art. 202 and Anexo V), then multiplied by the FAP, a per-CNPJ multiplier in the continuous range 0,5000–2,0000 truncated at the fourth decimal (Decreto 3.048/1999, art. 202-A §1º; Lei 10.666/2003, art. 10). The 2026 FAP was published per establishment on 30/09/2025 and is retrievable only by the company itself, behind gov.br login, at fap.dataprev.gov.br. The effective 2026 RAT for any given employer is any value in 0,5%–6,0% and cannot be stated nationally. 2) Terceiros other than salário-educação (rate_employer null): the set of entities and their percentages depends on the employer's FPAS code. This is a refusal of a single national NUMBER, not of the data — the full per-code table is now verified and reproduced in the scheme notes from IN RFB 2.110/2022 Anexo III (redação dada pela IN RFB 2.321/2026), including the 5,8% total for FPAS 507/515/612 and the materially different totals for the other codes. Serve the code-specific figure once the employer's FPAS is known. 3) The aposentadoria especial surcharge is not expressed as an employer-wide rate: it is 6, 9 or 12 percentage points added to RAT but applies only to the remuneration of the specific employees exposed to qualifying conditions (Decreto 3.048/1999, art. 202 §2º). 4) No single number is given for total employer burden — see notes §16 for the range and why the endpoints move. 5) The maximum monthly employee deduction is served as a DERIVED figure, not an authority-published one: no official source publishes it, and the rounding convention that fixes its last centavo is not prescribed by any instrument (see notes §4). ALREADY LEGISLATED, NOT YET IN FORCE: 1) ANNUAL UPRATING. The band boundaries and the teto are re-fixed every January by a new Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF, indexed to the INPC-based RGPS benefit adjustment (EC 103/2019, art. 28 §2º; Lei 8.212/1991, art. 28 §5º). The 2026 set took effect 2026-01-01 via Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 13/2026 (3,90% adjustment; that Portaria's art. 13 revoked its 2025 predecessor, Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 6, de 10 de janeiro de 2025). Re-verify from early January 2027. The minimum wage — simultaneously the first band boundary and the SC floor — is re-fixed by decree each December (Decreto 12.797/2025 for 2026). 2) SALÁRIO-PATERNIDADE ENTERS THE CONTRIBUTION BASE ON 1 JANUARY 2027. Lei nº 15.371, de 31 de março de 2026 (DOU 1º.4.2026) institutes the salário-paternidade and, by art. 7º, amends Lei 8.212/1991 art. 28 §9º "a" so that the exclusion of Previdência Social benefits from the salário-de-contribuição reads "salvo o salário-maternidade e o salário-paternidade" — putting salário-paternidade inside the base. Art. 14 provides that the Law "entra em vigor no dia 1º de janeiro de 2027", so nothing changes during 2026; the consolidated Lei 8.212 on planalto currently carries only a "Vide Lei nº 15.371, de 2026 — Vigência" marker. Art. 11 phases the combined licença-paternidade/salário-paternidade at 10 days from 1 Jan 2027, 15 days from 1 Jan 2028 and 20 days from 1 Jan 2029, the 2029 step conditional on the LDO fiscal target being met (§§1º–2º); art. 12 adds one third where the child has a disability. Because Lei 8.036/1990 art. 15 §6º defines the FGTS base by reference to Lei 8.212 art. 28 §9º, the same change reaches FGTS from 2027. 3) FAP. A new FAP index with effect for 2027 will be published around 30 September 2026 with a November contestation window, per the pattern set by Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 10/2025 for the 2026 index. Employer RAT rates therefore change every 1 January even when the statutory 1/2/3% does not. 4) DESONERAÇÃO DA FOLHA WIND-DOWN, already legislated (Lei 12.546/2011 art. 9º-A, inserted by Lei 14.973/2024 art. 1º): firms in the eligible sectors that opt for CPRB pay, from 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2027, 40% of the CPRB rates plus 75% of the Lei 8.212/1991 art. 22 I and III rates (i.e. 15% patronal); from 1 January 2028 the substitution ends entirely and the full 20% applies. 5) SMALL-MUNICIPALITY CPP LADDER. Lei 8.212/1991 art. 22 §17 IV takes the rate for sub-4,0-coefficient municipalities from 16% in 2026 to 20% from 1 January 2027. Irrelevant to private employers but part of the same article. 6) NO LEGISLATED CHANGE to the 7,5/9/12/14 employee rates themselves — EC 103/2019 art. 28 fixes them "até que lei altere as alíquotas", so an ordinary law could change them at any time. SOURCING CAVEATS: Every rate, band boundary, ceiling and floor in this record was read in the instrument itself or in the administering authority's own current table, so confidence is primary. Two things are not authority-published and are labelled as such in the data: (a) the maximum monthly employee deduction (R$ 988,09) is derived arithmetic, and its final centavo depends on a rounding convention no instrument prescribes — see notes §4; (b) the "typical employer burden" ranges in notes §16 are arithmetic on verified components, not a published figure. The RAT and terceiros rate_employer nulls are the correct answer for a national dataset, not gaps: RAT is per-CNPJ and behind an authenticated portal, and terceiros is per-FPAS — though the full FPAS table is now verified and reproduced so a caller who knows the employer's code can be served exactly. The Portaria Interministerial MPS/MF nº 13/2026 PDF published by the Ministério da Previdência Social is a vector-outlined DOU scan with no text layer; its articles were read visually from the rendered page, not extracted as text. Researched against primary instruments and then attacked by an independent adversarial verification pass before being served (2026-08-08). Where that pass found a defect, the correction it proved from the instrument has been applied. Employee and employer shares are stated separately: the employee figure is what leaves the payslip, the employer figure is cost of employment and is not a deduction.

Get it programmatically

curl https://latamref.dev/v1/br/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://latamref.dev/v1/br/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/br/social-contributions

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The same figure elsewhere: Chile · Colombia · Costa Rica · Dominican Republic · Ecuador · all 22