New law extends maternity leave for postpartum hospitalizations.

By Maury Lobo de Athayde and Maíra Macedo de Magalhães

On September 29, 2025, a new Law No. 15,222/2025 (“Law”) was published, which modifies the Brazilian Labor Code (“CLT”- Consolidation of Labor Laws) and Law No. 8,213/91 that details the conditions of social security benefits.

The change brought by the Law guarantees maternity leave and, as a consequence, the payment of maternity-salary by the Social Security, during the hospitalization of the child or the person who went through childbirth (in general, the mother) due to health issues resulting from childbirth, and for another one hundred and twenty days from the discharge of both.

In practice, this means, for example, that if a premature baby needs to be hospitalized for four months, the mother will be entitled to maternity-salary for the entire period of hospitalization, adding another one hundred and twenty days after discharge.

Note that there are two exceptions: (i) if the maternity leave has started, the days of leave prior to childbirth will be deducted from these 120 days; and (ii) if the hospitalization lasts up to two weeks, there will be no extension of the payment of the maternity-salary.

Situations like this were already protected and regulated since 2021, after a decision issued by the Brazilian Supreme Court, so this Law formalizes a situation that was being solved by the actions of the Judiciary.

Despite the new Law, it is still unclear whether or not there will be a change in the procedure of requesting an extension of the benefit before Social Security Services, which currently must be managed directly by the company when dealing with employee leaves, nor how intermittent hospitalization periods will be treated. This means that, possibly, the Judiciary will continue to be accessed to cover these gaps.

This topic is extremely relevant for HR professionals and companies, who often face doubts about employee leaves in delicate situations like this. We will continue to follow the updates and advise on the next steps.

This bulletin is for information purposes only and should not be relied upon to obtain legal advice on any of the topics covered here. For additional information, please contact the leaders of the Labor Team.