Brazilian workers skip two‑thirds of their legal 30‑day vacation

A survey by the global HR platform Deel, covering 993 vacation requests from Brazilian employees—mostly in tech and startup firms—found that only 33 % of workers take the full 30 days of paid leave guaranteed by the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT). The median amount of leave actually taken is 20 days, meaning most employees use about 72 % of their entitlement.

Despite the shorter total, 62 % of Brazilian workers still manage at least one uninterrupted vacation block of 11 days or more, a rate that exceeds that of Sweden (55 %) and Denmark (51 %). Women are more likely to record medical leave, with 41 % of female respondents taking at least one sick‑leave episode versus 21 % of men; the gap is highest among women aged 35‑39 (54 %).

Brazil ranks second worldwide for the number of vacation days offered by law, after France, but its utilization rate trails France’s 88 % by 16 points. The study also notes that half‑day vacations are rare in Brazil (3 % of requests) compared with France (11.5 %), the UK (11.3 %) and Germany (9.4 %).