Should you hire a marketer from Brazil?

When a Brazil-based marketer is a good fit

Brazil’s edge is the clock. Its trade-off is that English levels vary more than in the Philippines.

• Daytime overlap. An East Coast team shares seven or eight working hours with a hire in São Paulo, and nobody works nights. That suits roles that run live: paid media, launches, community, and anything that joins your standups.
• English. Brazil ranks 75th of 123 countries and regions on the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index, with a score of 482 against a global average of 488. Plenty of Brazilian marketers work in fluent English, but the country average says to test it in a live interview. Every GrowthPair candidate passes a C1 English test.
• Cost. A U.S. marketing specialist costs about $9,400 a month once benefits are added to the $78,760 federal median salary. A full-time global marketer through GrowthPair costs about $4,000 a month, all-in.

Brazil has four time zones, so ask for the city

Some guides say Brazil has three time zones, and converters treat it as one. Brazilian law sets four. The 1913 decree that defines legal time, as amended in 2013, splits the country like this:

The line between Amazon and Acre time runs from Tabatinga in Amazonas to Porto Acre in Acre. A hire in Cuiabá or Porto Velho runs an hour behind São Paulo, and a hire in Rio Branco runs two hours behind.

So ask candidates for their city as well as their country. The rest of this page uses Brasília time, since it covers the Federal District and 20 of Brazil’s 26 states.

The time difference, zone by zone

Here’s your workday in Brasília time. The U.S. changes its clocks twice a year and Brazil doesn’t, so each zone has two sets of numbers.

Arizona stays on Mountain standard time all year, except the Navajo Nation, per NIST. That keeps most of Arizona four hours behind Brasília year-round.

Why older guides show a different gap

Brazil used to run daylight saving time during its own summer, which falls in the U.S. winter. That moved the gap in the opposite direction from U.S. clock changes. Decree 9,772, dated April 25, 2019 and published the next day, ended it nationwide. The IANA time zone database, which phones and calendars use, shows the last Brazilian daylight saving period started in November 2018 and ended in February 2019.

Now only the U.S. side moves. In 2027, U.S. daylight time starts on March 14 and ends on November 7, following the NIST rule of the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November. On those dates the gap with Brasília shrinks or grows by one hour, and nothing changes in Brazil.

If a time zone page or an old team calendar shows Brazil three hours ahead of New York in January, it’s out of date.

How to set the working shift

With a gap of one to five hours, most U.S. teams can keep a Brazilian hire on a daytime schedule. Here’s how many hours each Brasília shift overlaps with a U.S. 9-to-5. Each cell shows U.S. standard time first, then daylight time.

How that plays out by team:

• East Coast. A 10-to-6 or 11-to-7 day in Brasília gives you seven or eight shared hours all year. In U.S. winter, a 10-to-6 shift also gives your hire an hour of quiet time before your day starts.
• Central and Mountain. An 11-to-7 or noon-to-8 shift covers most or all of your day, with a late finish for your hire.
• West Coast. Full overlap means 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Brasília in winter. A noon-to-8 shift is easier on your hire and still gives you six to seven shared hours.

Anchor the shift to your time zone in the offer and the calendar invite. Your hire’s hours shift by an hour twice a year, and your meetings stay put.

Our take: pick the marketer first and the time zone second. A great hire in Manila working your hours will outperform an average hire in São Paulo. When two finalists are close, the Brazil hire’s daytime overlap is a fair tiebreaker, especially for a West Coast team. Comparing the two? See hiring a marketer from the Philippines.

Brazil’s national holidays

Brazil’s federal government publishes its holiday calendar near the end of the prior year. The 2026 calendar, Portaria MGI 11.460/2025, came out December 30, 2025 and lists 10 national holidays. The 2027 calendar wasn’t out when we checked in November 2026, so here are the same 10 holidays with their 2027 dates.

Three things trip up U.S. managers:

• Carnival isn’t a national holiday. The federal calendar lists Carnival Monday and Tuesday as optional days off for federal offices, and Ash Wednesday as optional until 2 p.m. In 2027 those fall on February 8 to 10. Ask your hire early whether they’ll work those days.
• States and cities add their own. The federal calendar recognizes each state’s own anniversary holiday, and cities set more. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro won’t match.
• November 20 is new. Black Consciousness Day became a national holiday under Law 14,759 of December 2023. Calendars made before 2024 miss it.

Agree on the holiday calendar before day one: Brazil’s, yours, or a fixed number of days off.

Where GrowthPair fits

Every GrowthPair marketer works full-time for one client, in that client’s time zone. Our talent is in Latin America and the Philippines, and most of our Latin American marketers are in Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. Every candidate passes a C1 English test. A full-time Growth Marketer costs about $4,000 a month, all-in, which covers the marketer’s pay, payroll, benefits, and HR, plus 10 paid holidays a year on the NYSE calendar. Most teams have their hire working in about 3 weeks.