End of the 6x1 Schedule in Brazil: What Changes, Deadlines and Affected Sectors

Brazil's Constitutional Amendment 141, enacted on 16 October 2026, ended the 6x1 schedule (six days on, one off) as the norm and cut the weekly working hours limit from 44 to 40, in two stages and with no pay cut. This article covers what the amendment says, when each stage starts, which sectors feel the change most, who has different rules and what companies need to review by December. At the end, we run the capacity math for a team of 10 and show how to recover those hours without rushing to hire.

If you already know the rules and want the practical side, read The 5x2 schedule: how to keep operations running without losing productivity.

What did Amendment 141 approve?

The amendment comes from PEC 221/2019, processed together with PEC 8/2025, and passed the Senate by 75 votes to 1 in both rounds, according to Agência Senado (in Portuguese). The text published by the Presidency (in Portuguese) changes article 7 of the Constitution in four central points:

• A 40 hour weekly limit. Item XIII now sets up to 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week, with hour compensation and shorter hours allowed through collective agreements.
• Two days of paid rest. Item XV goes from one to two days of weekly rest, one of them preferably on Sunday. This is the rule that ends 6x1 as the standard.
• Pay protected. Article 2 of the amendment forbids pay cuts of any kind, nominal or proportional, in current contracts, and extends the protection to salary floors.
• Negotiated compensation. The new paragraph 2 allows, through a collective agreement, a compensatory regime that ensures on average two rest days per week within the month, with at least one day off for each week worked.

Employees whose contract already sets 40 hours or less get no proportional reduction (article 4), but they are entitled to the two rest days.

When does the 5x2 schedule take effect?

The transition has two stages, counted from publication in the Official Gazette on 16 October 2026 (articles 6 and 10). Two months later, the cap drops to 42 hours and the two rest days apply. One year after that first stage, the cap reaches 40 hours.

Sources disagree by one day on the first stage. Rádio Senado (in Portuguese) and Agência Brasil (in Portuguese) say 15 December 2026; Exame (in Portuguese) says 16 December. Since the amendment only says "two months after publication", the safest plan is to be ready on the 15th and confirm the date with your legal team.

Stage	When	What changes
Amendment 141 published	16/10/2026	General rules take effect, such as the exception for high earning graduates (art. 8) and the deadline for public contracts (art. 9)
First stage	15 or 16/12/2026	42 hour weekly cap, two days of paid rest and collective agreement clauses that conflict with the amendment lose effect
Transition year	Dec/2026 to Dec/2027	A collective agreement may extend the daily hours to spread the 42 hours (art. 7)
Public contracts deadline	by 16/10/2027	Government contracts with direct use of labor need an economic rebalancing amendment
Second stage	Dec/2027	40 hour weekly cap

If the 42 hours are split across five days, that comes to 8h24 a day, as Agência Brasil calculates. Since the Constitution keeps the 8 hour daily limit, extending the day during the transition requires a collective agreement (article 7 of the amendment). After the transition, hours above the limit are overtime, Rádio Senado notes.

Who is affected and which sectors feel it most?

According to the Ministry of Labor survey cited by Agência Senado (in Portuguese), of the 44.7 million workers with identified working hours, about 14.9 million (one third) are on a 6x1 schedule. The more relevant number for planning comes next: 38.6 million work more than 40 hours, and 37.2 million work 44 hours. So the cut also reaches people who already work Monday to Friday on 44 hours.

DIEESE's Emprego em Pauta bulletin no. 32 (in Portuguese), using 2024 RAIS data, shows that 75% of formal private sector employees have contracts above 40 hours and that the average is 41 hours and 32 minutes a week. The share of contracts above 40 hours varies a lot by sector:

• Agriculture and construction. 94% and 93% of contracts above 40 hours, with field and site work.
• Retail and wholesale. 91%, with customer service over long hours and weekends.
• Accommodation and food. 87%, with a high concentration of 6x1, as the data below shows.
• Manufacturing and transport. 86% and 82%, with shifts and rotating schedules.

Looking at 6x1 alone, CUT, based on DIEESE data (in Portuguese), counts 14.8 million people, with the highest shares in air transport (53.2%), accommodation (52.0%), food services (47.1%) and retail (42.2%).

How much does the change weigh on operating costs?

Ipea's Technical Note no. 123 (in Portuguese) estimates that going from 44 to 40 hours without cutting pay raises the hourly cost of a 44 hour worker by 10%, and the average cost of formal labor by 7.84%, a figure the authors say tends to overstate the effect. On total operating cost, the impact ranges from 0.41% in wholesale and 1.04% in retail to 5.97% in building services, 6.30% in staffing and labor supply and 6.65% in security services. By the same study, more than 13 million workers are in sectors with an impact below 1% of operating cost, and about 3 million in sectors above 5%.

On the other side, the national trade confederation (CNC) estimates a 21% rise in payroll, according to Agência Brasil (in Portuguese), which also reports the Ipea researcher's criticism of that estimate's lack of transparency. In practice, the weight depends on how labor intensive the sector is and on how many hours above 40 each team works today.

Small companies need separate attention. Ipea estimates 6.6 million workers above 40 hours in companies with up to 9 employees. Article 5 of the amendment says a complementary law may create transition measures for individual microentrepreneurs, micro and small companies, conditioned on keeping jobs, but that law does not exist yet.

If the question at your company is already "where are the hours we are going to lose", the AI opportunity map points out the repetitive routines that take up the most team hours.

Who is left out or has different rules?

• High earning graduates. Article 8 removes the rules on working hours and time tracking for employees with a university degree who earn 2.5 times or more the social security benefit ceiling, unless the employer chooses otherwise or a collective agreement says so. The two rest days still apply, and the exception does not cover public sector employees.
• Government contracts. Under article 9, current contracts that involve direct use of labor only apply the cut after an economic rebalancing amendment, within one year of publication.
• Negotiated compensatory schedules. On call shifts, 12x36 and other regimes can continue through collective agreements, as long as they meet the average of two rest days per week in the month and at least one day off per week worked. Beyond that, the Ministry of Labor (in Portuguese) states that the amendment has no exception for categories or sectors.
• Statutory civil servants. The amendment covers article 7 rights and, according to Agência Senado, does not change the hours of public servants.

What is still open?

• Ministry of Labor ordinance. In a note dated 27 October, the ministry said it is preparing an ordinance on implementation, expected by the end of the month. As of 30 October we had not found it published.
• A new amendment proposal with exceptions. Exame reports that Senator Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM) is drafting a proposal to exempt rotating shift categories such as offshore oil platform workers, aviation workers and truck drivers, with signature collection expected on 3 November.
• Complementary law for small companies. Provided for in article 5, with no text presented yet.
• Laws for differentiated regimes. The new paragraph 3 allows laws to create specific regimes within the new limits.

What should companies review by December?

The list below is informational. The legal fit of each case, especially collective agreements, contracts and payroll, must be handled with a labor lawyer and an accountant.

• Schedules. Map who works 6x1 and who works 5x2 on 44 hours. Both change: the first because of the two rest days, the second because of the 42 and then 40 hour cap.
• Time tracking. Adjust time tracking to the new weekly limit and daily distribution. Days longer than 8 hours during the transition need backing in a collective agreement.
• Payroll. Review overtime, premiums and paid weekly rest with two rest days, without touching nominal pay, including for people on the salary floor.
• Collective agreements. Clauses on hours and rest that conflict with the amendment lose effect two months after publication (article 3). If your operation relies on a compensatory schedule, negotiation needs to start now.
• Public contracts. Companies serving the government with allocated labor should request the rebalancing amendment within the one year deadline.
• Hour banks. The amendment does not address hour banks directly, but it keeps hour compensation through collective agreements. Balances and compensation rules need to fit the new cap and, under a compensatory regime, the average of two rest days.

How do you cut hours without cutting output?

Picture a team of 10 people working 44 hours a week: that is 440 hours of capacity per week. In the first stage, at 42 hours, the team has 420 hours, 20 fewer. In the second, at 40 hours, it has 400 hours: 40 fewer hours per week, the equivalent of one full 40 hour position.

There are three ways out: hire, pay overtime or take repetitive work off the team. The third depends on knowing where the hours go today. Many operations have tasks that come back every week: checking orders, reconciling spreadsheets, copying data between systems, answering the same customer questions, building reports. If those tasks add up to 20 hours a week, they cover the first stage. If they add up to 40, they cover the second, and the hire that would have been needed is no longer necessary.

Our approach has three steps:

• Measure. List each area's routines and how many hours each one takes per week. See examples in AI routines by area.
• Pick the right tool. Not everything needs an agent. Some of it is solved with process automation and systems integration; work that repeats with clear rules can become an automatic routine, as we describe in From chat to routine: the five steps of AI in operations.
• Put it in production with control. An agent needs autonomy limits and someone who checks the results. How to build an AI agent for operations and Levels of autonomy for AI agents cover this in detail.

The operational step by step, with schedules, shift coverage and productivity indicators, is in The 5x2 schedule: how to keep operations running without losing productivity. To start with measurement, the free AI opportunity map shows where the recoverable hours are.

Frequently asked questions

When does the 5x2 schedule start?

On 15 December 2026, two months after publication (some press reports say the 16th). From that date the two rest days and the 42 hour cap apply. The 40 hours arrive in December 2027.

Can the company cut pay to offset the hours?

No. Article 2 forbids nominal or proportional cuts in current contracts, including salary floors.

Who is left out of the new hours?

Graduates earning 2.5 times or more the social security ceiling are outside time tracking rules, but keep the two rest days. Government contracts with labor have up to one year for the contract amendment, and differentiated schedules remain possible through collective bargaining.

What happens to the hour bank?

Compensation through collective agreements is still allowed, but conflicting clauses lose effect in December 2026. The hour bank needs to be reviewed, with legal support, to fit the 42 and then 40 hour cap.

Does the rule apply to small companies?

Yes. A complementary law may create transition measures for individual microentrepreneurs, micro and small companies, but it does not exist yet. Until then, the same deadlines apply.

How do you keep productivity with fewer hours?

By measuring the hours spent on repetitive tasks and taking them out of the routine with automation or AI agents before hiring. The guide The 5x2 schedule: how to keep operations running without losing productivity shows how to organize this.

Sources

• Constitutional Amendment no. 141, of 16 October 2026 (Presidency of Brazil, in Portuguese)
• Congresso promulga o fim da escala 6x1 e aposentadoria de agentes de saúde (Agência Senado, in Portuguese)
• Jornada de trabalho 5x2 deve entrar em vigor em 15 de dezembro (Rádio Senado, in Portuguese)
• Saiba quando começa a valer o fim da escala 6x1 (Agência Brasil, in Portuguese)
• Congresso promulga emenda do fim da 6x1; escala 5x2 começa em 60 dias (Agência Brasil, in Portuguese)
• MTE recebe representantes da ABIR para discutir regulamentação da jornada 5x2 (Ministry of Labor and Employment, in Portuguese)
• Fim da escala 6x1: Senado prepara PEC para deixar categorias fora das regras (Exame, in Portuguese)
• Boletim Emprego em Pauta nº 32 (DIEESE, in Portuguese)
• Escala 6x1 atinge 14,8 milhões de pessoas e pesa nos setores de serviços e comércio (CUT, in Portuguese)
• Nota Técnica Disoc nº 123: Mudanças na jornada e na escala de trabalho (Ipea, in Portuguese)
• Fim da escala 6x1: estudos divergem sobre impactos no PIB e inflação (Agência Brasil, in Portuguese)

How UEEK can help

UEEK is a Brazilian software house with 14 years in the market, more than 200 clients in 6 countries and more than 500 projects delivered, working on digital products, AI agents in production and DevSecOps. For the change in working hours, the work starts with the AI opportunity map, which identifies the routines that take up the most hours. In more complex operations, we continue with the AI map with a specialist and move on to AI agents with managed agent operations. The legal fit stays with your lawyer and your accountant.

Take the free AI opportunity map