INSS News

Vocational Rehabilitation from the INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) helps people who have been off work because of illness or an accident return to the job market, through evaluation, training, and the provision of resources such as prostheses and orthoses. The service is free and is part of the system of disability benefits.

The INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) has published Normative Instruction PRES/INSS No. 201/2026, a rule that reorganizes how its civil servants’ performance is evaluated and links the Social Security Activity Performance Bonus, known as the GDASS, to the guidelines of the administrative reform model. The measure is expected to redesign how individual productivity and institutional results affect the pay of thousands of employees of the social security agency.

Brazil’s Superior Labor Court (TST) has ruled that a collective bargaining agreement cannot exclude workers on disability retirement from the health plan their employer provides, reinforcing protection for workers who are off the job because of incapacity.

In the second half of 2025, the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice) concentrated its work on dozens of topics under the repetitive appeals system, setting binding theses that directly affect tax and social security cases stalled across the country while they wait for a definitive answer.

Brazil’s National Social Security Institute has launched its largest task force of the year to cut the backlog of pending claims, offering 59,000 slots for medical examinations and social assessments at offices across the country. The effort reaches insured persons awaiting a decision on disability benefits and on the Continuing Cash Benefit (BPC), a wait that has already stretched for months for thousands of applicants.

The National Uniformization Panel of the Federal Special Courts has held that contribution time earned outside of teaching must be counted when calculating the amount of a teacher’s retirement benefit, even though only actual teaching service is required to qualify for the benefit’s reduced requirements.

The INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) proof of life is now done automatically, but scammers have been exploiting beneficiaries’ lack of awareness to steal personal data and money. They pose as agency employees in repeated phone calls and even in visits to retirees’ homes.

Provisional Measure 1.306/2025 opened R$ 3,3 billion in extraordinary credit to reimburse insured persons who had unauthorized deductions taken from their benefits in the fraud schemes uncovered at the INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute). The measure creates the budget basis for returning money taken from retirees and pensioners through unauthorized association membership fees, one of the largest schemes of this kind ever identified in Brazil’s social security system.

Retirees and pensioners who had unauthorized association fees deducted from their benefits have until June 20 to file a dispute and secure a place in the reimbursement agreement offered by the federal government. Those who miss the deadline may be left out of the administrative refund process, although joining the agreement will still be possible afterward.

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has declared unconstitutional the minimum age required for special retirement for people who work exposed to harmful agents. The ruling opens a new path to early retirement for insured workers in unhealthy or hazardous jobs.

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ruled that requiring a minimum age for special retirement benefits for workers exposed to agents harmful to their health is unconstitutional. The decision, issued in ADI 6309 (a direct action of unconstitutionality), removes the age barrier introduced by the Social Security reform and restores documented exposure time as the central criterion for insured workers who perform unhealthy or hazardous work.

Normative Instruction PRES/INSS No. 191/2025 reorganized the rules on payroll-deduction loans (*crédito consignado*) taken against benefits paid by INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) and repealed three earlier normative instructions. It consolidates into a single act the procedure for authorizing, withholding, and overseeing loans deducted directly from the benefit.

INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) has issued rules for the special pension of one minimum wage for children and dependents of women who were victims of femicide. The rules define who is eligible, how to prove the connection to the crime, and which channels you can use to apply.

In a national mobilization held from May 8 to 22, INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) finished reviewing 126 thousand backlogged maternity pay applications, more than twice its initial goal of 61,6 thousand requests.

INSS (Brazil’s National Social Security Institute) and the DPU (Brazil’s Federal Public Defender’s Office) have expanded the agreement that lets public defenders request benefits through remote channels, a move likely to speed up access to rights such as retirement, BPC, and survivor’s pension.