Bonus 2026: what happens to the December payment if a person was on unemployment insurance

With the arrival of December, Uruguayan workers will receive the second half of their aguinaldoregardless of whether they work in the public or private sector.

He “supplementary annual salary“was implemented by the law No. 12,840 of December 22, 1960. The aforementioned legislation established the bonus as a single payment per year, but through the Law No. 14,525 of May 27, 1976 bonus payment It was carried out in two stages: one in June and another in December.

Although all workers in Uruguay are entitled to this payment, there are some special cases that may affect the payment. amount to be collected for the bonus.

To know in advance what the amount will be or to later confirm that the payment received was correct, any worker can perform the bonus calculation.

To calculate the bonus to be perceived at each stage, all the remunerations paid received in each period and divide the total by 12.

Some of the cases that may affect the amount charged for the supplementary annual salary include: if the worker was in unemployment insuranceor if you had maternity leave o paternity. In these specific cases, the amount of the half bonus will not include that period in the calculation, because the company did not issue payments to employee.

Furthermore, the bonus does not take into account benefits in kind, such as food ticketand also entails the discounts that the usual salary has, such as those of retirement contributions y Fonasa.

It should be noted that, for the half December bonusremunerations received from June 1 to November 30 of the current year are taken into account.

For the payment of the medium bonus in Decemberthe workers of the private sector They must receive it before the day December 20, 2026communicated the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) in June. This corresponds to half of the complementary salary generated from June 1, 2026 to November 30, 2026.

As for the public sectorthe government publishes a decree each year detailing on what specific date in December the corresponding payments must be made, a fact that has not yet been confirmed.