Brazil Breaks for the Holidays

If you’ve ever done business in Brazil during the holidays, you probably know how things work. But, if it’s your first time, prepare yourself. Everything moves at a much slower pace.

Brazilians get excited about Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations. And it’s common that they take time off from work to travel with family and friends.

In the private sector, companies often allow employees to take extended vacations around the holidays. It’s also common to have a skeleton staff that takes turns being in the office so that a business doesn’t stop completely.

The public sector is a bit different. While government agencies mostly close just from December 24th to the 25th and December 31st to January 1st, the courts go into recess from December 20th to January 6th. During this time, only emergency hearings are held.

So what happens to your deadline for filing a petition if it falls within those days? Well, consider yourself lucky. You’ll probably get some extra time.

When the courts are in recess, all filing deadlines are suspended until January 20th. For example, say that on November 30th the judge issues an order giving you 30 days to file documents. Under normal circumstances, your deadline would be on December 30th. But because of the recess, the clock would stop on December 19th and resume again on January 21st. This would push your deadline to January 31st.

So for good or for bad, you can expect very little to happen in Brazil over the next few weeks. And before you know it, things will slow down again for Carnaval. It’s Brazil after all.