When a labor inspection goes badly in Peru, the root cause is rarely the breach that triggered it. Unpaid overtime, a late payroll registration or a missing safety record can usually be corrected at a moderate cost if handled early. What turns a manageable finding into a significant fine is the way the company responds: a delayed delivery, an unanswered notice, an inconsistent file, a regional approval that arrives after the deadline. The mistakes below are those that most often compound exposure, grouped by the stage at which they occur. Many are particularly common in subsidiaries and branches of foreign groups, where decision-making sits outside Peru.
Why process mistakes are so expensive
SUNAFIL, Peru’s national labor inspection authority, operates under Law 28806 (the General Labor Inspection Law) and its implementing regulation, Supreme Decree 019-2006-TR. Three features of that framework explain why handling matters as much as substance:
- The company’s conduct is itself regulated. Under article 36 of Law 28806, refusing or hindering the inspection, abandoning a diligence and failing to attend a summons are infringements. Failing to comply with a compliance order is classified as very serious.
- The inspector’s record carries weight. Facts recorded in an infringement report are presumed true unless proven otherwise (article 47).
- Timing drives cost. Cure before the infringement report brings a 90% reduction of the proposed fine for the cured infringements; later cures bring smaller benefits.
| Mistake | Typical consequence | Better practice |
|---|---|---|
| Delaying or conditioning access | Obstruction infringement | Verify credentials, then grant access promptly |
| Missing electronic notifications | Deadlines expire unnoticed | Named mailbox owners with daily checks |
| Inconsistent records | Findings based on the inconsistency | Reconcile payroll, attendance and contracts |
| Letting a compliance order expire | Very serious infringement; loss of 90% reduction | Cure or respond in writing within the period |
| Signing records unread | Inaccurate facts presumed true | Read fully; add observations |
Mistakes on the first day
1. Treating the inspector as a visitor who can come back later
Inspectors may enter workplaces without prior notice (article 5 of Law 28806). Asking the inspector to wait for a manager who is abroad, to return next week, or to “put the request in an email” can be treated as an impediment. It is legitimate to verify credentials and the inspection order; it is not legitimate to condition access on internal convenience. Our note on what to do when SUNAFIL inspects your company sets out a first-day protocol.
2. Too many voices
A plant manager, an HR coordinator and a finance analyst each explaining overtime practices in their own words produce three versions of the facts, all recorded. A single designated spokesperson, supported by counsel, avoids contradictions that later become findings.
3. Interfering with employee interviews
Coaching staff, asking employees what they told the inspector, or sitting in on interviews damages credibility and may be characterized as obstruction. Where a complaint triggered the inspection, any adverse action against the complainant is especially risky: a dismissal motivated by an employee’s complaint to the authorities is null under Peruvian law, unless it involves serious misconduct.
Mistakes during the investigation
4. Missing notices in the electronic mailbox
SUNAFIL notifies employers through its mandatory electronic mailbox (casilla electrónica). Deadlines run from notification, not from when someone reads the notice. Access held by a departed employee, alerts sent to a generic address, or reliance on an external accountant who does not check daily are recurring causes of missed deadlines; our note on ignoring a SUNAFIL request explains the consequences.
5. Delivering an inconsistent file
Inspectors compare documents against each other and against what employees say, applying the principle of primacía de la realidad, under which facts prevail over form (article 2 of Law 28806). Attendance logs that show overtime not reflected in payroll, contracts describing roles that differ from reality, or fixed-term contracts whose stated cause does not match the work performed are more damaging than a missing document. Our note on documents SUNAFIL can request explains how to keep a reconciled file.
6. Records that live abroad or only in English
Regional HRIS platforms, shared-services payroll centers and global policies drafted in English are standard in multinational groups. None of them excuses late or unusable delivery. The Peruvian entity must be able to produce records within the inspector’s deadline and in Spanish. Agreements with shared-services centers and external payroll providers should oblige them to deliver specified records to the Peruvian entity within a short, fixed period, with a named contact for urgent requests, and the local team should test that route before it is needed.
7. Overstating compliance
General statements such as “all our managers are exempt from working-time limits” or “overtime is never worked” invite testing. If the documents do not support the statement, credibility on every other point suffers. It is better to state what the company knows, provide the evidence and commit to supplementing it.
Mistakes at the compliance order stage
8. Waiting for approvals abroad
The compliance order (medida de requerimiento) is the point at which the company can correct a breach at the lowest cost. Regional committees, budget cycles and global legal reviews often do not fit within the period set. Letting the order expire usually means an infringement report on the underlying breach and a very serious infringement for non-compliance.
Key point
Delegate authority in advance. The Peruvian team should be able to cure undisputed breaches up to a pre-approved amount without waiting for regional sign-off.
9. Curing, then contesting the same point
Curing before the infringement report brings a 90% reduction of the proposed fine for the infringements cured, but the benefit is lost if the company then files a defense against those infringements or challenges the fine. Deciding infringement by infringement whether to cure or contest avoids losing the reduction by accident; our note on curing labor infringements sets out the three reduction windows.
10. Curing without evidence
Paying affected employees without a clear calculation schedule, or implementing a safety measure without photographs, purchase records or training lists, makes it difficult for SUNAFIL to credit the cure. A cure that cannot be verified may not be recognized.
Mistakes after the infringement report
11. Signing records without reading them
Records of visits and appearances, and later the infringement report, frame the facts. The representative should read any record in full before signing and ask for the company’s observations to be included where the record is inaccurate or incomplete.
12. Missing the short defense windows
Once the sanctioning procedure starts, the regulation provides a five-business-day period to answer the notice of charges, and further short windows afterwards. Internal translation and approval processes must be planned around these periods, not the other way round.
13. Assuming a court challenge stops payment
Filing a contentious-administrative claim or a constitutional action does not suspend enforced collection of the fine unless a court orders it (article 51 of Law 28806). Finance teams should plan cash accordingly.
Watch out
Repeat offences carry their own risk: where an infringement of the same type and classification is repeated after being sanctioned, the fine can increase by up to 100%, within legal caps. Closing an inspection without fixing the underlying practice simply defers the problem.
Illustrative scenario
Illustrative scenario: a Peruvian branch of a French construction group, with 400 employees, is inspected after a complaint about rest-day work at one project. The site manager asks the inspector to return when the country manager is back from Paris; the inspector records the refusal. A document request is then notified through the electronic mailbox, whose access is held by a former administrator. The attendance data, exported late from a regional platform, shows rest-day work that payroll does not reflect. A compliance order to pay the premiums expires while the regional HQ reviews the calculation.
Each step added exposure: an obstruction record, a missed deadline, a finding based on the inconsistency, a very serious infringement for non-compliance and the loss of the 90% reduction. None was inevitable. With a first-day protocol, a monitored mailbox, a reconciled attendance file and delegated remediation authority, the company would have faced a single, correctable finding.
Closing thought
Most inspection mistakes are governance mistakes made visible by a deadline. Companies that decide in advance who represents the Peruvian entity, how notices are monitored, where records live and who can authorize a cure tend to experience inspections as manageable events. For a system-wide view, see our guide to labor inspections in Peru; for hands-on support during an inspection, or a review of your protocol before one, see our labor inspection defense service.