Notice-ladder countries
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic require employer notice, from 7 days at the short end to Brazil's 90-day ceiling, always payable in lieu.
Free tool
Latin America probation periods and notice periods by country
How long can you evaluate a new hire, and what does an exit require afterward? Compare statutory trial periods, employer notice ladders, and no-cause termination costs across eleven Latin America markets, updated for Argentina's 2026 reform.
Built for founders and operators hiring offshore staff who want the evaluation window and the exit rules clear before the offer goes out.
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Trial periods and exits
Compare probation and notice rules across Latin America
Pick a country to see its trial period limit, the notice an employer owes after probation, and what a no-cause termination costs.
Probation and notice
Check a hiring market
Pick a Latin America market to see how long you can evaluate a new hire, what notice an exit requires after probation, and what a no-cause termination costs in 2026.
Mexico's 180-day extension for technical and professional roles is the number that matters for nearshore hiring, but only if the written probation agreement and the unsuitability paperwork are done properly. Handled loosely, an exit defaults to the 3-months-plus severance scale.
Probation window, longest first
- Argentina 6 months, notice 1 to 2 months
- Brazil 90 days, notice 30 to 90 days
- Peru 3 months, notice None (indemnity instead)
- Costa Rica 3 months, notice 1 week to 1 month
- Dominican Republic 3 months, notice 7 to 28 days
- Ecuador 90 days, notice None (indemnity instead)
- Colombia 2 months, notice None (indemnity instead)
- Guatemala 2 months, notice None (severance instead)
- Mexico 30 days (180 for specialized roles), notice None (severance instead) (selected)
- Chile None, notice 30 days or pay in lieu
- Uruguay None (90 days by practice), notice None (severance instead)
Mexico probation period
30 days (180 for specialized roles)
- Article 39-A of the Federal Labor Law caps probation at 30 days for ordinary roles, extendable to 180 days for management positions and for technical or specialized professional work, which covers many nearshore hires. The trial must be agreed in writing, cannot be repeated, and ending it requires documenting the employee's unsuitability with input from the company's productivity and training commission.
- Employer notice after probation: None (severance instead).
- Mexico has no notice-period system. Dismissal requires a written notice stating the legal cause and the dates, delivered directly or through the labor board, but that is a formality of cause, not a notice period. A dismissal without proven cause is settled through constitutional severance rather than time.
- Cost of a no-cause exit: A no-cause dismissal costs 3 months of integrated salary plus a seniority premium of 12 days per year of service, with accrued benefits on top; if the employee sues for reinstatement and the employer refuses, 20 more days per year are added. Most exits are negotiated around this scale.
- The statutory window ranks 9th longest of 11 markets, against a regional average near 71 days.
Why it matters
The probation window is the cheapest decision point you will ever get
Every employment relationship in Latin America has two prices for changing your mind. During a valid probation period, the price is close to zero: in most of the region either side can end the contract with no cause, no severance, and little or no notice. After the window closes, the same decision runs through notice ladders, severance scales, and indemnity formulas that commonly reach several months of salary. No other date on the employment calendar moves the cost of a decision this much, which is why the trial period deserves more attention than it usually gets in a hiring plan.
The windows vary more than most employers expect. Argentina now grants 6 months, no-questions-asked, under its 2024 to 2026 reforms. Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador sit near 90 days. Colombia and Guatemala give 2 months, Mexico 30 days unless the role qualifies for the 180-day specialized tier, and Chile gives nothing at all on an indefinite contract. Read one market’s rules as if they were the region’s and you will either waste evaluation time you had or assume time you never did.
The exit side splits the region into two families. Notice-ladder countries, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic, make you buy time: a tenure-scaled notice period, workable or payable in lieu. Severance-only countries, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay, skip the calendar and send an invoice: an indemnity that vests the moment probation ends. US employers used to two-weeks-notice customs tend to over-plan for notice, which is the smaller cost, and under-plan for severance, which is the larger one. To see the money side in full, pair this page with the severance calculator and the employer cost calculator.
Two regimes
Notice countries and severance countries
Severance-only countries
Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay skip notice entirely. The exit is priced in money, from Uruguay's capped 6 months to Ecuador's 25-month scale.
The no-probation outliers
Chile has no statutory trial on indefinite contracts and Uruguay none in statute. Both are handled in practice: fixed-term first contracts in Chile, written trial clauses in Uruguay.
6 of the 11 markets here have no employer notice period at all for indefinite contracts, and that list includes the region’s two biggest hiring destinations, Mexico and Colombia. In those countries the question “how much notice do I owe?” has a simple answer, none, and a more expensive follow-up: the statutory indemnity is due instead, from day one after probation. Meanwhile the notice-ladder countries stack both: Brazil’s aviso previo tops out at 90 days on top of the FGTS fine, and Chile’s notice month rides alongside an indemnity that accrues for up to 11 years. Knowing which family a market belongs to is the first thing to check, because it decides whether an exit is measured in weeks or in months of salary.
Reference table
Probation and notice by country, ranked
Statutory trial period for an ordinary indefinite professional contract, the employer's notice obligation after probation, and the headline cost of a no-cause exit. Ranked from the longest trial window to the shortest.
| Rank | Country | Probation period | Employer notice after probation | No-cause exit cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Argentina | 6 months | 1 to 2 months | Dismissal without cause after the trial costs 1 month of salary per year of service (minimum 1 month) under Article 245 of the labor contract law, on top of the notice month or its pay in lieu. |
| 2 | Brazil | 90 days | 30 to 90 days | A no-cause dismissal adds a fine of 40 percent of the balance in the employee's FGTS severance fund, plus the notice period, accrued 13th salary, and vacation. The FGTS deposits themselves, 8 percent of salary each month, were already funded along the way. |
| 3 | Peru | 3 months | None (indemnity instead) | Arbitrary dismissal of a permanent employee costs 1.5 monthly salaries per year of service, capped at 12 salaries, paid on top of the CTS severance account that accrues about one salary per year along the way. |
| 4 | Costa Rica | 3 months | 1 week to 1 month | A no-cause dismissal after the trial adds the cesantia: roughly 20 days of salary per year of service depending on tenure bands, counting only the last 8 years. Together with the notice month, a long-tenured exit costs around a month and a half of salary per recent year. |
| 5 | Dominican Republic | 3 months | 7 to 28 days | On top of notice, the cesantia severance runs 6 days of salary after 3 to 6 months, 13 days after 6 to 12 months, 21 days per year from 1 to 5 years, and 23 days per year beyond 5, with no cap on years counted. |
| 6 | Ecuador | 90 days | None (indemnity instead) | Despido intempestivo costs 3 months of pay for employees with up to 3 years of service, then 1 month per year of service up to 25 months, plus a desahucio bonus of 25 percent of the last monthly wage per year of service. Late payment can be tripled by a judge. |
| 7 | Colombia | 2 months | None (indemnity instead) | For employees earning under 10 minimum wages, dismissal without cause costs 30 days of salary for the first year of service plus 20 days for each additional year. Above 10 minimum wages the scale is 20 days plus 15 per additional year. |
| 8 | Guatemala | 2 months | None (severance instead) | Dismissal without just cause after the trial costs 1 month of salary per year of service, plus proportional bonuses, with no cap on the years counted. Guatemala's severance base also folds in the mandatory 14th-month bonuses, raising the effective month. |
| 9 | Mexico | 30 days (180 for specialized roles) | None (severance instead) | A no-cause dismissal costs 3 months of integrated salary plus a seniority premium of 12 days per year of service, with accrued benefits on top; if the employee sues for reinstatement and the employer refuses, 20 more days per year are added. Most exits are negotiated around this scale. |
| 10 | Chile | None | 30 days or pay in lieu | A business-needs dismissal costs 30 days of salary per year of service, capped at 330 days, or 11 years, for the years-of-service indemnity, plus the notice month if not worked. Courts add surcharges of 30 to 100 percent if the invoked cause is ruled unjustified. |
| 11 | Uruguay | None (90 days by practice) | None (severance instead) | Severance for a monthly-paid employee is 1 month of salary per year or fraction of service, capped at 6 months. It is due for any employer-initiated exit after the trial window, without needing to prove or disprove cause. |
Probation figures are the statutory maximum for an ordinary indefinite professional contract; role-based extensions such as Mexico’s 180-day specialized tier and Peru’s 6 and 12 month tiers are described in the tool above. Notice figures are the employer’s obligation for a no-cause exit of an indefinite contract. Collective agreements can add to any of these rules, so confirm the current requirements for the specific country and role before you act on them.
By the numbers
What the data shows
0 to 6 months
Range of statutory probation periods across the region in 2026
6
Markets with no employer notice period, where severance prices the exit
2
Markets with no statutory probation on a standard indefinite contract
The fine print
Where probation periods actually go wrong
The first failure mode is assuming the window exists. In Colombia the trial period only binds if the contract states it; hire on a handshake template without the clause and the Article 64 indemnity applies from the first morning. Ecuador’s 90 days, Mexico’s 30 or 180, Peru’s extended tiers, and Uruguay’s case-law trial all share the same requirement: write it down or it is not there. The countries that grant the window automatically, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, are the exception, not the rule.
The second failure mode is treating the trial as consequence-free everywhere. Mexico requires the employer to document why the person did not suit the role, with input from the company’s productivity and training commission, and a sloppy end-of-probation exit there can be litigated like any dismissal. Brazil charges half the remaining days if you end an experience contract early. And in every market, terminations that look discriminatory, retaliatory, or timed against a protected status, pregnancy, union activity, medical leave, stay unlawful during probation. The window removes the severance price tag, not the baseline protections.
The third failure mode is letting the window close by accident. Probation does not announce its own expiry; day 61 in Colombia looks exactly like day 60, except the exit now costs a month of salary per year of service. Ecuador is the sharpest example: the trial is the only no-cause exit the employer will ever have, because after it closes every termination without proven cause runs through an indemnity that starts at 3 months of pay. The fix is procedural, not legal: set the evaluation checkpoint two weeks before the trial ends, decide deliberately, and document the decision either way.
How to plan
Turn the rules into a hiring process
Put the trial in writing
Half the region only grants probation if the contract says so. A one-line clause is the difference between a free exit window and day-one severance exposure.
Decide inside the window
Calendar the probation end date at hiring time and run a real evaluation before it. In severance-only countries, the day the trial closes the exit price jumps to months of salary.
Budget the exit with the hire
Notice plus severance is a known formula in every market. Model it at offer time with the severance calculator so a future exit is a line item, not a surprise.
Start the clock deliberately. When the offer is drafted, confirm the contract carries the longest trial the country and role allow: the 180-day specialized tier in Mexico for a technical hire, 6 months in Peru for a trust position, the standard windows elsewhere. Then put two dates in the calendar before the person starts: a mid-trial check and a final evaluation with enough runway to act. Onboarding plans usually map the first 30, 60, and 90 days; aligning that map to the legal window costs nothing and turns the probation period from a legal artifact into an actual management tool.
Then budget the other side. An exit after probation is a formula, not a negotiation opener: tenure times the severance scale, plus notice where the country requires it. Run the numbers at offer time, once a year afterward, and before any performance conversation turns serious. Teams that do this treat a difficult exit as an expected cost with a known ceiling, Uruguay caps it at 6 months, Chile at 11 years of indemnity, and teams that do not tend to discover the formula for the first time in a lawyer’s email. The severance calculator does the math by country, salary, and tenure.
Compliance
Who owns probation and termination compliance when you hire abroad
Every rule on this page binds the legal employer. If you open your own entity, that is your company: the trial clause in the contract, the written unsuitability file in Mexico, the notice letter to Chile’s labor authority, the severance calculation and its deadline, all of it, in the local language and under local procedure. The formalities are not difficult individually, but they are unforgiving in aggregate, and the penalty for missing one is usually that a cheap exit becomes an expensive one.
Most US teams hiring a handful of nearshore people route this through a staffing partner or employer of record instead. The partner is the legal employer in-country: its contracts carry the correct trial period by default, its payroll runs the notice and severance math when an exit happens, and reforms like Argentina’s Law 27.802 are its job to track, not yours. You keep the decision that matters, whether the person is the right hire, and the partner makes whichever answer you reach compliant. LavaStaff works this way across all eleven markets in this comparison, so the windows and ladders above inform your planning without becoming your paperwork.
Methodology
How this comparison is built
Probation figures are the statutory maximum trial period for an ordinary indefinite-term professional contract in each country’s labor code as of July 2026, including Argentina’s Law 27.802, in force since March 6, 2026. Where a country offers longer windows for specific role categories, Mexico’s 180-day managerial and specialized tier, Peru’s 6-month trust and 12-month management tiers, or for smaller employers, as in Argentina, the ranking uses the ordinary maximum and the tool text describes the extensions. Chile and Uruguay are ranked at zero because their codes set no probation for standard contracts, with their practical workarounds noted.
Notice figures are the employer’s statutory obligation when ending an indefinite contract without cause after probation, including pay-in-lieu equivalents. Exit costs are the headline statutory formula, severance, indemnity, or fund-based, stated per country; they are simplified summaries of scales that carry thresholds and caps, and the severance calculator models them in detail. Collective agreements, sector rules, and court doctrine can tighten any figure here, so treat the comparison as a planning baseline rather than legal advice and confirm current rules before acting. When you hire through a vetting-first staffing model, that confirmation is handled for you as part of local compliance.
Questions
Latin America probation and notice periods, answered
How long is the probation period in Latin America?
It ranges from zero to six months depending on the country. Argentina runs the longest standard trial at 6 months under its 2026 labor reform. Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador allow about 90 days. Colombia and Guatemala cap it at 2 months, and Mexico's standard is 30 days, though technical and managerial roles there can agree up to 180 days in writing. Chile has no probation period for standard contracts at all, and Uruguay has none in statute but accepts written trial clauses of about 90 days through case law.
Which Latin American countries require termination notice from the employer?
Fewer than most US employers expect. Brazil requires 30 to 90 days depending on tenure, Argentina 1 to 2 months after the trial period, Chile 30 days for business-needs dismissals, Costa Rica 1 week to 1 month, and the Dominican Republic 7 to 28 days. The other six markets in this comparison, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay, have no employer notice period for indefinite contracts; they price the exit through severance or an indemnity instead, which usually costs more than the missing notice would have.
Can I fire an employee during probation in Latin America without severance?
In most markets, yes, that is the point of the trial period. Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, and Uruguay (with a written trial clause) all allow either party to end the contract during a valid probation without severance. The two caveats that matter: the trial must usually be agreed in writing to exist at all, and terminations that look discriminatory or retaliatory stay unlawful during probation everywhere. Mexico is stricter, requiring documented unsuitability even at the end of the trial, and Brazil charges half the remaining days if you cut an experience contract short.
What changed with Argentina's probation period in 2026?
Two reforms stacked. The 2024 Ley Bases extended the trial period from 3 to 6 months, with up to 8 months at companies of 6 to 100 workers and 12 months at the smallest employers. Then Law 27.802, in force since March 6, 2026, eliminated the 15-day notice that used to be required when ending a contract during the trial. The combined effect is that Argentina now offers the region's longest and most flexible evaluation window: six months in which either side can walk away with no cause, no severance, and no notice.
Is a probation period automatic or does it need to be in the contract?
It depends on the country, and getting this wrong is the most common self-inflicted error. Colombia, Ecuador, Peru's extended tiers, Mexico, and Uruguay's case-law trial all require the probation to be agreed in writing; without the clause, full protection applies from day one. Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic build the window into the law itself, so it applies automatically. Brazil sits in between: the experience contract is a distinct written contract type. When in doubt, write it down; no country penalizes you for documenting a trial the law already grants.
Who handles probation and termination compliance when I hire through a partner?
The legal employer does, and that is the practical answer to most of this page. If you hire through a staffing partner or employer of record, the partner's local contract already contains the right trial clause for the country, and an exit, during probation or after it, runs through the partner's payroll with notice and severance calculated under local law. You decide whether the person stays; the partner makes the exit compliant. If you open your own entity instead, every formality here, written clauses, notice letters, severance math, labor authority filings, belongs to your company.
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