Rural retirement in Brazil: requirements and documents
Minimum age, 15 years of farm work, self-declaration and the documents INSS accepts. See how to apply for rural retirement in Brazil and what to do if it is denied.
Sidnei Pedro Dias
9/28/20264 min read
People who work in agriculture in Brazil can retire 5 years earlier than urban workers. Rural old-age retirement requires age 60 for men and 55 for women, plus 15 years (180 months) of rural work. Small family farmers do not need to have paid INSS contributions: what matters is proving the farm work.
Who is entitled
INSS divides rural workers into four groups:
- special insured (segurado especial): family farmers, artisanal fishers, rubber tappers, extractivists and Indigenous people who work alone or with their family, on land of up to 4 fiscal modules, even with occasional outside help;
- rural employee: someone who works for a farmer or rural company, with or without a formal work card;
- rural casual worker (avulso): someone who provides rural services through a union or managing body;
- self-employed rural worker: someone who works on their own account in the countryside without qualifying as special insured, such as a day laborer serving several farms.
Rural employees, casual workers and self-employed rural workers also retire at the reduced age, as long as all their contribution time was in rural work.
The requirements, one by one
- age: 60 (men) or 55 (women);
- farm time: 180 months of rural work, which may be non-continuous, that is, with gaps;
- being on the farm when applying: the special insured must be working in agriculture when reaching the age or when applying. The exception is someone who had already met both age and time in the past and simply had not applied (STJ Theme 642).
For the special insured, the benefit is 1 minimum wage, currently R$ 1,621.00, plus a 13th payment.
How to prove rural work
This is where most denials happen. Since Law 13,846/2019, the special insured proves their activity through the rural self-declaration, a form stating where, how and with whom they worked in each period. In the Meu INSS app, the self-declaration can be filled in with the application or up to 30 days later.
INSS checks the self-declaration against government databases, such as the family farming registry (DAP/CAF), the rural property registry and the fishers' registry. When those databases are not enough, documents from the time of the work are used.
Important: for periods from January 1, 2023, the law requires proof through the special insured registry in CNIS (art. 38-B, § 1, of Law 8,213/1991). Anyone still farming should keep that registration up to date.
Documents INSS accepts
The INSS list includes, among others:
- rural lease, partnership, sharecropping or loan-for-use agreements, registered or with a notarized signature;
- DAP or CAF (family farming), the rural producer's invoice book and invoices for sales of produce;
- rural land tax (ITR), CCIR, deed or title to the rural property;
- INCRA documents showing the person is a land reform settler;
- membership records with a rural workers' union, fishers' association or cooperative, with proof of dues;
- marriage certificate, or children's birth or baptism certificates, stating the occupation as farmer;
- voter card, military service certificate, children's school records or health clinic records showing a rural address or occupation;
- receipts for seeds, fertilizer and tools, and proof of rural financing.
Documents must date from the time of the work. You do not need one document for each year: a good number of documents spread across the 15 years helps build the proof. Documents in the name of a spouse or parents may also count when the work was done as a family.
Step by step
- gather ID, CPF and any rural documents you have, from oldest to newest;
- log in to the Meu INSS app or website with a gov.br account, or call 135;
- choose "Novo pedido" and search for "aposentadoria por idade rural";
- fill in the self-declaration and attach legible files of the documents;
- follow the application in the app and answer any requests on time.
The service is remote. INSS only calls you to a branch when it needs to confirm some information.
Application denied: what to do
You can appeal within INSS or file a lawsuit in the Federal Courts, usually in the Federal Small Claims Court. In court, witnesses help but are not enough on their own: STJ Precedent 149 states that testimony alone does not prove rural work. On the other hand, STJ Precedent 577 allows rural time before the oldest document to be recognized when supported by convincing witness testimony.
Worked both on the farm and in the city?
Those who do not reach 15 years in rural work alone can add rural and urban time under hybrid retirement. The age is the same as for urban workers, but farm time counts, including time before 1991 without contributions (STJ Theme 1007).
SPD Advocacia assists rural workers throughout Brazil with retirement applications and lawsuits, with digital service. Learn more in social security law or message us on WhatsApp (62) 98184-3257.
Updated September 2026. Informational content, in line with Brazilian Bar (OAB) rules (Provimento 205/2021). Each case needs its own analysis, and we do not promise results.