President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will gather ministers and beneficiaries at the Planalto Palace on Thursday (Sept. 3) at 3 p.m. to announce the end of the queue at the INSS, Brazil's federal social security institute, which pays pensions and disability benefits. The ceremony, called "Atendimento Sem Fila na Previdência Social", or Service Without a Queue in Social Security, comes one month before the first round of the presidential election, set for Oct. 4.
Ending the backlog has been a Lula promise since the 2022 campaign, and he named it a priority in his inauguration speech to Congress on Jan. 1, 2023.
"Be certain that we will end, once again, the shameful INSS queue, another injustice restored in these times of destruction."
Lula set the date himself. In an interview on TV Globo on Aug. 27, he told the journalist César Tralli: "If you promise to come to Brasília, next week I will announce that the queue has ended." In the same interview, he said that after the announcement "the 45-day wait will cover only 251,000 people, which is normal." According to Poder360, the government counts the queue as cleared once no application is older than the legal 45-day analysis window. About 1.3 million people are currently waiting for a benefit decision, according to G1.
Record grants and record denials
Ministry of Social Security data show a sharp drop: from 3.07 million initial claims pending in January to 1.55 million at the end of July, the lowest level in 21 months. G1 puts the reduction so far this year at 74%. Denials have grown just as fast. Rejections approached 1 million in June, up 70% year to date, and Poder360 calculates an average of 812,600 denials per month from February to July, a record. Grants also hit a record, with 769,900 benefits approved per month on average over the period. The most rejected claims are incapacity benefits, such as temporary disability aid and disability retirement.
A leadership change sped up the drop
The government replaced the head of the INSS in April. Lula dismissed Gilberto Waller, who had taken office in April 2025 amid a scandal over irregular deductions from benefits, and appointed Ana Cristina Viana Silveira, a career civil servant at the institute since 2003 who chaired the Social Security Appeals Council for nearly three years. The change was defended by Social Security Minister Wolney Queiroz. In June, Lula set September as the deadline to clear the queue.
What comes next: the exact August queue figure will only be released at the end of September, with the Social Security statistical bulletin, according to Poder360. The first round of the presidential election is on Oct. 4.