This study analyzed the transparency of public employee compensation in the executive branches of Brazil’s 26 states, the Federal District and 26 state capitals, totaling 53 entities. More than a quarter of Brazil’s state capitals and states fail to meet minimum standards for transparency regarding public employee salaries.

As a result of the analysis, the Remuneration Transparency Index was created to assess subnational executive branches based on how easily remuneration data can be accessed and how complete the data are, considering the level of detail provided on employee records and payments made to each employee. In the ranking, 27% of state capitals and 26% of the federative units (states and the Federal District) received a score of zero.

Obstacles to data collection were found on the portals of 11 state capitals and eight state governments. In 74% of these cases, it was not possible to obtain pay slips through any of the available portals, including via API, resulting in a score of zero in the Transparency Index. Vitória (ES) ranked first among state capitals, while the Federal District ranked first among the federative units.