Getting Money Out of Brazil: the Exchange Rules, the IOF, the Income Tax and What the Receiving Side in the US Must File

Published September 24, 2026.

Money leaves Brazil through a foreign-exchange contract signed with a bank or another institution the Central Bank authorizes, and three questions decide what getting money out of Brazil costs: what the money is — the purpose code you declare on the contract —, who is sending it — a resident or a non-resident, and Brazil uses one test for the exchange market and another for income tax —, and whether income tax was due before the money leaves. The foreign-exchange law sets no ceiling on the amount. The IOF, the tax on the exchange itself, is 3.5% when a resident sends money to an account abroad, their own or a relative's, and 1.10% only when the transfer abroad has an investment purpose; the residual rate for other outbound transfers is also 3.5%, and the return of a foreign investor's capital invested in Brazil's financial markets or in Brazilian companies, like the dividends a foreign investor receives, is zero. Those rates are the wording of Decree 12,499 of 2025, which Congress suspended and a single Justice of the Supreme Court restored on July 16, 2025, in ADC 96, subject to the full Court — the merits are still pending; confirm the rate on the day of the operation. A non-resident who sells property in Brazil is taxed by the buyer's withholding on the gain before the exchange, and sending abroad what was already taxed is not, by itself, a new taxable event. Parents in Brazil who send a gift to a child who is a non-resident for tax purposes are not moving "their own money": the Receita Federal says a donation remitted to someone resident or domiciled abroad is subject to 15% withholding income tax (25% where the recipient lives in a favored-tax jurisdiction), while remittances to cover a dependent's maintenance abroad, in the dependent's name, are exempt from that withholding, within the limits the Central Bank sets. Cash up to US$ 10,000 may be carried across the border; above that, only with its exit proven in the manner the Receita Federal regulates. On the US side, a gift or an inheritance received from abroad is not income for federal tax purposes, but above US$ 100,000 in a year from a nonresident alien individual or a foreign estate it is reported on Form 3520 — and the 1% US remittance tax applies to cash sent from the United States, not to money arriving from Brazil.

The question reaches me in three versions. A foreigner — or a Brazilian who already lives abroad — has sold an apartment, inherited a share of an estate, or has dividends and rent accumulating in a Brazilian account, and wants to repatriate it: to send money from Brazil to the US, where the rest of their life is. A Brazilian who still lives in Brazil wants to transfer money from Brazil to an account of their own in the United States. And parents in Brazil want to send money from Brazil to the US for a son or daughter who studies or works there. The three share a foreign exchange contract and its tax, not the income tax answer — where most of the cost of getting money out of Brazil is decided. No provider, spread, bank or platform is named.

Getting money out of Brazil, in one screen

The table is the whole article in rows. Each column is a separate body of law; a transfer can be right in one and wrong in the next.

Cells marked as my reading are a reading of the text, not a sentence of it; the rest is in the provisions below.

It is a foreign-exchange contract: Law 14,286 and the purpose code

There is no special channel to bring money out of Brazil, whether you want to transfer money from Brazil to your own account or repatriate money from Brazil after a sale. Every transfer abroad is an operation in the foreign-exchange market — the câmbio —, governed since the end of 2022 by Law 14,286 of December 29, 2021, the foreign-exchange framework. Its articles 2 and 3 organize everything else:

Art. 2º As operações no mercado de câmbio podem ser realizadas livremente, sem limitação de valor, observados a legislação, as diretrizes estabelecidas pelo Conselho Monetário Nacional e o regulamento a ser editado pelo Banco Central do Brasil. […] Art. 3º As operações no mercado de câmbio podem ser realizadas somente por meio de instituições autorizadas a operar nesse mercado pelo Banco Central do Brasil, na forma do regulamento a ser editado por essa autarquia.

Article 2. Operations in the foreign-exchange market may be carried out freely, without limitation of amount, subject to the legislation, the guidelines established by the National Monetary Council and the regulation to be issued by the Central Bank of Brazil. […] Article 3. Operations in the foreign-exchange market may be carried out only through institutions authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil to operate in that market, in the manner of the regulation to be issued by that authority.

So the first answer to "is there a limit on sending money out of Brazil?" is in the statute: sem limitação de valor. I found no provision, in the law or in the Central Bank's regulation, that caps what an individual may send abroad in a year; what exists are limits on particular channels — cash, and the payment platforms of section 10 — and the tax consequences of each purpose. The money moves only through an authorized institution, and article 4 makes that institution responsible pela identificação e pela qualificação de seus clientes and por assegurar o processamento lícito de operações no mercado de câmbio, which is why it asks questions before it wires anything.

Article 4, § 2, is the sentence people miss: É de responsabilidade do cliente a classificação da finalidade da operação no mercado de câmbio. The purpose of the transfer is declared by you, not chosen by the bank. The Central Bank's regulation, Resolution BCB 277 of 2022, splits the codes at a threshold: its article 4 has the institution present no Anexo III para indicação da finalidade da operação de câmbio de até US$50.000,00 (cinquenta mil dólares dos Estados Unidos) and, above that, the codes of Annex IV. In the annexes in force since November 1, 2023, the codes that matter to this article are these:

Two warnings about that list. First, the Central Bank's consolidated text still prints the annexes replaced in 2023 above the ones in force; the older Annex IV carried Compra e venda de imóveis no País 72911, and a table copied from it gives a code the current annex no longer has. Second, the names are all the regulation gives: there is no code called "inheritance" — the word does not appear in the codes at all —, and no code called "personal transfer". Which of these names fits a given transfer is a classification the law assigns to the client (article 4, § 2); § 3 of the same article obliges institutions to give orientação e suporte técnico to clients who need help to classify correctly. Where I suggest a code in this article, it is my reading of those names, not a rule.

The bank's side is one line of Resolution 277, article 7: the institution pode requisitar ou dispensar, conforme sua avaliação, informações e documentos comprobatórios — may require or waive, at its own assessment, information and supporting documents. There is no closed list. Two banks can ask for different papers for the same transfer and both be within the rule; what they collect they keep, because article 8 has them conservar pelo período mínimo de dez anos. And the transfer carries your identity with it: article 13 requires the payment order to travel with the sender's data — nome, número do documento de identificação, endereço e identificador da conta ou número de inscrição no Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF). A non-resident who holds a bank account or investments in Brazil must have a CPF anyway: Normative Instruction SRF 208 of 2002, article 5, makes the enrollment mandatory for a non-resident with assets subject to public registration, listing among them contas-correntes bancárias, imóveis and participações societárias. How to keep it in regular standing is in the firm's article on the non-resident bank account.

The instrument. Before you call the bank, write down in one line what the money is — a sale's proceeds, an inheritance, savings going to your own account, a gift, a dependent's upkeep — and pick the code whose name matches it. The rest of this article is about why that line changes the tax.

Resident or non-resident — Brazil has two tests

"Who is sending" sounds simple until the reader learns that the exchange market and the income tax each have their own definition. The foreign-exchange law defines a non-resident by domicile — II - não residente: a pessoa física ou jurídica residente, domiciliada ou com sede no exterior. —, and the Central Bank filled in the detail in Resolution BCB 280 of 2022:

Art. 3º Considera-se não residente a pessoa física: I - que não se enquadre nas hipóteses previstas no art. 2º; II - que se retire em caráter permanente do território nacional, a partir da data da saída do País; […] IV - residente que se ausente do Brasil em caráter temporário, a partir do dia seguinte àquele em que complete 12 (doze) meses consecutivos de ausência, desde que não haja manifestação da pessoa física para a instituição autorizada a operar no mercado de câmbio com justificativa para reduzir ou aumentar esse prazo.

Article 3. A natural person is considered a non-resident: I – who does not fall within the cases of article 2; II – who leaves the national territory permanently, from the date of departure from the country; […] IV – a resident who is absent from Brazil temporarily, from the day after completing 12 (twelve) consecutive months of absence, provided the natural person has not made a statement to the institution authorized to operate in the foreign-exchange market with a justification to shorten or extend that period.

The exchange-market test is anchored in the bank: a person can tell the institution why the twelve months should be shorter or longer, and article 5 puts the responsibility on that person — É de responsabilidade exclusiva da pessoa física a justificativa contida na manifestação prevista nesta Resolução.

The income tax test is a different instrument, Normative Instruction SRF 208 of 2002. Under its article 3, II, a person who leaves permanently becomes a non-resident na data da saída, ressalvado o disposto no inciso V do art. 2º — and that exception keeps as a tax resident the person who leaves sem apresentar a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País, de que trata o art. 11-A, durante os primeiros 12 (doze) meses consecutivos de ausência. For someone arriving on a temporary visa, the same instruction counts 184 dias, consecutivos ou não, de permanência no Brasil, dentro de um período de até doze meses. Nothing in either text reconciles the two.

One can be a non-resident for the bank and a resident for the Receita. A Brazilian who moved to the United States eleven months ago without filing the departure communication is still a tax resident, and the resident's income tax rules are the ones to plan with. Which test decides the resident of IOF item XXI, the decree does not say. What the texts say is that the institution collects the IOF — São responsáveis pela cobrança do IOF e pelo seu recolhimento ao Tesouro Nacional as instituições autorizadas a operar em câmbio (Decree 6,306, article 13) — and classifies its client under Resolution 280, which defines residence para fins da Lei nº 14.286, de 29 de dezembro de 2021. I do not choose between the two tests for the IOF; that is a reading to settle with the bank. The formal side of leaving is in the firm's article on non-resident taxation in Brazil, and the account side is in the non-resident bank account.

The instrument. Put two dates on the file before the first transfer: the date you became a non-resident for the exchange market, and the date you became one for the Receita. If they differ, plan the income tax on the Receita's date, and ask the bank which status it will use for the IOF item.

The IOF in 2026: 3.5%, 1.10% and zero — and why the rate is before the Supreme Court

The IOF — the federal tax on credit, exchange, insurance and securities operations — is charged on the exchange itself, whatever the money is. Its rates for exchange operations — the Central Bank (BCB) supervises the market, but the rates are set by presidential decree — are in article 15-B of Decree 6,306 of 2007, and in 2025 that article was rewritten three times in three weeks. The wording in force today is the one given by Decree 12,499 of June 11, 2025, which the Planalto consolidation stamps (Redação dada pelo Decreto nº 12.499, de 2025) (Vide Decreto Legislativo nº 176, de 2025) (Vide ADC nº 96). For a resident sending money abroad, it reads:

XXI - nas liquidações de operações de câmbio para transferência de recursos ao exterior, com vistas à colocação de disponibilidade de residente no País, ou de seu cônjuge, companheiro ou parente, consanguíneo ou afim, observado o disposto no inciso XXI-A: 3,5% (três inteiros e cinco décimos por cento); XXI-A - nas liquidações de operações de câmbio para transferência de recursos ao exterior, com vistas à colocação de disponibilidade de residente no País com finalidade de investimento: 1,10% (um inteiro e dez centésimos por cento);

XXI – on the settlement of exchange operations for the transfer of funds abroad, with a view to placing funds at the disposal of a resident in the country, or of their spouse, partner or relative, by blood or by marriage, subject to item XXI-A: 3.5% (three and five tenths percent); XXI-A – on the settlement of exchange operations for the transfer of funds abroad, with a view to placing funds at the disposal of a resident in the country with an investment purpose: 1.10% (one and ten hundredths percent);

The ordinary case — a resident sending money to their own account abroad, or to a spouse's, a partner's or a relative's — is item XXI, at 3.5%. The 1.10% of item XXI-A is the rate for a resident's transfer com finalidade de investimento. The figure "1.1% to your own account" that still circulates is the rate of the earlier wording of item XXI, which from 2018 taxed the placement abroad of a resident's funds at um inteiro e dez centésimos por cento; that wording, in the version of Decree 11,153 of 2022, is the one Legislative Decree 176 restored in June 2025 — before the Supreme Court injunction described below displaced it. Paragraph 5 of the same article says the Receita Federal poderá regulamentar o disposto no inciso XXI-A; I found no such regulation and no definition of an investment purpose, so the code and the destination should agree.

The other items that matter here are short. Transfers abroad that no specific item covers fall in item XXIV: XXIV - nas demais operações de câmbio realizadas para transferência de recursos ao exterior, não isentas e não abarcadas nos incisos I a XXIII: 3,5% (três inteiros e cinco décimos por cento). The return of a foreign investor's money is zero in two items — XVII - nas liquidações de operações de câmbio para fins de retorno de recursos aplicados por investidor estrangeiro nos mercados financeiro e de capitais: zero, and, created in 2025, XVII-A - nas liquidações de operações de câmbio para fins de retorno de recursos aplicados por investidor estrangeiro em participações societárias no país: zero;. Item XIII does the same for income: XIII - nas liquidações de operações de câmbio para remessa de juros sobre o capital próprio e dividendos recebidos por investidor estrangeiro: zero. Buying foreign currency in cash is item XX, 3.5%. And money coming in, when no other item applies, is item XXV: 0,38% (trinta e oito centésimos por cento) — the asymmetry the firm's article on the non-resident bank account describes.

That last row deserves its own sentence. None of the items of article 15-B speaks of a non-resident taking home the price of a property or a share of an estate. Items XVII and XVII-A are for a investidor estrangeiro in the financial markets or in shareholdings; item XXI is for the funds of a residente no País. By the letter of the decree, what is left is the residual item XXIV, at 3.5%. That is my reading of the text, not a sentence of it, and it is the kind of question to settle with the institution executing the transfer before the contract is signed.

Now the status. Decree 12,466 of May 22 raised the rates; Decree 12,467 of May 23 created item XXI-A — the 1.10% for a transfer with an investment purpose — and its § 5, and made item XXI subject to it; Decree 12,499 of June 11 consolidated the text quoted above. Congress then suspended all three: Legislative Decree 176, published on June 27, 2025, declared them sustados, com fundamento no inciso V do caput do art. 49 da Constituição Federal, com restabelecimento da redação do Decreto nº 6.306, de 14 de dezembro de 2007, em vigor anteriormente às alterações promovidas pelos referidos Decretos. On July 4 the rapporteur of the constitutional case, ADC 96, suspended the decrees and the legislative decree alike and called a conciliation hearing. On July 16, after it, he decided:

REAJUSTO A DECISÃO CAUTELAR e, ad referendum do Plenário desta SUPREMA CORTE: (1) DETERMINO O RETORNO DA EFICÁCIA DO DECRETO 12.499/2025, com efeitos “ex tunc”, ou seja, desde a sua edição, com a MANUTENÇÃO SOMENTE DA SUSPENSÃO DO ART. 7º, §§ 15, 23 e 24, do Decreto 6.306/2007, na redação conferida pelos Decretos 12.466, 12.467 e 12.499/2025;

I ADJUST THE INTERIM DECISION and, subject to the approval of the Plenary of this SUPREME COURT: (1) I ORDER THE RETURN OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DECREE 12,499/2025, with “ex tunc” effects, that is, from its enactment, MAINTAINING ONLY THE SUSPENSION OF ARTICLE 7, §§ 15, 23 and 24, of Decree 6,306/2007, in the wording given by Decrees 12,466, 12,467 and 12,499/2025;

The suspended paragraphs of article 7 concern credit operations, not exchange; the exchange rates of article 15-B came back. Two days later, on July 18, the Justice clarified the previous decision no sentido da INAPLICABILIDADE DA MAJORAÇÃO DAS ALÍQUOTAS DO IOF DURANTE A SUSPENSÃO DA EFICÁCIA DO DECRETO PRESIDENCIAL — which limits the "ex tunc" of July 16: the higher rates do not apply to the period in which the decree was suspended. The decision is monocratic and ad referendum do Plenário; in the records of ADC 96 I read on September 24, 2026, the Prosecutor General's opinion was filed on July 7, 2026 and the case went to the rapporteur on August 26, 2026, with no ruling on the merits. ADC 96 is joined to ADI 7,827 para fins de julgamento conjunto; I did not read the records of ADI 7,827, and in the records I read that joint judgment is pending.

Every rate for getting money out of Brazil in this article is the text in force under an injunction that a ruling of the full Court can change — the same caution the firm's articles on selling property and on the non-resident bank account give.

The instrument. On the day of each transfer, ask the institution which item of article 15-B it is applying and at what rate, and write both next to the purpose code. If the answer is XXI-A, keep what shows the investment purpose; if the item is XXIV for a sale or an inheritance, you know the bank read the decree the way I do.

Proceeds of a property sale: the tax comes first, the exchange second

For a non-resident who wants to transfer the proceeds of a property sale to the US, the money leaves the country in two stages that belong to different bodies of law. The income tax on the gain is settled at the sale — by the buyer, not by the seller, under article 26 of Law 10,833 of 2003:

Art. 26. O adquirente, pessoa física ou jurídica residente ou domiciliada no Brasil, ou o procurador, quando o adquirente for residente ou domiciliado no exterior, fica responsável pela retenção e recolhimento do imposto de renda incidente sobre o ganho de capital a que se refere o art. 18 da Lei nº 9.249, de 26 de dezembro de 1995, auferido por pessoa física ou jurídica residente ou domiciliada no exterior que alienar bens localizados no Brasil.

Article 26. The buyer, an individual or legal entity resident or domiciled in Brazil, or the attorney-in-fact, when the buyer is resident or domiciled abroad, is responsible for withholding and paying the income tax on the capital gain referred to in article 18 of Law No. 9,249 of December 26, 1995, earned by an individual or legal entity resident or domiciled abroad that sells assets located in Brazil.

The gain — not the price — is computed under the resident's rules, because article 18 of Law 9,249 says O ganho de capital auferido por residente ou domiciliado no exterior será apurado e tributado de acordo com as regras aplicáveis aos residentes no País. The rates are the progressive ones Law 13,259 of 2016 wrote into article 21 of Law 8,981: from 15% (quinze por cento) sobre a parcela dos ganhos que não ultrapassar R$ 5.000.000,00 (cinco milhões de reais) up to 22,5% (vinte e dois inteiros e cinco décimos por cento) sobre a parcela dos ganhos que ultrapassar R$ 30.000.000,00. The payment is due on the day of the sale — the Income Tax Regulation, article 153, § 1, III, has it paid pelo adquirente, ou, quando este for residente no exterior, pelo seu procurador, na data da ocorrência do fato gerador — and the Receita's 2026 Q&A, question 655, gives the payment code: the buyer deve reter e recolher o imposto sobre a renda incidente sobre o ganho de capital, sob o código 0473. Two limits the seller meets are in Normative Instruction SRF 208, article 26: Na apuração do ganho de capital de não-residente não se aplicam as isenções e reduções previstas para o residente no Brasil., and, without proof of cost, Na impossibilidade de comprovação, o custo de aquisição será igual a zero.

One caution on sources. Article 27 of the same Instruction 208 still describes a fixed fifteen-percent rate paid by the seller or the seller's attorney-in-fact. The statutes quoted above — Law 10,833, article 26, and the progressive rates of Law 13,259 — came later and say otherwise, and the Receita's own Q&A follows the statutes. Where an instruction and a statute conflict, the statute prevails; the firm's article on selling property in Brazil as a non-resident sets out the full computation, the cost basis and the reliefs that do not travel with the seller, and I do not repeat it here.

After the tax, the exchange. Is there a second tax when the seller sends the money abroad? The Receita answered that question in its Q&A for 2026, in the item on remittances by a non-resident:

Os rendimentos originalmente recebidos pelo não residente podem ser tributados no Brasil, se provierem de fontes brasileiras e houver alguma hipótese de incidência, a título de pagamentos efetuados a não residentes. Em um segundo momento, a remessa dos valores acumulados que foram recebidos pelo não residente como pagamento efetuado a não residente situado no Brasil não configuram, por si só, fato gerador novo e não estão sujeitos à incidência de tributação na fonte.

Income originally received by the non-resident may be taxed in Brazil if it comes from Brazilian sources and there is some taxable event, as payments made to non-residents. At a second moment, the remittance of the accumulated amounts that were received by the non-resident as a payment made to a non-resident located in Brazil does not, by itself, constitute a new taxable event and is not subject to withholding tax.

The income is taxed when paid to the non-resident — here, by the buyer's withholding —, and the later remittance is not por si só a new taxable event. The same answer adds that if the remittance involves a second taxable event, haverá novo fato gerador e a tributação ou isenção correspondente será aplicável. What remains on the exchange is the IOF, and for a non-resident's sale proceeds that is the residual item XXIV on my reading.

What the bank will ask for is not listed in any rule I read: article 7 of Resolution 277 leaves it to the institution. The papers that shorten the conversation tell the story of the money — the deed, the tax paid under code 0473, the proof of cost, and the account where the price was paid. For a sale above US$ 50,000, the Annex IV code whose name fits, on my reading, is Compra e venda de imóveis, 46215; the classification, again, is the client's. The account that receives the price must exist before the closing; the firm's article on getting the money out after a sale covers that sequence.

The instrument. Keep the sale file and the exchange file as one: the deed, the tax paid under code 0473 with the buyer's or the attorney's name, the cost evidence, the account statement showing the price arriving, and the exchange contract with the purpose code and the IOF item. A bank that sees all five rarely needs a sixth.

An inheritance: no rule I found lists the documents

Can you send an inheritance from Brazil to the US? Yes — through the same exchange contract, once the estate has been partitioned and the heir's share is in an account the heir controls. Before that, the estate owes Brazil its own taxes: the state inheritance tax and the federal income tax question on the value at which assets are transferred, both in the firm's article on inheritance in Brazil for a foreign heir and its section on the federal tax.

I looked for a Central Bank or Receita Federal text listing the documents required to remit an inheritance and did not find one; Resolution 277 has no code named for it, and its article 7 leaves the documents to the institution. What proves where the money came from — the partition, the estate's tax receipts, the heir's identity and CPF — is what an heir is usually asked for, but that is practice, not a norm. The codes whose names come closest are Patrimônio, 37217, and Doações e cooperação internacional, 37334; which one fits is a classification, and I would not choose it without the bank.

One income tax rule does apply to non-resident heirs, and it is often missed because it is not about the remittance. When a non-resident heir sells the share of an asset received by inheritance — to a co-heir or anyone else — the payment is subject to withholding:

Há incidência do Imposto sobre a Renda Retido na Fonte - IRRF sobre o pagamento realizado a herdeiro não residente no Brasil pela aquisição de direito a parcela de bem que lhe cabia em decorrência de herança. Não haverá incidência do imposto, entretanto, se o herdeiro for residente no Brasil.

Withholding income tax (IRRF) applies to the payment made to an heir not resident in Brazil for the acquisition of the right to a portion of an asset that belonged to the heir by inheritance. The tax will not apply, however, if the heir is resident in Brazil.

The buyout between siblings — one stays with the apartment and pays the other, who lives in the United States — is the ordinary case, and it is taxable at source when the seller of the share is a non-resident. After that tax, the remittance of what was received follows the same Q&A 314 read above. The IOF on the exchange is, again, item XXIV on my reading.

The instrument. For an heir abroad, assemble the proof of origin before asking the bank: the partition or the deed of the out-of-court inventory, the tax receipts of the estate, and — if the heir sold a share to a co-heir — the withholding on that payment.

Dividends, rent and investments: what the other articles already cover

Three kinds of money have firm articles of their own; I only mark where this one meets them.

Dividends. Since the 2025 reform, Os lucros ou dividendos pagos, creditados, entregues, empregados ou remetidos ao exterior ficarão sujeitos à incidência do imposto de renda na fonte à alíquota de 10% (dez por cento). — article 10, § 4, of Law 9,249, added by Law 15,270 of 2025. The dates, the transition for results up to 2025 and the credit of article 10-A are in the firm's article on investing in Brazil as a non-resident. On the IOF, item XIII of article 15-B sets zero for the remittance of dividends and interest on equity received by a foreign investor — on my reading, a non-resident partner is such an investor; confirm with the bank. The company's Central Bank reporting is in opening a company in Brazil as a foreigner.

Rent. Rent paid to an owner abroad is taxed at source monthly; who withholds it, at what rate and with which filing is in the article on rental income and the procurador's liability. Once taxed, its later remittance is the case of Q&A 314.

Investments. The return of a foreign investor's capital has the two zero-rate IOF items quoted above — XVII for the financial and capital markets, XVII-A for shareholdings —, and the Income Tax Regulation, article 754, II, excludes from withholding os valores, em moeda estrangeira, registrados no Banco Central do Brasil, como investimentos ou reinvestimentos, retornados ao seu país de origem. The word that carries the rule is registered.

Parents sending money to a child abroad: gift to a non-resident (15%) or maintenance (exempt)

Parents in Brazil tend to see money sent to a son or daughter in the United States as their own money moving inside the family. For the Receita Federal, it depends on what the money is. If it is a gift and the child is resident or domiciled abroad, it is taxed at source:

Os valores remetidos a título de doação a pessoas físicas ou jurídicas residentes ou domiciliadas no exterior sujeitam-se à incidência do IRRF, à alíquota de 15% (quinze por cento), ou de 25% (vinte e cinco por cento), na hipótese de o beneficiário ser residente ou domiciliado em país ou dependência com tributação favorecida, conforme lista contida no art. 1º da Instrução Normativa RFB nº 1.037, de 4 de junho de 2010.

Amounts remitted as a gift to individuals or legal entities resident or domiciled abroad are subject to withholding income tax (IRRF) at the rate of 15% (fifteen percent), or 25% (twenty-five percent) where the beneficiary is resident or domiciled in a country or dependency with favored taxation, according to the list in article 1 of Normative Instruction RFB No. 1,037 of June 4, 2010.

That is the Receita's answer to question 313 of its 2026 Q&A, under the heading of remittances abroad as donations. The 25% depends on the child's country: the answer points to the list in Normative Instruction RFB 1,037 and adds that from May 13, 2025 a favored jurisdiction is also any country that taxes income à alíquota inferior a 17% (dezessete por cento), among other criteria. I did not read that list for this article, and I apply the 25% to no particular country. The answer speaks of recipients residentes ou domiciliadas no exterior; a child who is still a Brazilian tax resident — under Instruction 208, article 2, V, the person que se ausente do Brasil em caráter temporário ou se retire em caráter permanente do território nacional sem apresentar a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País, de que trata o art. 11-A, durante os primeiros 12 (doze) meses consecutivos de ausência — that is, for the first twelve consecutive months of absence — is not, on the letter of that answer, within it. That is my reading. The state tax on gifts is a separate question, outside this article.

If the money is the child's upkeep — rent, food, the costs of living of a dependent abroad —, the answer is the opposite, and it is in the question before:

As remessas efetuadas para cobertura de despesas com a manutenção de dependentes no exterior, em nome destes, não se sujeitam à retenção do imposto sobre a renda na fonte, independentemente do seu valor, desde que não se trate de rendimentos auferidos pelos favorecidos ou que estes não tenham perdido a condição de residentes ou domiciliados no País, quando se tratar de rendimentos próprios, e que as remessas sejam realizadas por meio de entidades autorizadas e de acordo com os mecanismos regulares estabelecidos pelo Banco Central do Brasil.

Remittances made to cover the expenses of maintaining dependents abroad, in their name, are not subject to withholding income tax, whatever their amount, provided they are not income earned by the beneficiaries, or that the beneficiaries have not lost the status of residents or domiciled in the country, in the case of their own income, and that the remittances are made through authorized entities and in accordance with the regular mechanisms established by the Central Bank of Brazil.

The Q&A cites the Income Tax Regulation, article 754, IV, whose wording frames the same exemption — remittances para dependentes no exterior, desde que efetuadas em nome dos referidos dependentes, nos limites estabelecidos pelo Banco Central do Brasil […]. The conditions come out of the two texts: the remittance is in the dependent's name; it covers maintenance, not an income of the beneficiary; it goes through an authorized institution, within the limits the Central Bank sets; and both texts add the clause on the beneficiaries' own income and residence quoted above. I did not find, among the Central Bank texts read for this article, a figure fixing those limits, and I state none. Who counts as a dependent is the tax definition, which the Q&A sends to question 340: it includes, among others, the filho(a) ou enteado(a), até 21 anos de idade, and, if still in higher education or technical school, até 24 anos de idade. A son of thirty, working in Miami and without a disability, is not a dependent under that list, and money sent to him is not maintenance under article 754, IV, whatever the family calls it.

Article 754 has two neighbors parents use without knowing it. Its item V excludes from withholding the remittances para fins educacionais, científicos ou culturais and those that pay school fees — em pagamento de taxas: 1. escolares —, and item VI covers remittances by residents for medical treatment abroad of the sender or the sender's dependents. Tuition paid to the school is a different transfer from an allowance paid to the student.

So the family's single wire is, legally, one of three things, and each has its own tax: a gift to a non-resident (15% withholding, code 37334 above US$ 50,000), a dependent's maintenance (no withholding, code 37303 above US$ 50,000), or an educational payment (no withholding under item V). Up to US$ 50,000, Annex III has a single one-way code for the gift and the maintenance — Doação ou outra transferência sem contrapartida, 37994 —, so in that range the dependent's name and the evidence of dependency carry the distinction. The IOF, on the other hand, does not separate the gift from the maintenance when the parents are residents: item XXI covers funds placed at the disposal of a resident's cônjuge, companheiro ou parente, consanguíneo ou afim, at 3.5%. Which item a bank applies to fees paid directly to a school abroad is a question for the bank. What changes the income tax is the purpose — and the purpose is the one the parents declare on the contract.

The instrument. Decide what each transfer is before it is made, and make the papers agree: for maintenance, the transfer in the dependent's name, the maintenance code above US$ 50,000 (below it, Annex III has no maintenance code; the closest name, on my reading, is 37994) and evidence that the child is a dependent under question 340; for tuition, the invoice of the school; for a gift, the donation code and the 15% withholding.

Cash at the border: US$ 10,000

Carrying banknotes out of Brazil has a rule of its own:

Art. 14. O ingresso no País e a saída do País de moeda nacional e estrangeira devem ser realizados exclusivamente por meio de instituição autorizada a operar no mercado de câmbio, à qual caberá a identificação do cliente e do destinatário ou do remetente. § 1º O disposto no caput deste artigo não se aplica ao porte, em espécie, de valores: I - até US$ 10.000,00 (dez mil dólares dos Estados Unidos da América) ou seu equivalente em outras moedas; e II - cuja entrada no País ou saída do País seja comprovada na forma do regulamento de que trata o § 4º deste artigo.

Article 14. The entry into and exit from the country of national and foreign currency must be carried out exclusively through an institution authorized to operate in the foreign-exchange market, which shall identify the client and the recipient or the sender. § 1. The provision of the head paragraph does not apply to carrying, in cash, amounts: I – up to US$ 10,000.00 (ten thousand United States dollars) or its equivalent in other currencies; and II – whose entry into or exit from the country is proven in the manner of the regulation referred to in § 4 of this article.

Read with Resolution 277, article 12 — quoted below, which treats item II as a case of its own — my reading of the "and" —, up to US$ 10,000 cash may be carried; above that, only with its exit proven in the manner of the regulation of § 4, which, in its 2023 wording, belongs to the Receita Federal — Compete à Secretaria Especial da Receita Federal do Brasil do Ministério da Fazenda regulamentar o disposto no § 1º deste artigo. I did not read that regulation for this article, and I do not describe its form or procedure. Article 12 sends cash superior a US$10.000,00 (dez mil dólares dos Estados Unidos) through an authorized institution with a bank, ressalvada a situação relativa a porte de valores prevista no inciso II do § 1º do art. 14 da Lei nº 14.286, de 2021. Breaking the rule acarretará, após o devido processo legal, o perdimento do valor excedente aos limites referidos no § 1º deste artigo em favor do Tesouro Nacional (§ 3), and the penalty is applied by a Receita auditor (§ 5). Buying foreign banknotes pays the IOF of item XX, 3.5%.

Banks and eFX providers: what changes on October 1, 2026

Many transfers out of Brazil today do not go through a traditional exchange contract at a bank but through a payment platform — what the Central Bank calls eFX, the international payment or transfer service. The service has its own ceilings, and they are the limits people confuse with a general cap:

II - transferência unilateral, limitada a US$10.000,00 (dez mil dólares dos Estados Unidos) ou o seu equivalente em outras moedas; III - transferência de recursos entre conta no País e conta no exterior de mesma titularidade, limitada a US$10.000,00 (dez mil dólares dos Estados Unidos) ou o seu equivalente em outras moedas, com as seguintes características: […]

II – unilateral transfer, limited to US$ 10,000.00 (ten thousand United States dollars) or its equivalent in other currencies; III – transfer of funds between an account in the country and an account abroad held by the same person, limited to US$ 10,000.00 (ten thousand United States dollars) or its equivalent in other currencies, with the following characteristics: […]

Those are items II and III of article 49 of Resolution 277: a gift or other one-way transfer through an eFX provider — the Central Bank's term for what the market calls a fintech or remittance platform —, and a transfer to your own account abroad, each limited to US$ 10,000. Splitting a larger amount to fit is barred: Não são admitidos fracionamentos de operações realizadas mediante prestação de eFX (§ 1). Above that, an ordinary exchange contract has no statutory amount.

Resolution BCB 561 of April 30, 2026 rewrites the eFX rules, and its article 4 is plain: Esta Resolução entra em vigor em 1º de outubro de 2026. It redefines the service and the institutions that may provide it, and it adds an item for investment transfers — V - transferência de recursos relacionados a investimento no mercado financeiro e no mercado de valores mobiliários, no país ou no exterior, limitada a US$10.000,00. It does not touch items II and III: the US$ 10,000 ceilings for one-way transfers and for transfers to your own account continue. I do not name providers, and nothing here compares them. Which IOF item a platform applies to a given transfer is a question to ask it, as with a bank.

On the US side: Form 3520, the FBAR — and the remittance tax that does not apply

When the money arrives in the United States, the first question is whether it is income. For a gift or an inheritance, the Internal Revenue Code answers in its section 102(a): Gross income does not include the value of property acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or inheritance. What the property later produces is income — section 102(b)(1) excludes from the exclusion the income from any property referred to in subsection (a) —, so the interest on an inherited deposit is taxable while the deposit is not. Your own money is not a gift; whether its origin is US-taxable is outside this article.

Not being income does not mean not being reported. The IRS's instructions for Form 3520 set the threshold for gifts and bequests from abroad:

More than $100,000 from a nonresident alien individual or a foreign estate (including foreign persons related to that nonresident alien individual or foreign estate) that you treated as gifts or bequests

A US person who, in the tax year, received more than that aggregate amount from Brazilian parents who are not US persons, or from a Brazilian estate, completes Part IV of Form 3520; the IRS page on gifts from foreign persons adds that If the gifts or bequests exceed $100,000, you must separately identify each gift in excess of $5,000. Gifts from foreign corporations or partnerships have a much lower threshold, exceeds $20,116 for 2025, and $20,573 for 2026. The same page says A foreign gift does not include amounts paid for qualified tuition or medical payments made on behalf of the U.S. person., and gifts from related persons are aggregated.

A word on the figure. Section 6039F of the Code — the statute behind this reporting — speaks of foreign gifts above a threshold of ten thousand dollars adjusted for inflation; the US$ 100,000 for individuals and estates is set in the IRS's instructions and guidance, not in the statute's text. The form is due by the 15th day of the 4th month following the end of the taxpayer’s tax year, and the instructions add that taxpayers who live and work outside the United States have until the 15th day of the 6th month to file the form. Late or incomplete reporting has a price the instructions spell out: a penalty equal to 5% of the amount of such foreign gifts applies for each month for which the failure to report continues (not to exceed a total of 25%), unless the failure was due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect.

The FBAR is a separate duty: a US person with a financial interest in or signature authority over accounts abroad — a Brazilian account included — files it if the aggregate value of those foreign financial accounts exceeded $10,000 at any time during the calendar year reported.

And the new remittance tax does not apply to money coming from Brazil. Section 4475 of the Code, in force for transfers after 2025, imposes a 1% tax on a remittance transfer, and the IRS summarized it in April 2026: a 1% remittance transfer tax applies to remittances sent from the United States to recipients in foreign countries when the sender provides cash, a money order, a cashier’s check, or other similar physical instrument. It is paid by a sender in the United States, on cash-funded transfers leaving the United States. A wire from Brazil to a US bank account is outside it on both counts.

The instrument. On the US side, keep a list of every amount received from Brazil in the calendar year, with who sent it and what it was. If gifts and bequests from abroad pass US$ 100,000, the list becomes Part IV of Form 3520; if you hold an account in Brazil, the year's highest balance goes into the FBAR arithmetic.

How I organize a transfer out of Brazil — and the mistakes that cost the most

First the status, on both tests. Then the nature of the money and the code whose name matches it. Then the income tax that must be settled before the exchange — the buyer's withholding on a sale, the estate's taxes, the 10% on dividends, the rent withheld monthly, the 15% on a gift to a non-resident — or the exemption for a dependent's maintenance or school fees, with the papers that make it one. Then the channel: an exchange contract for larger amounts, an eFX platform within its US$ 10,000 items, and cash above US$ 10,000 only with its exit proven under the Receita's regulation. Then the IOF item and its rate on the day, with the ADC 96 caveat. And, for a resident who keeps money abroad, the DCBE: Resolution BCB 279 of 2022 puts the duty on the pessoa física ou jurídica residente detentora de capital brasileiro no exterior, and the annual declaration is due when the assets abroad, on December 31, totalizarem quantia igual ou superior a US$1.000.000,00 (um milhão de dólares dos Estados Unidos da América). A non-resident does not file it.

Six mistakes we keep seeing.

1. Planning on "1.1% to my own account". Under the text in force, a resident's transfer to an account abroad is item XXI, 3.5%; 1.10% is item XXI-A, for a transfer with an investment purpose. The 1.1% for any own-account transfer is the pre-2025 wording.

2. Treating the IOF rate as settled. It rests on a single Justice's injunction in ADC 96, subject to the full Court, with the merits pending. Confirm the rate on the day, and keep the contract that shows it.

3. Sending a gift as if it were maintenance. A gift to a non-resident child carries 15% withholding (Q&A 313); maintenance of a dependent abroad does not (Q&A 307; Regulation, art. 754, IV) — but only in the dependent's name, for a dependent under the tax definition, and within the Central Bank's limits.

4. Assuming the bank will choose the code. The law puts the classification on the client (Law 14,286, art. 4, § 2). The institution's duty under § 3 is to guide; the declaration is yours, and the institution keeps it for at least ten years (Resolution 277, art. 8).

5. Using the wrong residence test. The account follows the exchange-market test; the income tax follows Instruction 208. A Brazilian abroad for eleven months without the departure communication is still a tax resident, and plans with the resident's income tax rules.

6. Forgetting the other side. More than US$ 100,000 in gifts and bequests from abroad in a year goes on Form 3520; a Brazilian account can bring the FBAR.

The three facts that decide getting money out of Brazil

Stripped to its skeleton, what decides the cost of getting money out of Brazil is three facts:

• It is a foreign-exchange contract, with no statutory limit on the amount, through an authorized institution, and the purpose code is declared by the client — and it is the purpose that decides the income tax. Law 14,286/2021, arts. 2, 3, 4 and 14 (cash: up to US$ 10,000; above, with the exit proven under the Receita's regulation); Resolution BCB 277/2022, arts. 4, 7, 8, 12 and 49 (eFX; Resolution BCB 561/2026 from October 1, 2026); residence for the exchange market in Resolution BCB 280/2022 and for income tax in Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002.
• The IOF on a resident's transfer to an account abroad is 3.5% (item XXI), 1.10% only with an investment purpose (item XXI-A), 3.5% for other transfers abroad (item XXIV) and zero for the return of a foreign investor's capital (items XVII and XVII-A) and for dividends a foreign investor receives (item XIII) — in the wording of Decree 12,499/2025, restored by a single Justice's injunction in ADC 96 on July 16, 2025, with the merits pending. Decree 6,306/2007, art. 15-B; Legislative Decree 176/2025; ADC 96, decisions of July 16 and 18, 2025. A non-resident's sale proceeds or inheritance fall in item XXIV on my reading.
• Income tax is settled before the money leaves, and the remittance of what was already taxed is not, by itself, a new taxable event; but a gift to a non-resident carries 15% withholding (25% in a favored jurisdiction), while a dependent's maintenance abroad is exempt — and, in the United States, gifts and bequests from abroad above US$ 100,000 a year are reported on Form 3520. Law 10,833/2003, art. 26; Receita Q&A 2026, questions 131, 307, 313, 314 and 655; Income Tax Regulation, art. 754, II, IV and V; Law 9,249/1995, art. 10, § 4 (10% on dividends); IRC §§ 102 and 6039F and the IRS instructions for Form 3520.

Carvalho Barros Advocacia Internacional handles these files from both ends — a Brazilian practice serving clients in more than 30 countries, with non-resident tax counsel that runs, for the person getting money out of Brazil, the sequence this article described: the status on each test, the tax that must be settled first, the classification of the transfer and the papers behind it. Written communication with the firm is in English; meetings are conducted with an interpreter at no cost to the client. You can verify the author's Brazilian bar registration yourself, by the method described in hiring a Brazilian lawyer from abroad — and no promise of outcome is made or implied anywhere in this article.

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About the author

Luiz Alberto de Carvalho Barros Filho

Attorney at Law — Brazilian Bar (OAB/AL 7.530)

Brazilian attorney dedicated to private international law and cross-border taxation. Published author in the International Law Deskbook 2.0 (The Florida Bar) and contributor to the International Law Quarterly, also of The Florida Bar.

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Legal note. This article is informational and does not replace individual legal advice, and it makes no promise as to the outcome of any transfer, filing or tax position (Brazilian Bar Provision OAB No. 205/2021). No bank, exchange broker, payment platform or financial product is named or recommended, and nothing in it is investment advice. The provisions supporting it — Law No. 14,286/2021 (articles 1, 2, 3, 4 and 14, §§ 1, 3, 4 and 5); Central Bank Resolution BCB No. 277/2022 (articles 4, 7, 8, 12, 13 and 49, and Annexes III and IV in the wording given by Resolution BCB No. 337/2023, in force from November 1, 2023), in its current multi-version text; Central Bank Resolutions BCB No. 279/2022 (articles 8 and 10), No. 280/2022 (articles 1, 2, 3 and 5) and No. 561/2026 (articles 1 and 4); Decree No. 6,306/2007 (articles 13 and 15-B, items XIII, XVII, XVII-A, XX, XXI, XXI-A, XXIV and XXV and § 5, in the wording of Decree No. 12,499/2025), as compiled on the Planalto portal, and Decrees No. 12,466/2025, 12,467/2025 and 12,499/2025; Legislative Decree No. 176/2025; the docket of ADC 96 at the Supreme Federal Court (interim decisions of July 4, 16 and 18, 2025, and entries to August 26, 2026); Law No. 10,833/2003 (article 26); Law No. 9,249/1995 (articles 10, § 4, and 18); Law No. 13,259/2016 (article 1); the Income Tax Regulation, Decree No. 9,580/2018 (articles 153, § 1, III, and 754); Normative Instruction SRF No. 208/2002 (articles 2, 3, 5, 26 and 27), in its current wording; the Receita Federal's IRPF 2026 Questions and Answers (questions 131, 307, 313, 314, 340 and 655); 26 U.S.C. §§ 102, 4475 and 6039F; the IRS Instructions for Form 3520 (revised 12/2025), the IRS pages on gifts from foreign persons and on the FBAR, and IRS news release IR-2026-48 — were checked against official sources on September 24, 2026, with the provisions the argument rests on named in the text itself. Portuguese passages, whether in blocks or inline, are reproduced from the official texts; English passages from US sources are reproduced from them; other English passages shown in quotation marks are the author’s working translation or, where so described, phrases that circulate online. The Portuguese is the only authoritative version of Brazilian texts, and any emphasis within the quotations is the author’s. This is an original article, not an adaptation: the firm has no Portuguese-language article on this subject. Method caveats and declared limits. (i) The Planalto consolidation of Decree 6,306 prints superseded and current wordings together; the wording cited as in force is the one carrying the note “Redação dada pelo Decreto nº 12.499, de 2025” with the references to Legislative Decree 176 and to ADC 96. (ii) The ADC 96 decisions are quoted from the court's docket entries, not from the full text of the decisions; ADC 96 is joined to ADI 7,827 for joint judgment, and the records of ADI 7,827 and ADI 7,839 were not read; no Plenary ruling appears in the records read, and the rates stated depend on an interim order. (iii) Resolution 277 was read in the Central Bank's text that carries the annexes replaced in 2023 above the current ones; the codes cited are from the current annexes. (iv) Not read for this article: the list of favored-tax jurisdictions of Normative Instruction RFB No. 1,037/2010; the Receita Federal's regulation of the carrying of cash (Law 14,286, article 14, § 4); any Receita act regulating item XXI-A of article 15-B, which was not found; any Central Bank text fixing the limits for maintenance of dependents abroad; Normative Instruction RFB No. 2,312/2026; the state taxes on inheritances and gifts; and IRS Notice 97-34. (v) The IOF item applicable to a non-resident's sale proceeds or inheritance, the choice of purpose codes, the application of item XIII to a non-resident partner, the reading of the “and” of Law 14,286, article 14, § 1, as two separate cases, the position of a child still resident for tax purposes under question 313, which test of residence decides the resident of item XXI and the non-taxation of a resident's transfer of their own money are the author’s readings, marked as such in the text. (vi) No penalty is stated other than the Form 3520 penalty set out in the IRS instructions and in section 6039F(c), and the statutory forfeiture of the excess cash when the rule is broken (Law 14,286, article 14, §§ 3 and 5); no exchange spread, fee or processing time is stated. (vii) The descriptions of what circulates online reflect the firm’s review of the leading results for the relevant searches, conducted in September 2026; no source is named. To review your specific case, contact attorney Luiz Barros — Brazilian Bar, OAB/AL 7.530.