The objective of this work was to verify if there is an association between a merit pay policy practiced by the Rio de Janeiro municipal local administration in the patterns of teachers' mobility and attrition. The research followed the movement of teachers who took posts in the Rio de Janeiro municipal system between 2009 and 2011 during the eight years the policy was in effect (2009-2016). Bivariate analyses and comparisons with tests of differences in means were performed. The main result was that the number of times the school reached the goals set by the policy and, consequently, the staff received performance pay presented a correlation with teacher mobility and attrition. Thus, the greater the frequency of school reached the performance target, the higher the probability of retaining teachers.