Did you work on a farm and wonder whether it counts toward retirement?

Muita gente passou anos na lavoura, em regime familiar, e não imagina que esse tempo pode pesar na hora de se aposentar — mesmo sem contribuição registrada no INSS.

This page is a translation of the original Portuguese text, provided for convenience. It deals with Brazilian law. If there is any discrepancy, the Portuguese version prevails. Read the original in Portuguese

What rural work time is

Rural work time is the period in which a person worked in the countryside, usually under a family farming arrangement (regime de economia familiar), where the family grows crops or raises animals to support itself, without permanent employees, and with most of its income coming from that activity. This kind of work often starts early, in childhood or adolescence, and frequently leaves no contributions recorded with the INSS.

Brazil’s social security system recognizes the reality of people who made their living from the land. For that reason, within certain rules, this time can be taken into account for retirement, even without formal contributions during the rural period. People in this situation include, for example, family farmers, day laborers (boias-frias), sharecroppers (meeiros), rural partners in farming arrangements, and small-scale artisanal fishers.

How rural work time counts toward retirement

How much weight rural work time carries depends on each person’s story and on when the work was performed. In general, it can come into play in two ways:

• As the basis for the so-called retirement by age for rural workers, which has a lower age requirement than the urban rule;
• As time added to an urban work period, when a person worked in the countryside and later began contributing in the city.

The rules have changed over the years, including through Constitutional Amendment 103/2019. For that reason, each period has to be analyzed under the law in force at the time and in light of your full work history. There is no single answer before looking at the specific case.

What to gather as proof

The most delicate point with rural work time is proof. Since there are not always recorded contributions, you establish it with documents that tie you and your family to work in the countryside. It is worth starting to organize:

• Land documents (deed, lease agreement, partnership agreement, or loan-for-use agreement);
• Rural producer invoices, producer notebooks, and records of sales of your harvest;
• Certificates that list your occupation as farmworker, farmer, or similar (marriage, children’s births, voter registration, school records);
• Statements from a rural union, from INCRA (Brazil’s National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), or from cooperatives;
• Records in official rural programs, if any.

These papers serve as initial evidence and are usually backed up by witnesses who knew your work on the farm. For that reason, it is also worth keeping the contact information of former neighbors and fellow farmworkers.

How to begin assessing your situation

The first step is to understand how much time you spent working the land and how it fits into your overall contribution history. Gathering your CNIS (National Social Information Registry) statement and any rural documents you have at home already gives you a first look at your record.

From there, you can calmly analyze whether this time helps with retirement, which path is most suitable, and what still needs to be obtained. Every case is unique, and a careful assessment helps you avoid hasty decisions and organize the right documentation before making any request to the INSS.