Is There a Time Limit to Enforce a Labor Credit Certificate?

It is not uncommon: an old labor lawsuit, from more than ten or fifteen years ago, shelved without the credit ever being paid, is suddenly revived. Now, however, the claim arrives on a standalone basis — often directed at the partners (members/quotaholders) of the debtor company — and comes accompanied by an electronic freeze of funds. In light of this, a technical question arises: can this claim be brought at any time, or is there a time limit?

The answer, in many cases, is that there is a time limit — and that it may already have expired.

What Is a Labor Credit Certificate

When a labor enforcement proceeding fails to locate the debtor's assets, the credit does not disappear. The court may issue a labor credit certificate, a document attesting to the existence of the debt and allowing the creditor to resume the claim in the future. The case is then shelved, awaiting new opportunities to satisfy the credit.

Years later, that certificate may serve as the basis for a new, standalone enforcement action. It is at this point that significant disputes arise for companies and partners pursued decades after the original case was closed.

Intercurrent Limitation and Civil Limitation: A Decisive Distinction

The first instinct is to think of the intercurrent (running) labor limitation, set out in art. 11-A of the CLT (Brazilian Consolidation of Labor Laws) (introduced by Law No. 13,467/2017). It extinguishes the enforcement proceeding when the creditor fails to take the steps that were incumbent upon it. It so happens that, according to the very wording of the statute, this modality requires valid service of notice on the enforcing party to move the case forward — and, in practice, where such service did not occur after the labor reform came into force, the intercurrent labor limitation does not run.

This does not mean, however, that the claim is eternal. The credit certificate is an instrument capable of reactivating the enforcement proceeding, but it is not an imprescriptible right. Treating it as perpetual would violate legal certainty, the stabilization of relationships, and the prohibition against the perpetuation of disputes.

This is where the central thesis comes in: in the absence of service of notice capable of triggering the intercurrent labor limitation, the five-year civil statute of limitations applies to the credit certificate (art. 206, § 5º, I, of the Civil Code). Accordingly, if the new enforcement proceeding is filed more than five years after the certificate was issued, with no cause suspending or interrupting the period, the claim may be time-barred (prescribed).

When the Creditor's Inaction Works in the Defense's Favor

The reasoning starts from a simple premise: a party that holds an instrument and remains inactive for a long period, without pursuing the claim, cannot reactivate it indefinitely. The belated filing of the enforcement proceeding does not have the power to retroactively interrupt a period that has already run its course. The suspension of the proceeding to await the ruling on theses before higher courts likewise does not restore a limitation period that has already lapsed.

This understanding has been recognized in a qualified manner by Regional Labor Courts, including in the judgment of an IRDR (Brazilian repetitive-claims resolution procedure), which lends greater predictability to the thesis.

The Firm's Work

Defending companies and partners in enforcement proceedings — including old proceedings reactivated years later through credit certificates — is one of the areas of the firm's corporate labor law practice. In recent work in this area, the thesis of the five-year statute of limitations was accepted by the Judiciary, with recognition of the limitation, extinction of the enforcement proceeding, and an order to return the amounts that had been frozen.

Each case, however, depends on its own particular circumstances — the dates involved, the history of service of notice, and the steps taken over time. No outcome can be anticipated in the abstract.

What Companies and Partners Should Watch For

When taken by surprise by an enforcement proceeding based on an old credit certificate, companies and partners should verify, with technical support:

• the issuance date of the credit certificate and the filing date of the new enforcement proceeding;
• the interval elapsed between the two, and whether it exceeds five years;
• whether there was valid service of notice on the creditor to move the case forward after 11/10/2017;
• the existence of any grounds for suspension or interruption of the limitation period;
• the regularity of the redirection of the enforcement proceeding to the partner personally.

A combined analysis of these elements may reveal that the claim — however legitimate the original debt may have been — is no longer enforceable.

Conclusion

A recognized labor credit is not synonymous with an eternal claim. When an enforcement proceeding is reactivated a long time later, without the steps the law requires to keep the credit alive, room opens up for the statute of limitations (prescription) — in particular the five-year civil limitation applicable to credit certificates.

For companies and partners, the practical point is not to treat a belated claim as something inevitable. The technical verification of the dates and procedural steps may be the difference between enduring the seizure of funds and obtaining extinction of the enforcement proceeding.

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References

• CLT (Brazilian Consolidation of Labor Laws), art. 11-A, on the intercurrent labor limitation and the requirement of service of notice on the enforcing party.
• Civil Code, art. 206, § 5º, I, on the five-year limitation of claims to collect liquidated debts contained in an instrument.
• Code of Civil Procedure, art. 924, V, on the extinction of enforcement proceedings by limitation, and art. 240, § 1º, on the effects of interrupting the limitation period.
• CLT, art. 855-A, on the Incident for Disregard of Legal Personality, and Code of Civil Procedure, art. 14, on the isolation of procedural acts.
• Federal Constitution, art. 7º, XXIX, on limitation periods in the employment relationship.
• Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) Rule No. 205/2021, in particular arts. 1º to 4º and the Sole Annex, to preserve the informational nature of the content.

Content of a purely informational nature. It does not constitute a promise of results or an offer of services. The specific analysis depends on the dates, documents, and procedural history of each case.