When a foreign company prices its first hires in Peru, the offer letter usually shows a monthly salary. The budget, however, needs to reflect that the employee will receive that salary more than fourteen times a year. The main reason is the gratificaciones: two statutory bonuses, each equal to one month’s pay, paid in July and December. They are not discretionary, they cannot simply be folded into an annual salary figure, and they come with an additional payment that surprises many finance teams: an extraordinary bonus equal to the employer’s health contribution.
This article explains how gratificaciones work and uses them as the starting point for a question every CFO eventually asks: what does a Peruvian employee really cost per year? It forms part of our guide to mandatory employee benefits in Peru.
Legal framework
- Law 27735 and its regulations (Supreme Decree 005-2002-TR) establish the two gratificaciones, the semesters they cover, pro-rating and payment deadlines.
- Law 29351 (2009) exempted gratificaciones from social security contributions and created the extraordinary bonus; Law 30334 (2015) made that treatment permanent.
- Law 26790 sets the employer’s contribution to EsSalud, Peru’s public health insurance system, at 9% of remuneration.
The two bonuses
| Bonus | Semester covered | Payment deadline | Amount for a full semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiestas Patrias (July) | January to June | First half of July | One month’s remuneration |
| Navidad (December) | July to December | First half of December | One month’s remuneration |
In practice, “first half” means no later than the 15th of the month.
Pro-rating and eligibility
If the employee did not work the whole semester, the bonus is paid at one-sixth for each full calendar month worked. Incomplete months are not counted.
To receive the bonus on the regular payment date, the employee must be employed at that time, or be on vacation, paid leave or another situation the law treats equivalently. If employment ends before the payment date, the employee is entitled to a pro-rated bonus, the gratificación trunca, provided they worked at least one full month in the semester. That amount is paid with the final settlement on termination.
Part-time employees working fewer than four hours a day are also entitled to gratificaciones, even though they are outside CTS and statutory annual leave.
Key point
Gratificaciones are earned month by month but paid twice a year. For budgeting, accrue them monthly at one-sixth of a salary; for treasury, plan two cash peaks in the first half of July and December.
What “one month’s remuneration” means
The bonus is based on the employee’s remuneration, and where variable pay is received regularly, it may need to be reflected. The criteria for deciding which items count, and how variable amounts are averaged, are discussed in our article on computable pay in Peru. Companies with commission-based or allowance-heavy pay structures should verify the base with care.
The extraordinary bonus: the “plus 9%”
Gratificaciones are not subject to contributions to EsSalud or to the public or private pension systems. In exchange, the employer must pay the employee, as an extraordinary bonus, the amount it would have contributed to EsSalud on the gratificación:
- 9% of the gratificación, as a general rule; or
- 6.75% if the employee is covered by an EPS, a private health provider that complements EsSalud.
This extraordinary bonus is not treated as remuneration and is not pensionable. From the company’s point of view, the cost is similar to what it would have paid in contributions, but the money goes to the employee rather than to EsSalud.
Legal note
Gratificaciones are exempt from social security contributions, but they are subject to income tax withholding on employment income. Payroll must therefore treat them differently for contributions and for tax.
The true annual cost of a Peruvian employee
Gratificaciones are the most visible piece of a broader cost structure. The table below shows an illustrative annual cost for a hypothetical full-time employee with a fixed monthly salary of S/ 10,000, no variable pay, no family allowance and no private health coverage. The figures are purely illustrative.
| Item | Illustrative annual amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly salaries (12, including vacation pay) | S/ 120,000 | 12 × S/ 10,000 |
| Gratificaciones (July and December) | S/ 20,000 | 2 × S/ 10,000 |
| Extraordinary bonus on gratificaciones | S/ 1,800 | 9% × S/ 20,000 |
| CTS (two deposits) | about S/ 11,667 | (S/ 10,000 + one-sixth of a gratificación) × 12/12 |
| EsSalud contribution on salaries | S/ 10,800 | 9% × S/ 120,000 |
| Illustrative total | about S/ 164,267 | About 16.4 monthly salaries |
In this example, the statutory cost is roughly 1.37 times the sum of twelve monthly salaries. The ratio varies with the pay structure and should not be used as a fixed multiplier. Items this table does not include, but which a budget may need, are:
- Seguro Vida Ley, the mandatory group life insurance the employer must provide from the first day of employment;
- SCTR, the occupational-risk insurance required for activities classified as high-risk;
- Profit sharing, mandatory for companies with more than 20 employees that generate business income, at a percentage of pre-tax income set by sector;
- the family allowance (asignación familiar), 10% of the minimum wage, currently S/ 113 a month, for employees with qualifying children;
- overtime, night work premiums and any contractual benefits.
Employee pension contributions, either 13% to the public system or 10% plus insurance and fees to a private pension fund, are withheld from the employee’s pay and are not an additional employer cost. How the broader cost calendar fits together is set out in our annual employment compliance calendar, and CTS is explained in detail in our article on the CTS severance deposit.
Illustrative scenario
Illustrative scenario (hypothetical): A US-based e-commerce group approves headcount for Peru on the basis of “annual base salary plus 10% benefits load,” the assumption it uses in other markets. Its first ten hires are priced accordingly. In July, the local entity pays salaries, gratificaciones and the extraordinary bonus in the same month, and the regional controller sees a payroll line roughly double the monthly run rate. The group revises its Peru budget template to accrue gratificaciones, the extraordinary bonus and CTS monthly, adds EsSalud as a separate line, and converts the full cost to USD at the group’s budget rate rather than converting only the base salary.
Cash-flow profile
The same annual cost does not leave the bank evenly. For the hypothetical employee above, most months carry one salary plus the EsSalud contribution. July and December carry, in addition, a full gratificación and the extraordinary bonus, so payroll in those months is roughly double the usual run rate. May and November carry the CTS deposits, each a little over half a monthly salary in this example. A parent company that funds its Peruvian subsidiary through monthly intercompany transfers should size the July and December transfers accordingly, and should not read those peaks as a sign that headcount or pay has changed.
Common mistakes
- Budgeting on “annual salary ÷ 12.” If an offer is expressed as an annual figure, the company must be clear on how the gratificaciones fit within it.
- Forgetting the extraordinary bonus or applying contributions to the gratificación.
- Counting incomplete months when pro-rating, or excluding full months.
- Omitting the pro-rated bonus for leavers, who are entitled to it if they worked at least a full month in the semester.
- Paying after the 15th because the group’s payment run falls later in the month.
Consequences
Failure to pay gratificaciones is classified as a serious infringement. As a reference, under the current fines table and the 2026 UIT (S/ 5,500), the fine for a company that is not a micro or small enterprise, with between one and ten employees affected, is 1.57 UIT, or S/ 8,635, and it increases with the number of employees affected. The unpaid bonus also remains owed to each employee.
Checklist
- Accrue gratificaciones and the extraordinary bonus monthly in the budget.
- Confirm each employee’s health coverage (EsSalud only, or with EPS) to apply 9% or 6.75%.
- Review which pay items form part of the base.
- Pro-rate joiners by full calendar months worked.
- Pay no later than 15 July and 15 December.
- Apply income tax withholding but no social security contributions.
- Include pro-rated bonuses in every exit settlement.
Preventive recommendations
As a preventive criterion, we recommend that groups hiring in Peru build a local cost template that starts from the statutory items rather than applying a global benefits load. For companies that want to validate their calculations, pay-component mapping and budget assumptions, our statutory benefits review provides an independent check.
Key takeaways
Gratificaciones are predictable: two payments of one month’s remuneration, pro-rated by full months, paid by mid-July and mid-December, with a bonus in lieu of health contributions. Their real importance for international companies lies in budgeting. Treated as part of a complete statutory cost structure, they cause no surprises; treated as an afterthought, they distort every headcount decision.