Brazilian labor law is written for the employee and enforced in a court system built to hear them. The real cost to a foreign employer often isn't the wages — it's the back-pay claim filed two years after someone leaves. We close that gap before it opens.
Brazil's labor code — the Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (CLT) — treats a working relationship as employment once the legal elements are present, and the burden of showing otherwise falls on the employer. A registered CLT employee carries a long list of mandatory entitlements: the 13th-month salary, the one-third holiday bonus, FGTS deposits (8% of pay into a federal severance fund every month), paid vacation, and notice rules that don't bend to a handshake. Every hire is also reported through eSocial, the unified federal system that ties payroll, FGTS, and social-security contributions together — and that leaves a permanent record of what you did and didn't pay.
The trap foreigners fall into is the one that feels safest: paying someone "as a contractor" or "off the books" to stay flexible. Brazilian labor courts (Justiça do Trabalho) look past the label to the facts. If the person works set hours, takes your direction, can't send a substitute, and depends on you for income, a judge can find an employment relationship (vínculo empregatício) regardless of any contract you signed — and then award the CLT entitlements that were missed, plus FGTS, fines, and corrected interest. The worker generally has two years after the relationship ends to file, and can reach back five years from the filing date for unpaid amounts. The same logic catches the household: a cleaner or nanny who comes the same days each week is an empregada doméstica with her own protective statute (Lei Complementar 150/2015), not a casual helper.
We build the relationship so the facts match the structure you intend. If it's genuinely contract work, we paper it to survive scrutiny — defined deliverables, real autonomy, the right tax treatment — and tell you honestly when it won't hold. If it's employment, we register it correctly through eSocial, set up the FGTS and payroll obligations, and document the file from day one. When a relationship ends, we run the termination by the book — the right notice, the rescisão (final settlement) calculated correctly, payment within the legal deadline, and the FGTS release — because a termination done wrong is, in our experience, one of the most common ways a foreign employer ends up in front of a labor judge.
Every price is itemized like an honest receipt — our flat fee, plus each government, registry and translation charge, estimated high so the number only ever moves down. Add a package to your cart and pay online, or request a quote for anything bespoke. Only value-based taxes are billed at cost; the final fee is confirmed in your engagement letter.
An audit of how you pay people now and where a labor court could find hidden vínculo — with the fixes prioritized.
eSocial registration, the employment contract, and the FGTS and payroll obligations set up to protect you from day one.
Registering an empregada doméstica under LC 150/2015 — eSocial Doméstico, FGTS regime, and the contract that fits the law.
Defending a reclamação trabalhista in the Justiça do Trabalho. Scope and fee set in writing after we review the claim.
All-in estimates for English-speaking service to foreigners, with every fee we can foresee rounded up. Two cases with the same label can differ in scope — your engagement letter sets the final, written fee, and lines marked “at cost” (value-based taxes like ITBI and ITCMD) are passed through with receipts. Contested or litigated matters are quoted individually, never sold off a price list.
We look at every working relationship you have and map where the CLT, eSocial, or the doméstica statute is being missed — before a former worker maps it for you.
Each role placed in the right legal box: registered employee, lawful contractor, or domestic worker, with the contract and registrations to match.
eSocial enrollment, FGTS and payroll routine, and the recurring filings — built with your accountant or ours.
When someone leaves, we calculate the rescisão, pay it within the legal deadline, handle the FGTS release, and document it so it's hard to reopen.
Add a package above to start online, or describe your situation and a lawyer replies within one business day — no obligation, no hourly meter.