Brazil 13th Salary Checklist:
What HR Needs Before November 30

Why Two Installments Create One Data Problem

The 13th salary is a constitutional right in Brazil — Article 7, Section VIII of the 1988 Constitution, together with Lei 4.090/1962, mandates that every formal worker receives an additional month of pay each year — but the mechanism for delivering it splits the obligation into two installments that pull from different data sources at different times.

The law demands two separate calculations built from the same 12-month dataset. The first installment — 50% of the employee's November salary, due by November 30 — carries no deductions. The second installment — the remaining 50% minus INSS and IRRF on the full amount — is due December 20. In between, HR must have verified that every employee's gross salary, months-worked count, and variable compensation history (overtime, commissions, night-shift differentials) are correct, because the second-installment tax calculation uses those numbers as its base — and the FGTS deposit on the first installment has already been filed.

The data problem isn't the math. The formula — 1/12 of December salary × months worked, where any month with ≥15 days of service counts as a full 1/12 — is simple enough to teach in a five-minute briefing. The data problem is that the inputs for that formula are scattered across PDFs generated by payroll systems (TOTVS, ADP Brazil, Senior Sistemas, SAP SuccessFactors) that don't talk to each other across months. An employee hired in March who received a raise in July and earned variable commissions in four different months has their 13th salary inputs distributed across 10 separate holerites, each with a potentially different layout depending on which deduction categories were active that month.

For HR teams that already handle monthly payroll, the 13th salary doesn't add a new calculation skill. It adds a data-gathering task — one that must be completed between the November 30 and December 20 deadlines while normal month-end payroll runs in parallel. The checklist below works backward from the deadlines, covering what data you need at each stage, where to find it, and what happens when a number doesn't match.

November Countdown: Gather 12 Months of Payslips Per Employee

The first deadline — November 30 — doesn't just demand a 50% advance payment. It demands that you've already gathered and verified the full-year dataset that will determine the December 20 final amount, because the two installments share the same base calculation.

Here is what needs to be in your spreadsheet for each employee before the first installment is calculated:

• Gross salary for December. This is the base amount for the full 13th calculation per Lei 4.090/1962. If the employee's salary changed during the year — for example, a promotion in July — the December salary determines the final value.
• Exact months worked. Count every month where the employee worked ≥15 days. A January 14 hire gets 11/12; a January 15 hire gets the full 12/12. This is where HR data from the hiring system (not the payroll software) is the authoritative source — the payroll system only reflects months where a payslip was generated, which may not capture an employee's exact start date.
• Variable compensation averages: January–October. For employees with commissions, overtime (horas extras), night-shift premiums (adicional noturno), or hazardous-duty pay (periculosidade), the first installment must use the average of these variable amounts from January through October. The payroll system generates these averages, but verifying them means comparing the system's number against the actual payslip line items — and when the payslips are PDFs, that comparison is a manual document-by-document exercise.
• INSS and IRRF amounts from every month of the current year. This isn't needed for the first installment calculation itself. It's needed because the second-installment tax calculation runs independently from the monthly payroll — the INSS and IRRF on the 13th salary are calculated on the 13th amount alone, not added to the December monthly salary. But verifying that your payroll software applied the correct INSS bracket to each monthly payslip is a prerequisite for trusting that it will apply the correct bracket to the 13th calculation. If your software misclassified an employee's INSS bracket in June, it will misclassify the 13th in December — and you won't catch it unless you've already verified the monthly data.

Most payroll software — TOTVS RM, ADP eXpert, Senior Sistemas — generates these numbers internally. The challenge isn't that the data doesn't exist. It's that the data exists inside PDFs that need to be checked against the software's aggregate outputs. And the only way to check 500 payslips against a payroll summary is to have both datasets in the same format.

This is where Custom Column Extraction changes the workflow. Instead of manually reading each payslip PDF and copying field values into a spreadsheet, you define the column names you need — "Gross Salary (Salário Bruto)", "INSS Contribution", "IRRF Withheld", "Reference Month (Mês de Referência)" — and the AI locates each value on every payslip by understanding what the label means, not by matching a fixed screen position. Upload all 12 months of holerites per employee at once, define the columns once, and the output is a spreadsheet where every row is a month and every column is a field — directly comparable to the payroll software's aggregate report.

First Installment Due November 30: Get the 50% Calculation Right

The first installment appears straightforward — 50% of the November salary, no deductions — but the FGTS deposit on this installment creates a compliance trail that the second installment must match, and getting the months-worked count wrong here cascades into the December 20 calculation.

The first installment calculation is deceptively simple: 50% of the gross salary due in November, paid without any INSS or IRRF withholding. If the employee receives the installment as a lump-sum advance (adesiantamento), the formula changes to 50% of (months worked / 12 × December salary) — but the practical majority of employers use the 50%-of-November-salary approach, which carries less calculation risk and aligns with most payroll software defaults.

What makes the first installment operationally significant isn't the calculation — it's the FGTS requirement. The employer must deposit 8% FGTS on the first installment amount, reported to Caixa Econômica Federal. This FGTS deposit creates the first half of the 13th salary's compliance footprint. If the first-installment amount is wrong, the FGTS deposit is wrong — and correcting an FGTS deposit after the fact requires a rectification filing with Caixa that is neither fast nor automated in most payroll systems.

Three checks to complete before submitting the first installment:

1. Verify every employee's months-worked count. An employee hired February 10, 2026 should show 10/12 (10 months). The ≥15-day rule means both January 1 and January 16 hires get different counts for the same document — the hiring date, not the first payslip date, is the source of truth.
2. Confirm the November gross salary is the correct base. If an employee received a raise effective November 1, the November salary — not the October salary — is the 13th salary base. Payroll software handles this automatically, but if your organization processes salary changes through HR first and payroll second, a November raise that wasn't entered in the payroll system until December will produce an incorrect first installment.
3. Check that variable compensation averages through October are included. Employees who earn commissions or overtime should have these averages added to their base before the 50% split. The payroll software calculates the average, but verifying it means comparing the software's number against the individual payslip line items from January through October.

The first installment is paid. The FGTS is deposited. Now you have 20 days to calculate the second installment — and this is where the tax complexities that the first installment deferred come due.

Second Installment Due December 20: Where INSS and IRRF Go Wrong

The second installment carries every deduction the first installment deferred — INSS, IRRF, and the second FGTS deposit — all calculated on the full 13th salary amount, not on the remaining 50%. This means the second installment is always smaller than the first, and the most common payroll error is applying the deductions to the wrong base.

Here is the correct formula, and the three places where payroll departments most often deviate from it:

Step 1: Calculate the full 13th salary. This is (months worked / 12) × December gross salary, inclusive of variable compensation averages for January–December. For an employee earning R$4,500 who worked all 12 months: R$4,500. For an employee earning R$4,500 who worked 8 months: R$3,000.

Step 2: Apply INSS to the full amount. The INSS on the 13th salary uses the same progressive table as monthly payroll but is calculated independently — the 13th amount is not added to December's monthly salary for bracket determination. For 2026, the INSS brackets under the updated minimum wage of R$1,621.00 and the INSS ceiling (teto) of R$8,475.55 are:

Step 3: Apply IRRF to the full amount. Starting January 2026, the most significant change to Brazilian payroll tax comes from Lei 15.270/2025: workers earning up to R$5,000 per month are fully exempt from IRRF, including on the 13th salary. For the majority of Brazilian employees — whose 13th salary value falls under this threshold — the 2026 13th salary carries zero IRRF withholding for the first time. For salaries between R$5,000.01 and R$7,350.00, a partial reduction applies; above R$7,350.00, the standard progressive IRRF table applies at rates of 7.5% to 27.5%.

Step 4: Calculate the second FGTS deposit. The employer deposits 8% FGTS on the difference between the full 13th salary and the first installment amount already paid. If the first installment was R$2,250 (50% of R$4,500), the second FGTS deposit covers 8% × R$2,250 = R$180. This is the FGTS calculation that most commonly diverges from payroll software outputs — some systems calculate FGTS on the full amount for the second installment by default, requiring manual adjustment.

Step 5: Subtract the first installment from the net amount. Full 13th salary (R$4,500) − INSS on full amount − IRRF on full amount − first installment already paid (R$2,250) = second installment payment. Because the deductions are taken from the second-half payment, this amount is always lower than the first installment — a fact that generates confusion among employees who expect equal halves but is mathematically correct under the law.

January 10: The Variable-Pay Reconciliation Nobody Schedules

The December 20 deadline pays the 13th salary. The January 10 deadline verifies that the payment was correct — and for employees with variable compensation, the gap between these two dates is where inaccurate 13th salary calculations go undetected until an ex-employee's lawyer finds them.

For employees who earn commissions, overtime, or other variable compensation, the 13th salary calculation uses averages from January through October for the first installment and January through November for the second installment. The adjustment that comes due by January 10 accounts for December's variable compensation — which couldn't be included in the November 30 or December 20 calculations because it hadn't been earned yet.

The adjustment formula: recalculate the 13th salary using the full January–December average for variable compensation. If the new average increases the total — for example, a salesperson who closed a large commission in December — the employer owes the difference, paid by January 10 and reported via eSocial event S-1200 (remuneration) with the corresponding payment logged in S-1210 (payment of worker earnings). The 13th salary is reported under a specific eSocial period indicator (13º salário), distinct from the monthly payroll S-1200/S-1210 events.

For HR teams processing December payroll, the January 10 adjustment creates a procedural overlap: the regular December monthly payroll (due by the 5th business day of January under CLT Art. 459) runs simultaneously with the 13th salary adjustment, and both must be separately encoded in eSocial with different period indicators. Missing the January 10 adjustment doesn't generate an automatic alert in most payroll systems — it surfaces during an audit or a termination settlement.

The variable-pay adjustment is the 13th salary task most likely to be deferred and then forgotten — because it's due after year-end, when HR teams are processing W-2 equivalents (Informe de Rendimentos), closing the annual payroll, and onboarding the new year's tax tables. Scheduling it as a standing calendar item for January 5, not January 10, is the difference between catching a discrepancy proactively and discovering it retroactively.

What a Missed 13th Salary Deadline Actually Costs

The direct administrative fine for late or missing 13th salary payments — R$170.25 per affected employee, doubling on repeat offense, as enforced by the Ministry of Labor (Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego) — is the smallest component of the total financial exposure.

Here is the full liability chain a late or incorrect 13th salary payment triggers:

• Administrative fine: R$170.25 per employee under current MTE enforcement, doubled on reincidence. For a company with 200 employees, a uniform late payment means R$34,050 in administrative fines before any additional penalties. This is the floor, not the ceiling.
• CLT Article 467 — 50% surcharge on unpaid amounts: If an underpayment of the 13th salary (including an incorrect amount due to calculation error) is discovered at the time of termination, the employer owes double the underpaid amount. A R$1,500 shortfall across one employee's 13th salary becomes R$3,000. Across 10 employees, a systematic bracket misclassification becomes an aggregated six-figure liability.
• Social security contribution on the penalty amount: The INSS employer contribution (20% cota patronal) applies to the penalty payment itself — meaning the government collects social security tax on the amount the employer pays as a penalty for not having paid the social security tax correctly the first time.
• Employee lawsuits: Delayed or incorrect 13th salary is one of the most common grounds for reclamação trabalhista (labor complaints) in Brazil's labor courts. The employee doesn't need to prove damages beyond the payment delay — the law presumes damages from non-payment. Legal fees, court costs, and settlement amounts add to the exposure.
• Reputational and recruitment cost: Brazilian labor law requires employers to post eSocial compliance records, and a history of 13th salary violations is visible to labor inspectors and, in aggregated form, to the public. In a competitive hiring market, a company known among candidates for late 13th salary payments faces a recruitment disadvantage that doesn't appear on any balance sheet.

FAQ

Can the 13th salary be paid in a single installment instead of two?

Yes — but only if the full amount is paid by November 30. Paying a single installment after November 30 violates the two-installment requirement under Lei 4.749/1965, and the employer remains liable for both the late payment and the missed first-installment deadline. Most employers choose two installments because the cash-flow benefit of deferring half the payment to December 20 outweighs the administrative simplicity of a single payment.

What happens if November 30 or December 20 falls on a weekend?

The payment must be anticipated to the preceding business day. In 2025, November 30 was a Sunday, so the first installment deadline moved to Friday, November 28. The same rule applies to December 20 — if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the payment is due on the preceding Friday. Payroll calendars should already account for this, but it's worth verifying explicitly, because most payroll software does not automatically shift the deadline forward.

How does the 2026 IRRF exemption (Lei 15.270/2025) affect 13th salary calculation?

Employees earning up to R$5,000 per month pay zero IRRF on the 13th salary — the exemption applies to the 13th salary as a standalone amount, not added to the December monthly salary. For employees earning between R$5,000.01 and R$7,350.00, a partial reduction applies on a sliding scale. This rule took effect January 2026 and represents the largest year-over-year change to 13th salary net values since the IRRF table was last significantly restructured.

Does the 13th salary count toward the INSS annual ceiling?

No. The INSS contribution on the 13th salary is calculated independently from the 12 monthly payroll contributions. An employee whose monthly salary already hits the INSS ceiling (R$8,475.55 in 2026) still owes INSS on the 13th salary — the progressive table is applied to the 13th amount as a separate calculation, up to the same ceiling. This means high-salary employees will reach the maximum INSS deduction (R$988.07) on the 13th salary as a separate instance from their monthly INSS contributions.

What if an employee was on sick leave or maternity leave for part of the year?

Time on sick leave (auxílio-doença) paid by the INSS after the first 15 days does not count toward the 13th salary for the period covered by INSS — the employer pays the 13th proportional to the days the employee actually worked, and the INSS pays the 13th proportional to the benefit period. Maternity leave (licença-maternidade), however, does count toward the 13th salary — the employer pays the full proportional amount and is reimbursed by the INSS through the standard maternity leave compensation mechanism.

Can I extract 13th salary data from payslips using AI to verify the payroll system's calculation?

Yes — and it's one of the highest-value use cases for document extraction in Brazilian payroll. By running every employee's 12 monthly holerites through Custom Column Extraction with columns for "Gross Salary", "INSS Contribution", "IRRF Withheld", and "Reference Month", you get a 12-row-per-employee spreadsheet that directly compares to the payroll system's aggregate numbers. This is covered in detail in our guide to extracting Brazilian payslip data to Excel, and the same column set works for both monthly payroll verification and 13th salary data gathering. For multi-employee validation across your entire payroll, the batch processing approach handles all employee holerites in one extraction run — 50 employees × 12 months = 600 holerites, one column definition, one output spreadsheet.

Does the FGTS deposit on the 13th salary count toward the employee's FGTS balance?

Yes. The FGTS deposited on both installments of the 13th salary is credited to the employee's individual FGTS account at Caixa Econômica Federal, under Lei nº 8.036/1990. The deposit is 8% of the gross 13th salary amount, split across the two installments as described above — 8% on the first installment, 8% on the difference between the full 13th and the first installment. The employee receives the FGTS balance statement (extrato do FGTS) reflecting these deposits.

Before the Deadline, There's the Data

The 13th salary deadline isn't November 30 — it's the date you start gathering the data that makes November 30 possible. For a company with 100 employees, that data lives across approximately 1,200 holerite PDFs generated over 12 months. The calculation itself — 1/12 × December salary × months worked, INSS progressive brackets applied independently, IRRF under 2026 exemption rules, FGTS split across two deposits — takes minutes once the inputs are in a spreadsheet. Getting the inputs into a spreadsheet is where the 12-month data-gathering bottleneck lives.

Every payroll software in Brazil — TOTVS, ADP, Senior, SAP — calculates the 13th salary automatically. But every payroll software also relies on configuration: the correct employee start date, the correct salary progression, the correct variable compensation averages. When a single configuration is wrong — a commission missed, an overtime month excluded from the average, a salary change entered one month late — the software's automatic calculation produces a wrong number. And the only way to catch it is to verify the software's output against the individual payslips it was built from.

That verification — 12 months of holerites per employee, cross-checked against a payroll summary — is not a task that manual data entry can complete between November 1 and November 30 for any headcount above a handful of employees. For the fundamentals of extraction — how Custom Column Extraction turns any payslip format into a structured row of data — start with our single-holerite extraction guide. For the scale approach — processing your entire employee base in one batch — see the batch payroll extraction workflow. The deadline doesn't move. The data that feeds it has to be ready before you get there.