Leaving Brazil: What People Call the Brazil Exit Tax Is Two Filings — the CSDP, the DSDP and the 12-Month Rule

Published October 2, 2026. Also available in Portuguese.

You are leaving Brazil — for a job in Dublin, a degree in Toronto, a new life in Lisbon or Florida — and somewhere in the paperwork someone mentions the "Brazil exit tax". This article explains what Brazil actually requires of an individual who stops living there, from the texts in force as I captured them on October 2, 2026: the Receita Federal's instruction on residents and non-residents (Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002, in its current consolidated text), the 2026 instruction that moved this year's deadline, a 2026 ruling of the Receita on what the departure communication does and does not do, the instruction on the CPF, and the federal government's own service pages.

Leaving Brazil in one answer

In my reading, the "Brazil exit tax" is two filings. Leaving for good, file the CSDP by the last day of the following February (the Receita bars late filing), or stay resident 12 consecutive months. Temporary absences: non-resident after 12 consecutive months. The DSDP covers the year you left (temporary: non-residence year), plus tax: 2025's was due May 29, 2026.

Two things in that table are where most of the advice online goes wrong. The February deadline has no "business day" in it — the text says the last day of the month. And the DSDP deadline is not "April 30": the instruction sets the last business day of April and then, every year since 2020, a new instruction has moved it; in 2026 it moved to May 29. The rest of this article is the why, and what follows from each line.

Is there a Brazil exit tax?

The phrase "Brazil exit tax" is used in search results and in AI summaries for two different things. One is a tax charged because you leave — a tax on the increase in value of what you own, as if you had sold it on the day you left. The other is the formal exit from Brazil's income tax system: the filings that end your status as a Brazilian tax resident. When people ask about the Brazil exit tax, they almost always need the second.

On the first, I state only what I read. In the instruction that governs leaving Brazil, Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002, I found no provision that taxes, on departure, a gain you have not realized on what you keep. Its only rule on a resident's capital gains (article 14) is about selling or cashing in, not about leaving. What the instruction does on departure is close a tax year early: the final return covers the months you were a resident, and article 9, § 3, says how the tax is computed — o imposto é apurado mediante a utilização dos valores da tabela progressiva mensal, vigente no ano-calendário da saída, multiplicados pelo número de meses em que o contribuinte tenha permanecido na condição de residente no Brasil — with the monthly progressive table in force in the year of departure, multiplied by the number of months you were a resident. That is a tax on income of the resident months, not a charge for leaving.

On the second, Brazil does require something, and the Receita's own page on the final return lists it in four lines. If you are leaving Brazil or have become a non-resident, you must: Comunicar a saída definitiva do país; Declarar o imposto de renda em razão da saída definitiva do país; Pagar o imposto de renda em quota única; e Avisar sua fonte pagadora para fazer a retenção do imposto de renda. — communicate the definitive departure, file the income tax return for the departure, pay the tax in a single installment, and tell your paying source to withhold the tax. The communication is the CSDP (Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País); the return is the DSDP (Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País). Everything that people call the Brazil exit tax lives inside those four lines.

The instrument. Before you book the flight, write down two dates: the day you leave, and whether you are leaving for good or for a while. Every deadline in this article is counted from one of them.

Tax residency: who is a resident, and when it ends

Brazil taxes its residents on worldwide income and its non-residents only on Brazilian-source income. So the whole question of leaving Brazil is a question of tax residency — of the exact day on which you stop being a resident. Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002 answers it in two articles: article 2 lists who is a resident, article 3 who is not. One group keeps its residence: a person who goes abroad to work as a salaried employee of an autarchy or office of the Brazilian government situated abroad remains a resident (article 2, II, and article 12) — though article 12 excludes employees of state-owned and mixed-capital companies on the company's own business abroad, and local hires of diplomatic missions —, and the exit rules below are not written for them. For everyone else leaving, the decisive line of article 2 is item V, in the wording it has had since 2010:

Art. 2° Considera-se residente no Brasil, a pessoa física: […] V - 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.

Article 2. A natural person is considered resident in Brazil: […] V – who is absent from Brazil temporarily, or leaves the national territory permanently without filing the Communication of Definitive Departure from the Country referred to in article 11-A, during the first 12 (twelve) consecutive months of absence.

And article 3 gives the two moments at which a person who leaves becomes a non-resident:

Art. 3º Considera-se não-residente no Brasil, a pessoa física: […] II - que se retire em caráter permanente do território nacional, na data da saída, ressalvado o disposto no inciso V do art. 2º; […] V - que se ausente do Brasil em caráter temporário, a partir do dia seguinte àquele em que complete doze meses consecutivos de ausência.

Article 3. A natural person is considered non-resident in Brazil: […] II – who leaves the national territory permanently, on the date of departure, subject to item V of article 2; […] V – who is absent from Brazil temporarily, from the day after completing twelve consecutive months of absence.

Read together, the two articles give three paths. If you leave for good and file the CSDP, you are a non-resident on the day you leave. If you leave for good and do not file it, article 2, V, keeps you a resident for your first twelve consecutive months abroad. If you leave temporarily — a two-year contract, a master's degree, "we'll see" — you become a non-resident only on the day after you complete twelve consecutive months away. Note what decides "permanently" against "temporarily": your intention when you leave, which is a fact about you, and which the 2026 ruling discussed below says the tax authority reads against your objective circumstances.

Two numbers that appear in every search on tax residency in Brazil do not belong to this question. The 183 and 184 days are a different test, written for people who arrive in Brazil on a temporary visa: under article 2, III, "b", 2, such a person becomes a resident na data em que complete 184 dias, consecutivos ou não, de permanência no Brasil, dentro de um período de até doze meses — on the date they complete 184 days of presence, consecutive or not, within a period of up to twelve months. That count is the subject of the firm's articles on the digital nomad visa and day 184 and on the investor visa and tax residency. Someone leaving Brazil is governed by the twelve consecutive months of articles 2, V, and 3, V — not by a 183-day count.

Coming back is the mirror image. A Brazilian who became a non-resident and returns to Brazil com ânimo definitivo — intending to stay — is a resident again na data da chegada, on the date of arrival (article 2, IV). And article 4 locks each status in place until one of the listed events happens: dar-se-á o retorno à condição anterior somente quando ocorrer qualquer das hipóteses previstas nos arts. 2º ou 3º — you return to the previous status only when one of the cases of articles 2 or 3 occurs.

The 12-month rule if you do not file the CSDP

Most people who are leaving Brazil have never heard of the CSDP, and the twelve-month rule is what happens to them. The rule is short: if you leave for good without filing the communication, Brazil keeps treating you as a resident for your first 12 consecutive months of absence. The federal service page for the communication states the consequence in the plainest terms: a non-resident is someone who sai em caráter permanente do Brasil, na data da saída, ou após ter decorrido 12 meses consecutivos de ausência, no caso de não ter feito a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País. — leaves Brazil permanently, on the date of departure, or after 12 consecutive months of absence have elapsed, if the Communication was not made. Article 10, § 2, below, speaks of leaving without the communication and without the return; how the Receita's questions-and-answers publication treats a DSDP filed without a CSDP is discussed in the DSDP section.

What being a resident for those twelve months means is written in article 10, § 2, for the person who leaves without either filing, and in article 11, § 1, to which it refers:

§ 2º Caso a pessoa física se retire em caráter permanente do território nacional sem apresentar a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País, de que trata o art. 11-A, nem a Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País, de que trata o art. 9º, seus rendimentos serão tributados nos termos previstos no § 1º do art. 11 durante os primeiros 12 (doze) meses, contados a partir da data da saída, e, a partir do 13º (décimo terceiro) mês, conforme o disposto nos arts. 26 a 45.

§ 1° Os rendimentos recebidos nos primeiros doze meses consecutivos de ausência: I - de fontes situadas no Brasil são tributados como os rendimentos recebidos pelos demais residentes no Brasil; II - de fontes situadas no exterior sujeitam-se à tributação no Brasil nos termos previstos nos arts. 14 a 16, 19 e 20.

Article 10, § 2. If the individual leaves the national territory permanently without filing the Communication of Definitive Departure referred to in article 11-A, or the Declaration of Definitive Departure referred to in article 9, their income will be taxed as provided in § 1 of article 11 during the first 12 (twelve) months, counted from the date of departure, and, from the 13th (thirteenth) month, as provided in articles 26 to 45. Article 11, § 1. Income received in the first twelve consecutive months of absence: I – from sources in Brazil is taxed like the income of other residents in Brazil; II – from sources abroad is subject to tax in Brazil as provided in articles 14 to 16, 19 and 20.

Item II is the expensive one. Among the provisions it lists, article 16 puts a foreign salary under the monthly carnê-leão and the annual return; for financial investments and entities abroad, Law 14,754/2023 must also be checked, and this article does not cover it. So in practice, the person who moved to take a job abroad and filed nothing is, for Brazil, a resident earning a foreign salary for a year — a salary on which the monthly Brazilian computation was due, with credit for foreign tax only where article 16, § 1, allows it, that is, under a treaty or reciprocity and provided the tax is not refunded or offset abroad. From the thirteenth month, the regime turns to the non-residents' one, taxed at source (articles 26 to 45).

Three precisions keep this rule from being misread.

The months must be consecutive. The text says doze meses consecutivos in article 3, V, and 12 (doze) meses consecutivos de ausência in article 2, V. On my reading, a return to Brazil in the middle breaks the run, and the twelve consecutive months are counted again from the next departure — so, on that reading, a person who comes home for a long stay every year can remain a resident on paper year after year.

The count is not the whole test. Article 3, V, reads mechanically: twelve consecutive months of temporary absence, and non-residence starts the next day. The 2026 ruling discussed in the next section, however, says in general terms that non-residence requires definitive intent, read against your objective circumstances; where those still tie you to Brazil — in its case, a public servant still in office in Brazil — counting months may not be enough.

The rule does not cancel the filings. For the person who leaves temporarily and stays, article 11 requires the DSDP no ano-calendário da caracterização da condição de não-residente — for the calendar year in which non-residence is characterized —, and article 11-A, II, opens the communication window on that date. For the person who leaves for good, article 9, I, ties the DSDP to o ano-calendário da saída, the year of departure, and the Receita's 2026 questions-and-answers publication keeps that year even for someone who filed neither the communication nor the return (see the DSDP section). The federal service page puts both cases in one sentence: the return is due no ano seguinte à saída definitiva (ou da data da caracterização da condição de não-residente) — in the year after the definitive departure, or after the date on which non-resident status was characterized.

A worked example. You leave Brazil in March 2025 on a two-year contract, intending to come back. You complete twelve consecutive months abroad in March 2026 and become a non-resident on the following day (how the day of departure itself is counted is not stated in the texts I read). Your CSDP window runs from that day to the last day of February 2027; your DSDP is the return for calendar year 2026, covering January 2026 up to the start of non-residence, filed in 2027 by that year's deadline. Your 2025 is an ordinary resident's year, reported in the regular annual return filed in 2026 if you are required to file one.

The CSDP: the definitive departure communication, and its February deadline

The CSDP is a short online form on the Receita Federal's dedicated system, at csdp.receita.fazenda.gov.br; the federal service page asks for the CPF number, the receipt number of the last income tax return filed, the voter registration number and the dependents' identification, and says Este serviço é gratuito para o cidadão. — the service is free. The rule behind it is article 11-A, added in 2010:

Art. 11-A. A pessoa física residente no Brasil que se retire do território nacional deve apresentar a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País:

I - a partir da data da saída e até o último dia do mês de fevereiro do ano-calendário subsequente, se esta ocorreu em caráter permanente; ou

II - a partir da data da caracterização da condição de não-residente e até o último dia do mês de fevereiro do ano-calendário subsequente, se a saída ocorreu em caráter temporário.

§ 1º A Comunicação de que trata o caput não dispensa a apresentação da Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País de que tratam os arts. 9º e 11.

§ 2º Os dependentes, inscritos no CPF, que se retirem do território nacional na mesma data do titular da Comunicação de que trata o caput devem constar desta.

Article 11-A. A resident individual who leaves the national territory must file the Communication of Definitive Departure from the Country: I – from the date of departure until the last day of February of the following calendar year, if the departure was permanent; or II – from the date on which non-resident status is characterized until the last day of February of the following calendar year, if the departure was temporary. § 1. The Communication does not dispense with filing the Declaration of Definitive Departure referred to in articles 9 and 11. § 2. Dependents registered in the CPF who leave the national territory on the same date as the holder of the Communication must be included in it.

Four things follow from the text.

It is the last day of February — not the last business day. Summaries of this rule add a "business day" to it. The article says até o último dia do mês de fevereiro, and so do the federal service page and the Receita's monthly tax calendar for October 2026. The only "business day of February" in the whole instruction is in article 21, about a list sent by international organizations — not about the CSDP. For a permanent departure in 2026, the window closes on February 28, 2027.

The window opens on the departure date, not before. The communication is filed a partir da data da saída — from the date of departure. It is an online form, so it can be filed after you have left.

Your dependents go in it. A spouse or child with a CPF who leaves on the same date is listed in your communication (§ 2).

It does not replace the return. Paragraph 1 says so, and the service page repeats it in words that leave no room: the communication does not dispense with o envio da Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País […] Essa obrigatoriedade independe de ter ou não apresentado a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País; — the filing of the DSDP; that obligation exists whether or not you filed the CSDP.

Is the CSDP mandatory? Article 11-A says the resident who leaves "deve" — must — file it, and the federal service page puts it as an obligation: Essa comunicação é obrigatória se você está saindo do Brasil de forma definitiva ou se deixou o país em caráter temporário e passou à condição de não residente. — this communication is mandatory if you are leaving Brazil definitively, or if you left the country temporarily and became a non-resident. What the instruction attaches to not filing it is not a fine: article 13, the penalty article, names the returns of articles 9 and 11, not the communication of article 11-A. For a person who leaves for good, the consequence is the twelve-month rule of the previous section. That is the honest way to put it — the CSDP is required, and what a person leaving for good loses under article 2, V, by skipping it is the right to stop being a resident on the day they leave.

And what the CSDP is not: a switch that makes you a non-resident by itself. A ruling of the Receita's 4th Region taxation division, published in the Official Gazette on April 22, 2026 and tied to a 2024 ruling of the Receita's central taxation office (Cosit), said so in its summary:

Para ser considerado como não residente, o contribuinte deve retirar-se do Brasil com «animus» definitivo, conforme os elementos definidos pela legislação. A mera saída do território nacional não é condição suficiente para caracterizar a perda do estatuto de residente fiscal no Brasil, exigindo-se que o afastamento seja acompanhado da intenção do contribuinte de fixar-se no estrangeiro de modo permanente, cuja análise deve ser realizada à luz das condições objetivas em que ele se encontra e do contexto legal. O contribuinte que se retirar em caráter permanente deverá apresentar à Administração Tributária a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País (CSDP), que possui natureza meramente declaratória, não sendo capaz de caracterizar, de per si, o estatuto de não residente do declarante.

To be considered a non-resident, the taxpayer must leave Brazil with definitive intent, according to the elements defined by law. Merely leaving the national territory is not sufficient to characterize the loss of tax-resident status in Brazil; the departure must be accompanied by the taxpayer's intention to settle abroad permanently, which is assessed in light of the taxpayer's objective circumstances and the legal context. A taxpayer who leaves permanently must file the Communication of Definitive Departure (CSDP) with the tax administration, which is merely declaratory in nature and cannot, by itself, characterize the declarant's status as a non-resident.

The case behind it was specific — a public servant still holding a post in Brazil who moved to a neighboring country and was held to remain a resident —, and I do not stretch it beyond what its summary says. But the sentence on the CSDP is general, and it is the point that the search results miss: the communication declares a fact; it does not create it. If your life is still organized in Brazil, a form will not make you a non-resident.

The DSDP: which year, which deadline

The DSDP — the Declaration of Definitive Departure — is an income tax return, filed with the same program as the regular annual return, covering the part of the year in which you were a Brazilian tax resident. Two articles of Instruction 208 create it: article 9 for the permanent departure and article 11 for the temporary absence that becomes non-residence. The second is the one that decides the year:

Art. 11. A pessoa física que se ausente do território nacional em caráter temporário e permaneça no exterior por mais de 12 (doze) meses consecutivos deve, observado o disposto no art. 11-A:

I - apresentar a Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País, relativa ao período em que tenha permanecido na condição de residente no Brasil no ano-calendário da caracterização da condição de não-residente, até o último dia útil do mês de abril do ano-calendário subsequente ao da caracterização;

§ 9º O prazo para a apresentação da declaração e para o recolhimento do imposto e dos demais créditos tributários de que tratam, respectivamente, os incisos I e II do caput, originalmente fixado para até 30 de abril de 2026, fica prorrogado para até 29 de maio de 2026.

Article 11. An individual who is absent from the national territory temporarily and stays abroad for more than 12 (twelve) consecutive months must, subject to article 11-A: I – file the Declaration of Definitive Departure from the Country, covering the period in which they remained a resident of Brazil in the calendar year in which non-resident status was characterized, by the last business day of April of the calendar year following the characterization; […] § 9. The deadline for filing the return and for paying the tax and other tax credits referred to, respectively, in items I and II of the head of this article, originally set for April 30, 2026, is extended to May 29, 2026.

Article 9 has the same structure for the permanent departure — the return covers o período em que tenha permanecido na condição de residente no Brasil no ano-calendário da saída, the resident period of the year of departure, due by the last business day of April of the next year — and its own § 17, also added by Normative Instruction RFB 2,312 of March 13, 2026, moved this year's deadline to May 29, 2026, in the same words. So:

• Which year. The year of departure, if you left for good — with or without the CSDP, in the Receita's 2026 questions-and-answers publication (below). The year in which non-residence is characterized — the year of the day after your twelfth consecutive month abroad — if you left temporarily.
• Which deadline. The base text says the last business day of April of the next year. Every year since 2020 a new instruction has moved it: the consolidated text carries one extension per year, from June 30, 2020 to May 30, 2025 and, for 2026, May 29. For a departure (or a characterization of non-residence) in 2025, the DSDP was due on May 29, 2026 — not April 30. The Receita's 2026 questions-and-answers publication and its monthly tax calendars print the deadline as the last business day of May; the instruction itself keeps April and extends it year by year. For a departure in 2026, the deadline in 2027 is the one the Receita sets for that year; check the current instruction before relying on any date, including the ones in this article.
• Earlier years. Article 9, I, adds bem como as declarações correspondentes a anos-calendário anteriores, se obrigatórias e ainda não entregues — the returns for earlier years, if they were required and are still missing. The DSDP does not close a past that is open.

The Receita's IRPF 2026 questions-and-answers publication (version 1.00, April 23, 2026), question 126, sets out the three routes by time elapsed and defines the year that counts:

Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País – CSDP: até o último dia de fevereiro do ano seguinte ao ano de saída* (não é mais possível a apresentação da CSDP após esse prazo); e […] *Ano de saída: será o ano em que a pessoa deixou o Brasil em caráter definitivo ou, no caso de saída inicialmente temporária, o ano da caracterização da não residência (após 12 meses consecutivos de ausência).

situação: o contribuinte não apresentou a CSDP nem a DSDP nos respectivos prazos, mas ainda não foi ultrapassado o limite decadencial […] transmitir apenas a DSDP, que é suficiente para regularizar a situação (não é mais possível apresentar a CSDP); Exemplo: saída definitiva em 2023 => deve ser apresentada a DSDP do exercício de 2024

Communication of Definitive Departure – CSDP: by the last day of February of the year following the year of departure* (the CSDP can no longer be filed after that deadline); and […] *Year of departure: the year in which the person left Brazil permanently or, in the case of an initially temporary departure, the year in which non-residence is characterized (after 12 consecutive months of absence). Situation: the taxpayer filed neither the CSDP nor the DSDP within their deadlines, but the limitation period has not yet run […] file only the DSDP, which is enough to regularize the situation (the CSDP can no longer be filed); Example: definitive departure in 2023 => the DSDP of the 2024 filing year must be filed [the publication adds: calendar year 2023].

So, for the Receita, a person who left for good in 2023 and filed nothing owes the DSDP for calendar year 2023 — the year of departure —, even though article 2, V, treats that person as a resident during the first twelve consecutive months abroad; the same publication, in question 115, II, also lists as a non-resident the person who leaves permanently na data da saída, com a entrega da Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País ou da Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País — on the date of departure, upon filing the DSDP or the CSDP —, while its question 125 and article 2, V, keep a person who left for good without the CSDP a resident for 12 months. The publication does not reconcile the two, and article 10, § 2, applies the twelve months to whoever filed neither the communication nor the return; I do not try to reconcile them here. What goes in the DSDP follows the residents' rules for the months in which you were one, with one difference that catches people who file the regular return every year. The regular annual return allows a simplified discount — Instruction 2,312 grants it, in article 3, na Declaração de Ajuste Anual, in the annual return. The DSDP has its own list of deductions, in article 9, § 4 of Instruction 208: court-ordered alimony, the allowance per dependent, contributions to Brazilian social security and, within limits, to private pension plans, medical and education expenses, and the expenses of a self-employed person's cash book. The simplified discount is not on that list, and the words "desconto simplificado" do not appear anywhere in Instruction 208; the Receita's 2026 questions-and-answers publication says it outright: Não há a possibilidade de opção pelo desconto simplificado na DSDP. In the DSDP you deduct what you can document, under the rules for each item, and the tax is computed with the monthly table multiplied by the resident months (§ 3).

Paying what the DSDP computes

The tax computed in the DSDP is paid at once. Article 9, II — and article 11, II, in identical words — requires you to

II - recolher em quota única, até a data prevista para a entrega das declarações de que trata o inciso I, o imposto nelas apurado e os demais créditos tributários ainda não quitados, cujos prazos para pagamento são considerados vencidos nesta data, se prazo menor não estiver estipulado na legislação tributária.

II – pay in a single installment, by the date set for filing the returns referred to in item I, the tax computed in them and any other tax credits not yet settled, whose payment deadlines are deemed to fall due on that date, unless a shorter deadline is set in the tax legislation.

Two parts of that sentence matter. First, "quota única": the tax of the departure return is paid in a single installment. Second, and almost never mentioned: os demais créditos tributários ainda não quitados — other tax credits not yet settled — are deemed to fall due on that same date. On my reading, an open tax debt does not wait for its own schedule once you leave Brazil; how that applies to a specific debt is checked in each file. Article 9, § 1, adds that complaints against income tax assessed or collected at source do not suspend that collection, though a cash deposit of the disputed part is allowed.

If the DSDP shows no balance to pay — because the tax withheld at source already covers the tax due — there is nothing to pay, but the return is still due, and a late return is fined under article 13, I, on the tax due. The tax due is the tax the return computes, not the balance: in the Receita's question 121, o imposto devido é calculado mediante a utilização dos valores correspondentes à soma das tabelas progressivas mensais — the tax due is computed with the sum of the monthly progressive tables for the resident months. Only a return with no tax due at all falls under the R$ 165.74 of item II.

Late or missing: the penalty, and the way back

The penalty for a late or missing departure return is in Instruction 208 itself, and it has two bands, not one number:

Art. 13. A falta de apresentação das declarações a que se referem os arts. 9º e 11 ou a sua apresentação após o prazo fixado sujeita o contribuinte às seguintes penalidades:

I - existindo imposto devido, multa de um por cento ao mês ou fração de atraso calculada sobre o valor do imposto devido, observados os limites mínimo de R$ 165,74 (cento e sessenta e cinco reais e setenta e quatro centavos) e máximo de vinte por cento do valor do imposto devido; ou

II - não existindo imposto devido, multa de R$ 165,74 (cento e sessenta e cinco reais e setenta e quatro centavos).

Article 13. Failure to file the returns referred to in articles 9 and 11, or filing them after the deadline, subjects the taxpayer to the following penalties: I – where tax is due, a fine of one percent per month or fraction of delay on the amount of tax due, subject to a minimum of R$ 165.74 and a maximum of twenty percent of the tax due; or II – where no tax is due, a fine of R$ 165.74.

So "the DSDP fine is R$ 165.74" is true only for a return with no tax due. With tax due, the fine is 1% of the tax for each month or part of a month of delay, never below R$ 165.74 and never above 20% of the tax: on R$ 10,000 of tax, it runs from R$ 165.74 up to R$ 2,000. The fine is on the return; the late payment of the tax itself is a separate matter, which this article does not compute.

Notice also what article 13 does not name: the communication of article 11-A. I found no fine for a late CSDP in Instruction 208. Missing it has a cost of another kind: without a timely CSDP, article 2, V, keeps a person who left for good a resident for up to the first 12 consecutive months of absence; and, in the Receita's 2026 questions-and-answers publication, the communication can no longer be filed after its February deadline.

The way back depends on how long ago you left, and the Receita's question 126, quoted above, draws the lines. Before the DSDP deadline, the route is the DSDP filed on time, with no fine under article 13. Once that deadline has passed but within the limitation period, the route is the late DSDP alone, with the fine of article 13 — the publication says the CSDP can no longer be filed. After it, the publication says as obrigações fiscais, regra geral, estão extintas pela decadência, não sendo mais possível enviar as declarações — tax obligations are, as a rule, extinguished by the limitation period and the returns can no longer be sent —, and the person regularizes only the CPF, by email. Where the date of departure is disputed, I assess case by case, from the evidence of when the person actually left. The publication's threshold for that CPF-only route is mais de 5 anos após a data da caracterização da saída — more than five years after the date the departure was characterized; the federal service page describes an email route too, with its own wording: if you became a non-resident há mais de 6 anos e não fez a comunicação — more than six years ago and did not communicate it —, you send the documents to the Receita's email address for people abroad, cpf.residente.exterior@rfb.gov.br, with a photo ID, a selfie holding it and a simple statement of the date you left. How a retroactive exit is organized, step by step, is in the firm's Portuguese guide to the saída fiscal retroativa (in Portuguese).

After leaving Brazil: what Brazil still taxes, your CPF and your accounts

Leaving Brazil ends your worldwide-income status; it does not end your Brazilian tax life. Article 10 says that income from Brazilian sources received by a person who leaves for good sujeitam-se à tributação exclusiva na fonte ou definitiva, nos termos previstos nos arts. 26 a 45, a partir da data da saída definitiva do País — is subject to exclusive or definitive taxation at source, under articles 26 to 45, from the date of definitive departure —, and its § 1 adds that a pessoa física deve comunicar à fonte pagadora a data da saída definitiva do Brasil — you must inform the paying source of the date of definitive departure.

The duty to tell the payer is yours, and article 3, § 2, says how: the non-resident who receives Brazilian-source income deve comunicar à fonte pagadora tal condição, por escrito — must inform the paying source of that status, in writing. Until the bank, the tenant, the company or the pension fund knows, it keeps treating you as a resident. The rates themselves — rent, interest, dividends, pensions, capital gains on a sale of Brazilian property — are set out income by income, with their articles and payment codes, in the firm's guide to non-resident taxation in Brazil. I do not repeat them here. If you will keep a Brazilian property rented, who answers for the withholding is explained in the procurador's liability for rental income; if you will sell it, see selling property in Brazil as a non-resident.

Your CPF stays. If you are a foreigner aged sixteen or over with an address abroad, you must also update the CPF every year in the Receita's app (Normative Instruction RFB 2,172/2024, article 23-A); skipping it can lead to suspension and, ninety days after the suspension is communicated, to cancellation (articles 12 and 13, § 3). The step-by-step is in the firm's article on the CPF for foreigners. Leaving Brazil is not among the causes of cancellation the CPF instruction lists — multiple registration, an administrative decision or a court order (article 2, IV) —, and a non-resident often needs the number: Instruction 208, article 5, says é obrigatória a inscrição no Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF) de não-residente que possua no Brasil bens e direitos sujeitos a registro público — enrollment in the CPF is mandatory for a non-resident who owns in Brazil assets and rights subject to public registration, with real property, vehicles, equity interests, bank accounts and investments on its list. Nor does your CPF acquire a "non-resident status", whatever some summaries say. The CPF instruction, Normative Instruction RFB 2,172/2024, lists six statuses a registration can have: "Regular", "Pendente de Regularização", "Suspensa", "Cancelada", "Titular Falecido" and "Nula" (article 2). Non-residence is not one of them. The second status, pending regularization, is tied by article 2, II, to omissão na entrega de DIRPF, na hipótese de sua obrigatoriedade — a missing annual return (DIRPF) that was required; a person who left without the exit filings and stopped filing can end up there, and the same instruction lists the DSDP, filed even late, as one of the ways out:

Art. 11. A pessoa física regularizará a situação cadastral "Pendente de Regularização" mediante a apresentação, ainda que em atraso: I - da DIRPF a que estava obrigada; ou II - da Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País.

Article 11. The individual shall regularize the "Pending Regularization" status by filing, even late: I – the annual income tax return (DIRPF) they were required to file; or II – the Declaration of Definitive Departure from the Country.

Paragraph 2 of that article adds the obvious: regularization comes sem prejuízo da exigência do imposto que for devido e da imposição das penalidades cabíveis — without prejudice to the tax due and the applicable penalties. What each CPF status means in practice, and what a foreign holder must do every year, is in the firm's article on the CPF for foreigners.

Your accounts and your money. What happens to a Brazilian bank account when its holder lives abroad is the subject of the non-resident bank account in Brazil, which also traces how the "CDE account" that many guides still mention ceased to exist as a regulatory category on the last day of 2022; moving money out after leaving Brazil, and how the foreign-exchange test of residence compares with the tax one, of getting money out of Brazil.

Common mistakes when leaving Brazil

1. Counting business days in February. The deadline is the last day of February, with no business-day rule. In a year in which February 28 falls on a weekend, a person counting business days works to the wrong date.
2. Assuming the DSDP is due on April 30. That is the base text. For returns filed in 2026 (departures, or characterizations of non-residence, in 2025) the deadline was May 29, and it has been extended every year since 2020 — one year's date is not next year's.
3. Filing the CSDP and stopping there. The communication does not dispense with the return (article 11-A, § 1). The person who filed in February and forgot the DSDP has a missing return and a fine under article 13.
4. Counting 183 days. That number belongs to people arriving on a temporary visa. Someone leaving is governed by twelve consecutive months.
5. Treating the CSDP as a switch. Under the 2026 ruling above, the communication is declaratory. If your job, your home and your family are still in Brazil, the form does not make you a non-resident.
6. Forgetting the payers. Without written notice of your status, a Brazilian payer keeps withholding as if you were a resident (articles 3, § 2, and 10, § 1).
7. Planning to pay in installments. The DSDP balance is due in a single installment, and other unsettled tax credits are deemed due on the same date — on my reading, that includes an open tax debt.
8. Leaving the dependents out. A spouse or child with a CPF who leaves on the same day goes in your communication (article 11-A, § 2).

How I handle leaving Brazil for clients: a checklist

I start from the same three facts in every file — the date the client left or will leave, whether the departure is permanent or temporary, and what the client still owns or earns in Brazil — and the rest follows a short list.

1. Fix the date and the kind of departure. Tickets, the new contract, the lease abroad, the end of the Brazilian lease: the evidence of when, and with what intention, you left. Under the 2026 ruling, intention is read against your objective circumstances.
2. Work out the date of non-residence and the DSDP year. Leaving for good: non-resident on the departure date with the CSDP, or after twelve consecutive months without it, and the DSDP of the year of departure. Leaving temporarily: non-resident the day after twelve consecutive months, and the DSDP of that year.
3. File the CSDP in its window. From the departure (or from non-residence) until the last day of the following February, with the dependents who left on the same date.
4. Check the earlier years. Any missing annual return goes in with the DSDP (article 9, I).
5. Prepare the DSDP under its own rules. The resident months only, the monthly table times those months, the deductions of article 9, § 4, and no simplified discount.
6. Settle everything by the deadline. The DSDP tax in a single installment and, on my reading of articles 9 and 11, II, any other unsettled tax credit, deemed due the same day.
7. Notify the payers in writing. Bank, tenant or attorney-in-fact, company, pension fund — each receives a written statement of non-resident status before the next payment.
8. Diarize the CPF. The CPF stays; check its status before any act in Brazil that depends on it, and, for a foreigner aged sixteen or over with an address abroad, make the annual update in the Receita's app (article 23-A).

What I do not do is promise results. Residency is decided by facts and by the Receita Federal, deadlines are reset every year, and each file starts from its own dates. My job is to make sure the filings say what happened, on time, under the rule in force that year. How the firm works with clients who are already abroad is in hiring a Brazilian lawyer from abroad.

Carvalho Barros Advocacia Internacional handles leaving Brazil for Brazilians and foreigners who were tax residents in Brazil — a Brazilian practice serving clients in more than 30 countries. Written communication with the firm is in English; meetings are conducted with an interpreter at no cost to the client. 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 filing, regularization or other act before the Receita Federal (Brazilian Bar Provision OAB No. 205/2021). The provisions supporting it — Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002 in the consolidated text in force in the Receita's rules database, with the wording given or added by Normative Instructions RFB 1,008/2010 and 2,312/2026; Normative Instruction RFB 2,312/2026; Solução de Consulta Disit/SRRF04 No. 4,010/2026, read in the Official Gazette; Executive Declaratory Act Corat No. 78/2026, the Receita's tax calendar for October 2026; the Receita Federal's IRPF 2026 questions and answers (version 1.00, April 23, 2026), questions 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 125 and 126; Normative Instruction RFB 2,172/2024 in its consolidated text; the federal service page for the definitive departure communication (last modified July 21, 2026); and the Receita Federal's pages on the DSDP (updated November 21, 2025), on residents and non-residents (October 21, 2025), on how to file (March 7, 2022) and on the taxation of non-residents (May 4, 2023) — were checked against official sources on October 2, 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; the English is the author's working translation, and the Portuguese is the only authoritative version. Method caveats and declared limits. (i) No act amending the deadlines or the procedure after Normative Instruction RFB 2,312/2026 was found in the instruction's amendment history or in a search of the Official Gazette from March 16 to October 2, 2026. (ii) The DSDP deadline is extended year by year; only the 2026 date is stated, and readers should check the instruction for the current year. The instruction keeps the last business day of April and extends it by paragraph; the Receita's 2026 questions and answers and monthly calendars print the last business day of May. (iii) The statement that the instruction contains no tax on unrealized gains on departure is the result of reading Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002, not an official statement, and does not cover other legislation. (iv) That a return to Brazil breaks the run of twelve consecutive months is the author's reading of the word consecutive. (v) The Solução de Consulta Cosit No. 130/2024 was not read; it is cited only as the 2026 ruling cites it, and the 2026 ruling is applied only to the extent of its summary. (vi) That a late communication can no longer be filed, and that a permanent departure's DSDP is that of the year of departure even without the communication, are stated in the Receita's questions and answers, not in the instruction; the same publication, in question 115, II, treats a permanent departure as non-residence on the date of departure upon filing the DSDP or the CSDP, while its question 125 and article 2, V, keep a person who left for good without the CSDP a resident for 12 months; it does not reconcile the two, and article 10, § 2, applies the twelve months to whoever filed neither. Only version 1.00 of the questions and answers, of April 23, 2026, was read; the Receita's questions-and-answers page listed only version 1.00 when checked on October 2, 2026. (vii) Withholding rates on Brazilian-source income, tax treaties and Law 14,754/2023 are not covered here. To review your specific case, contact attorney Luiz Barros — Brazilian Bar, OAB/AL 7.530.