Brazil's Senate approves 40-hour workweek and two paid days off, vote 75-1

Brazil's Senate voted 75 to 1 to reduce the legal maximum workweek from 44 hours to 40 and to guarantee two paid days of weekly rest for formal-sector workers.

Senators passed the measure with no reduction in pay, the Senate-approved text ends the six-on/one-off '6x1' schedule and, according to the Senate announcement, the law will enter into force 60 days after it is promulgated. Reuters estimated that about 37 million people will benefit from the change, a figure cited in the coverage of the vote.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva framed the shorter workweek as expanding personal and family time and listed it as a legislative priority; that framing appears in reporting of his remarks after the vote.

Former president Jair Bolsonaro remotely recorded a favourable vote from Porto Alegre even though his Liberal Party had pushed an alternative plan, a detail included in Senate reporting.

Campaign organisers who promoted the reform trace part of the mobilisation to a 2023 TikTok video by Rick Azevedo, founder of the Life Beyond Work movement; Azevedo was elected a federal deputy on October 4, according to the Senate account.

The coverage links the timing of the vote to the presidential election calendar but does not provide an explicit legislative deadline beyond the 60-day post-promulgation implementation period.

Economic analysis cited in one source draws on a February 2026 Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) study that models a 7.8% rise in average hourly labour costs for formal CLT workers under a 40-hour week and projects an annual operating cost implication between R$178.2 billion and R$267.2 billion if employers choose overtime rather than hiring additional staff.

Reporting did not include independent verification of the Ipea modelling or a breakdown of how different sectors or firm sizes would absorb the higher hourly costs.

Outlets differ in emphasis: coverage close to the Senate text highlights preserved pay and beneficiaries, while economic summaries emphasise potential cost channels and the range of operating-cost estimates from the Ipea work.

The published accounts do not report specific implementing regulations, sector-by-sector transition measures, collective-bargaining outcomes required to operationalise the change, nor a detailed schedule for when employers must comply beyond the statutory 60-day post-promulgation window.