Rappi

Rappi and Uber are appellants in a landmark case before Brazil's Supreme Court (STF), which resumed hearings August 27, 2026, challenging lower-court rulings that recognized employment relationships between platform workers and the apps based on 'algorithmic subordination.' The Court's eventual ruling will set binding precedent (repercussao geral) for thousands of similar lawsuits nationwide; iFood, 99 and InDrive were admitted as interested third parties. Rappi is seeking to overturn rulings that would trigger CLT employment obligations (paid vacation, 13th salary, FGTS contributions) for its delivery workforce.

Under Mexico's 2024 platform-worker labor reform (which reclassified app-based delivery/ride workers as employees with statutory rights), companies faced their first annual profit-sharing (PTU - participación de los trabajadores en las utilidades) distribution deadline in 2026. Rappi distributed the mandatory payments to qualifying workers, while Uber and DiDi did not (see related incidents). President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly credited the reform for delivering 'the first time app workers received profit sharing,' though only Rappi actually complied among the three major platforms.

Following new anti-fraud controls implemented March 17, 2026, Rappi blocked more than 2,300 delivery-worker accounts in Colombia by April 20-21, 2026, citing use of multiple accounts by the same person, financial-information inconsistencies, identity fraud, and rented/shared account profiles. Delivery workers protested at multiple points in Bogotá, including outside a Rappi office, saying the blocks were unjustified and violated their right to work, and objected in particular to device-based blocking rules despite Rappi not providing the phones. The Union of Platform Workers (UNIDAPP), whose broader negotiations with Rappi over labor conditions had stalled, filed a request for a mandatory arbitration tribunal with Colombia's Ministry of Labor. Rappi said the blocks affected a small fraction of the roughly 70,000 delivery workers who use the platform and did not represent workers acting appropriately.

In case L.128.287 (sentence registry RS-36-2026), the Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Provincia de Buenos Aires ruled unanimously on April 9, 2026 to reject extraordinary appeals filed by Rappi Argentina S.A.S. (and, in a companion ruling, PedidosYa), confirming that the companies' delivery riders are employees in a dependent employment relationship under Article 21 of Argentina's Labor Contract Law (Ley 20.744), not independent contractors. The ruling upheld a fine of approximately ARS 16.4 million (commonly reported as ~ARS 20 million) originally imposed by the Buenos Aires Provincial Ministry of Labor following 2020-2021 inspections that found Rappi had not registered its riders as employees, in violation of Articles 52, 128 and 140 of the labor law. The decision is final and unappealable, giving Rappi's labor-classification practices their most significant legal defeat in Latin America to date, and stands in tension with Rappi's ongoing appeal to Brazil's Supreme Court seeking the opposite classification.

Colombia's Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC) sanctioned Rappi S.A.S. on April 8, 2026 for violating consumer rights and failing to comply with the authority's prior instructions. The ruling cited poor service quality (orders delivered damaged, incomplete, wrong, or late) and systemic failures in Rappi's complaint-handling process, including a lack of timely, substantive responses to consumers. The fine (~COP 4,003,566,000, roughly $1M) is the largest in a pattern of SIC sanctions against Rappi dating back to 2019 for data-protection and consumer-rights violations.

On January 1, 2024, Rappi began charging Brazilian delivery drivers a weekly fee of roughly $2.40 (12 reais), automatically deducted from earnings every Monday, without advance notice to workers. Rest of World interviewed a dozen drivers, including Sao Paulo rider Breno de Souza, who discovered the charge only after logging in to start a shift and found it already debited. Rappi described the charge as a 'use and licensing fee' stemming from its 2023 merger with Brazilian delivery firm BoxDelivery. Fairwork's 2025 Brazil ratings report documented the fee as part of a broader pattern of 'indebtedness and precariousness' among platform workers, finding drivers across major delivery apps routinely start the week already in debt to the platform. Business & Human Rights Centre described the shift as part of a move from investor-subsidized growth to a more extractive profit model.

In 2022, the Colombian Labor Ministry launched a probe investigating Rappi for its approach to health and safety of workers, and over whether the company violated local laws by refusing to negotiate with the union UNIDAPP. The investigation followed election of Colombia's first leftist president. Workers earn as little as $7 for 17-hour days, with 68.7% working 7 days/week averaging 10 hours/day according to Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Rappi faced multiple worker strikes: August 2020 saw ~1,000 workers strike in Bogota over blocked accounts, low pay, and impossible point targets; December 2019 saw workers burn their orange merchandise outside headquarters demanding better conditions and occupational health coverage; July 2024 saw 100 workers protest at headquarters. Colombian Senator Robledo said conditions 'offend human dignity.'