Non-Resident Taxation in Brazil: Why “15%” and “25%” Are Both Right — the Rules by Type of Income, With the Provisions Beside Them

Published September 4, 2026.

Non-resident taxation in Brazil has one structure and no single rate: Brazil taxes a non-resident only on Brazilian-source income, exclusively at source, with no annual return — and the rate belongs to the type of income, not to the person. Fifteen percent is the default; twenty-five percent applies to work and services, and to anyone living in a listed low-tax jurisdiction; rent, capital gains, pensions and dividends each have a rule of their own. Two English-language pages that circulate widely put it as "a flat rate of 15%" and as "25%". Both are right — about different provisions. Neither says which.

That is the whole problem with non-resident taxation in Brazil as it circulates in English: the numbers are usually correct and the rule that connects them is almost never printed. Non-resident taxation in Brazil does not work by "a rate". Brazil taxes non-residents at source, under a regime with a default of 15%, a set of exceptions by type of income, a second set of exceptions by where the recipient lives, and three places where an official text still prints a rule the law has already changed. This article lays that regime out, provision by provision, with the Portuguese text beside a working translation and a link to the official source, and points you to the firm's detailed pieces where one type of income deserves its own article.

What this article is not: a treaty guide (Brazil has roughly three dozen conventions and this text reads none of them for you), a guide to becoming a Brazilian tax resident (that is the investor-visa and tax-residency article), or a substitute for the four pieces it organizes — on investing, selling property, rental income and buying property. It is the map those four hang from.

Two numbers, one rule: why "15%" and "25%" are both correct

Start with the question those two pages could not answer. In Brazilian law the rate applied to a non-resident is not a property of the person; it is a property of the income — and, in one important case, of the country the person lives in. The Income Tax Regulation of 2018 (Decree 9,580, the Regulamento do Imposto sobre a Renda, RIR) devotes a chapter to income paid to residents abroad, and that chapter has a shape: a general rule at 15% that applies "when there is no specific taxation provided in this Chapter", followed by the specific rules — 25% for employment income and services, 15% for technical services and royalties, 15% for rent computed on a net base, the residents' progressive table for capital gains, and, cutting across all of them, 25% for any payment whose recipient lives in a jurisdiction Brazil treats as low-tax.

So "15%" is the default and "25%" is the exception that most individuals meet first, because the first Brazilian income most foreigners receive is salary or fees. A page that publishes one number without the other is not wrong; it is describing one room of the house. The sections below walk the rooms in the order the rules are written, and the table puts them side by side with the article, the payment code and the person who withholds. Two definitions first, because everything else depends on them: who counts as a non-resident for the source that pays you, and what "exclusively at source" changes about your obligations.

Who is a non-resident for the source that pays you

The Regulation answers this from the payer's side. Article 741 lists who is subject to withholding at source on Brazilian-source income, and the list is longer than "foreigners":

Art. 741. Ficam sujeitos à incidência do imposto sobre a renda na fonte, observado o disposto neste Capítulo, a renda e os proventos de qualquer natureza provenientes de fontes situadas no País, quando percebidos: I - pelas pessoas físicas ou jurídicas residentes ou domiciliadas no exterior […]; II - pelos residentes no País que estiverem ausentes no exterior por período superior a doze meses […]; III - pela pessoa física proveniente do exterior, com visto temporário […]; e IV - pela pessoa física residente no País que passar à condição de não residente, a partir da data de caracterização da nova condição […]. Parágrafo único. O imposto sobre a renda incidirá no momento do pagamento, do crédito, da entrega, do emprego ou da remessa dos rendimentos, o que ocorrer primeiro […].

Article 741. Income and earnings of any nature from sources located in the Country are subject to withholding income tax, subject to the provisions of this Chapter, when received: I - by individuals or legal entities resident or domiciled abroad […]; II - by residents of the Country who are absent abroad for a period exceeding twelve months […]; III - by an individual arriving from abroad on a temporary visa […]; and IV - by an individual resident in the Country who becomes a non-resident, from the date the new status is characterized […]. Sole paragraph. The income tax shall be levied at the moment of payment, credit, delivery, use or remittance of the income, whichever occurs first […].

Three consequences are packed into that provision. The first is that the trigger is the payment, not the year: the tax falls due at the moment the source pays, credits or remits, whichever comes first — there is no April to wait for. The second is that a Brazilian who moved abroad is in the same list as a foreigner who never lived here, and so is a foreigner on a temporary visa who has not yet crossed the residency line. The third is that the line itself is drawn elsewhere: in Normative Instruction SRF 208 of 2002, the rule the Receita Federal uses to decide who is resident. Its article 3 describes the non-resident on a temporary visa by the number most English pages quote — and its article 2, the mirror image, by the number they do not:

Art. 3º Considera-se não-residente no Brasil, a pessoa física: […] IV - que ingresse no Brasil com visto temporário: a) e permaneça até 183 dias, consecutivos ou não, em um período de até doze meses; b) até o dia anterior ao da obtenção de visto permanente ou de vínculo empregatício, se ocorrida antes de completar 184 dias, consecutivos ou não, de permanência no Brasil, dentro de um período de até doze meses; V - que se ausente do Brasil em caráter temporário, a partir do dia seguinte àquele em que complete doze meses consecutivos de ausência. […] § 2º A pessoa física não-residente que receba rendimentos de fonte situada no Brasil deve comunicar à fonte pagadora tal condição, por escrito, para que seja feita a retenção do imposto de renda, observado o disposto nos arts. 35 a 45.

Article 3. The following individuals are considered non-resident in Brazil: […] IV - one who enters Brazil on a temporary visa: a) and stays up to 183 days, consecutive or not, within a period of up to twelve months; b) until the day before obtaining a permanent visa or an employment relationship, if that occurs before completing 184 days, consecutive or not, of presence in Brazil within a period of up to twelve months; V - one who leaves Brazil temporarily, from the day after completing twelve consecutive months of absence. […] § 2. A non-resident individual who receives income from a source located in Brazil must inform the paying source of that status, in writing, so that the income tax is withheld, subject to articles 35 to 45.

Read the two numbers together and the "183 days" of the guides resolves itself: staying up to 183 days keeps you a non-resident; completing 184 makes you a resident (article 2, III, "b", 2 — and the same article makes the holder of a permanent visa a resident on the day of arrival, and the temporary-visa holder with a Brazilian employment contract a resident on arrival too). That boundary, the way the twelve-month window restarts, and what happens to an investor who mis-counts it are the subject of the investor-visa article, and I will not repeat it here. Two things belong here instead.

The first is paragraph 2, which almost nobody quotes: the duty to tell the payer, in writing, that you are a non-resident is yours. A Brazilian company, bank or tenant that does not know you live abroad will apply the residents' rules, and the mistake will be yours to unwind. The second is the other side of the same instruction. A person who leaves Brazil does not become a non-resident by boarding a plane. Someone who leaves temporarily becomes one only after twelve consecutive months of absence (article 3, V); someone who leaves permanently becomes one on the date of departure — but article 2, V, keeps treating as resident the person who leaves "sem apresentar a Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País" during the first twelve months. The exit is a formal act. The Receita Federal's own 2026 questions-and-answers publication sets out the current deadlines in its question 126: the Comunicação de Saída Definitiva is due by the last day of February of the year following the departure, and the Declaração de Saída Definitiva by the last business day of May of that year, under Normative Instruction RFB 2,312 of 2026, article 16, with a late-filing penalty starting at R$ 165.74. Brazil has no "exit tax" — a phrase you will find on more than one page — but it has an exit filing, and a resident who skips it keeps being taxed on worldwide income for a year.

"Exclusively at source": the sentence that replaces the tax return

The Receita Federal describes the non-resident regime in one sentence, in question 127 of the same publication, answering what happens to a temporary-visa holder who enters and leaves the country several times:

Se não adquirir a condição de residente, os rendimentos recebidos no Brasil serão tributados de forma definitiva ou exclusiva na fonte. Caso adquira a condição de residente no País, a partir dessa data, os rendimentos recebidos de fontes situadas no território nacional ou no exterior serão tributados de acordo com as mesmas normas aplicáveis aos residentes no Brasil.

If the person does not acquire resident status, the income received in Brazil will be taxed definitively or exclusively at source. If the person acquires resident status in the Country, from that date the income received from sources located in the national territory or abroad will be taxed under the same rules applicable to residents in Brazil.

"Exclusively at source" (exclusivamente na fonte, the wording of article 35 of Normative Instruction 208) and "definitive" (definitiva, the wording used for capital gains) describe the same architecture from two angles. The tax is settled when it is withheld or paid; nothing is carried forward into an annual return; nothing is deducted; nothing is adjusted at year-end. This is why several of the better English pages are right to say that a non-resident does not file the Brazilian annual return — the Declaração de Ajuste Anual is a residents' instrument, and the Receita Federal's guidance does not offer it to non-residents. What the pages rarely add is what stands in its place, and it is three things.

A payment slip per event. Withholding is remitted on a DARF, the federal payment form, under a revenue code specific to income paid to residents abroad. The Receita Federal's withholding-tax manual, the MAFON, groups them in a chapter of their own: 0473 for employment income, services and earnings of any nature; 9478 for rent and leasing of property located in Brazil; 0422 for royalties, technical services, technical assistance and copyright; 0481 for interest and commissions in general; 5286 for financial investments of residents abroad; 9453 for interest on equity. The 2025 edition is the latest published as of this writing.

A due date that is the payment date. Article 741's sole paragraph, quoted above, fixes the moment of incidence at payment, credit, delivery, use or remittance, whichever comes first; Normative Instruction 208 says the same for its withholding chapter, in article 44: the withheld tax is paid on the date the taxable event occurs. For rent this becomes a monthly routine tied to the tenant's payment day, and the rental article explains why that single sentence produces most of the penalties in this area.

A receipt that is your only proof abroad. Because there is no return, the DARF and the payer's withholding statement are the documents you will need to claim a foreign tax credit in your own country, if your country grants one. Keep them per payment, not per year.

The 15% that is not a rate, but a default

Here is the provision behind the "flat 15%" that one of those pages quoted:

Art. 744. Os rendimentos, os ganhos de capital e os demais proventos pagos, creditados, entregues, empregados ou remetidos, por fonte situada no País, a pessoa física ou jurídica residente no exterior, ficam sujeitos à incidência na fonte, à alíquota de quinze por cento, quando não tiverem tributação específica prevista neste Capítulo […]

Article 744. Income, capital gains and other earnings paid, credited, delivered, used or remitted, by a source located in the Country, to an individual or legal entity resident abroad, are subject to withholding at source at the rate of fifteen percent, when they have no specific taxation provided in this Chapter […]

Read the last clause. Fifteen percent is the rate for what has no rule of its own. The Regulation traces it to Decree-Law 5,844 of 1943 — the statute that created the source regime for residents abroad — and to article 28 of Law 9,249 of 1995, which fixed the rate at fifteen percent from January 1996: "A alíquota do imposto de renda de que tratam o art. 77 da Lei nº 3.470, de 28 de novembro de 1958 e o art. 100 do Decreto-Lei nº 5.844, de 23 de setembro de 1943 , com as modificações posteriormente introduzidas, passa, a partir de 1º de janeiro de 1996, a ser de quinze por cento." Article 744 then lists examples that fall into the default — alimony and lump-sum benefits, prizes, and other items — and the rest of the chapter carves out everything that does not.

Two of those carve-outs share the 15% number and are often confused with the default. Rent from property in Brazil is 15% under its own article, 763, and on a net base: the sole paragraph allows the deduction, against evidence, of the expenses listed in article 42 — the point the rental article is built around. Technical services, technical assistance and administrative services are 15% under article 765, which is the exception carved out of the 25% for services that comes next. So a page that says "15%" may be describing the default, the rent rule or the technical-services rule — three provisions with three bases — and a reader cannot tell which without the article number.

The 25%: work, services — and the country you live in

The rate the other page quoted is article 746, and it is the rule most individuals meet first:

Art. 746. Os rendimentos do trabalho, com ou sem vínculo empregatício, de aposentadoria, de pensão e os rendimentos da prestação de serviços, pagos, creditados, entregues, empregados ou remetidos a residentes ou domiciliados no exterior, ficam sujeitos à incidência do imposto sobre a renda na fonte, à alíquota de vinte e cinco por cento, excepcionado, no que se refere a serviços, o disposto no art. 765 (Lei nº 9.779, de 1999, art. 7º).

Article 746. Income from work, with or without an employment relationship, from retirement, from pensions, and income from the provision of services, paid, credited, delivered, used or remitted to residents or persons domiciled abroad, is subject to withholding income tax at the rate of twenty-five percent, except, as regards services, as provided in article 765 (Law 9,779 of 1999, article 7).

The statute behind it is article 7 of Law 9,779 of 1999, in the wording given by Law 13,315 of 2016, and it says the same thing in one sentence: work, retirement, pensions and services, 25% at source. Hold on to the words "retirement" and "pensions" — the next section is about why the Regulation still prints them and the law no longer applies them. For the rest of the list the rule is intact: a salary paid by a Brazilian employer to someone who lives abroad, a director's fee, a consulting invoice paid by a Brazilian company to a freelancer in the United States, a country with no treaty with Brazil — 25% of the gross, no deductions, withheld by the payer under code 0473, unless the service is technical in nature and falls back to 15% under article 765.

There is a second 25% in the same law, and it has nothing to do with the type of income. Article 8 of Law 9,779 raises the rate on any payment to 25% when the recipient lives in a jurisdiction Brazil treats as low-tax:

Art. 8º Ressalvadas as hipóteses a que se referem os incisos V, VIII, IX, X e XI do art. 1º da Lei nº 9.481, de 1997, os rendimentos decorrentes de qualquer operação, em que o beneficiário seja residente ou domiciliado em país que não tribute a renda ou que a tribute à alíquota máxima inferior a vinte por cento, a que se refere o art. 24 da Lei nº 9.430, de 27 de dezembro de 1996, sujeitam-se à incidência do imposto de renda na fonte à alíquota de vinte e cinco por cento.

Article 8. Except for the situations referred to in items V, VIII, IX, X and XI of article 1 of Law 9,481 of 1997, income arising from any transaction in which the beneficiary is resident or domiciled in a country that does not tax income, or taxes it at a maximum rate lower than twenty percent, as referred to in article 24 of Law 9,430 of December 27, 1996, is subject to withholding income tax at the rate of twenty-five percent.

This is the provision the "25% for residents in tax haven jurisdictions" of the English summaries is pointing at, and it works by residence of the payee, not by category: the same rent that costs a resident of France 15% costs a resident of a listed jurisdiction 25%, and the investing article shows how it also changes the regime for financial investments. Two honesties about how it is applied. The threshold quoted in article 8 is "lower than twenty percent"; the provision it points to, article 24 of Law 9,430, has since been rewritten by Law 14,596 of 2023 and now reads "país que não tribute a renda ou que a tribute a alíquota máxima inferior a 17% (dezessete por cento)" — two statutes, two numbers, and I will not arbitrate between them here. In practice neither number is applied case by case: the Receita Federal publishes the list of jurisdictions it treats as low-tax in Normative Instruction RFB 1,037 of 2010, and the list, not the percentage, is what a paying source checks. The list has changed over the years, so check the current text on the Receita Federal's own site rather than any copy of it — including one in an article.

Pensions: the rule the Regulation still prints, and the rule in force

Article 746, quoted above, says 25% for "aposentadoria" and "pensão". If you receive a Brazilian pension — the public INSS benefit, or a public-servant pension — and live abroad, that is the text you will find in the Regulation and in most summaries. It is no longer the rule. In October 2024 the Supreme Federal Court held, in ARE 1,327,491 (Tema 1,174 of general repercussion, final on November 28, 2024), that applying the 25% of article 7 of Law 9,779 to retirement and pension income paid to residents abroad is unconstitutional. The Receita Federal rewrote its own instruction in December 2025:

Os rendimentos pagos, creditados, entregues, empregados ou remetidos a residentes no exterior se submetem à incidência do IRRF de forma exclusiva: I - à alíquota de 25% (vinte e cinco por cento), se oriundos do trabalho, com ou sem vínculo empregatício, e os da prestação de serviços; e II - com a aplicação das tabelas progressivas constantes do Anexo II, observada a tabela de redução constante do Anexo X, se oriundos de aposentadoria e de pensão (Parecer SEI 453/2025/MF e Parecer SEI 3465/2025/MF).

Income paid, credited, delivered, used or remitted to residents abroad is subject to withholding income tax exclusively: I - at the rate of 25% (twenty-five percent), if arising from work, with or without an employment relationship, and from the provision of services; and II - by applying the progressive tables in Annex II, observing the reduction table in Annex X, if arising from retirement and pensions (Parecer SEI 453/2025/MF and Parecer SEI 3465/2025/MF).

That is Normative Instruction RFB 1,500 of 2014, article 19, sole paragraph, in the wording of Normative Instruction RFB 2,299 of December 17, 2025. Since January 1, 2026, a Brazilian pension paid to a non-resident is withheld under the residents' monthly progressive table with the 2026 reduction table — which brings a modest benefit to zero tax at source — and not at 25%. What the change did not do is stated by the National Treasury Attorney's Office in the opinion the instruction cites, published by the Receita Federal among its binding decisions:

A decisão do STF não alterou a regra relativa ao regime de tributação na fonte, que se fundamenta na previsão do art. 7º da Lei nº 9.779, de 1999, tampouco estendeu aos não residentes as regras de dedução e de ajuste anual aplicáveis apenas aos residentes.

The Supreme Court's decision did not alter the rule on the withholding-at-source regime, which rests on article 7 of Law 9,779 of 1999, nor did it extend to non-residents the deduction and annual-adjustment rules applicable only to residents.

So the pension is still taxed exclusively at source, still without deductions and still without an annual return — only the rate changed, from a flat 25% to the progressive table. The Receita Federal's question 134 adds the sentence that decides how any of this reaches your payslip: "Cabe ao beneficiário comunicar à fonte pagadora tal condição." It is for the beneficiary to inform the paying source. And one benefit stays where it was: private pension plans and their redemptions, paid by a Brazilian fund to a non-resident, remain at 25% exclusively at source (question 133), because the Supreme Court decision concerned retirement and pension income, not previdência complementar.

Three points of this kind — where a text you will find online still prints a superseded rule — are the reason I wrote the table that follows with the legal basis in its own column. Pensions are the first. Dividends and capital gains are the other two, and they have their own section below.

The table: every income type, its rate, its article, its payment code — and who withholds

Two reading notes. The "who withholds" column is the one the market gets wrong most often, and it has a section of its own below. And the rows are Brazilian domestic law: where Brazil has a tax treaty with your country of residence, a treaty article may cap or reassign the taxing right for a given type of income — the last section explains what that does and does not mean for an individual.

Capital gains and dividends: two more places where the old text survives online

Normative Instruction 208, the residency rule quoted earlier, also has a withholding chapter, and two of its articles still read as they were written in 2002. Article 27 fixes the tax on a non-resident's capital gain at fifteen percent. Article 45 says that profits and dividends computed on results from 1996 onward and paid to non-resident shareholders are not subject to the tax. Both sentences are quoted, in English, on pages published this year. Both have been overtaken by statute.

For capital gains the Regulation itself points to the current rule:

Art. 745. 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, e ficará sujeito à incidência do imposto sobre a renda com a aplicação das alíquotas previstas no art. 153 (Lei nº 8.981, de 1995, art. 21; Lei nº 9.249, de 1995, art. 18; e Lei nº 13.259, de 2016, art. 2º).

Article 745. The capital gain earned by a resident or person domiciled abroad shall be computed and taxed in accordance with the rules applicable to residents of the Country, and shall be subject to income tax at the rates provided in article 153 (Law 8,981 of 1995, article 21; Law 9,249 of 1995, article 18; and Law 13,259 of 2016, article 2).

Article 153 is the residents' progressive schedule since 2017 — 15% on the gain up to R$ 5 million, 17.5% on the slice between R$ 5 million and R$ 10 million, 20% up to R$ 30 million and 22.5% above that — introduced by Law 13,259 of 2016. The Receita Federal's question 129 states the result for non-residents plainly: the gain is taxed definitively "com alíquotas que podem variar de 15% a 22,5%", and "Na apuração do ganho de capital de não residente não se aplicam as isenções e reduções do imposto previstas para os residentes no Brasil." — none of the residents' exemptions and reductions apply. Why one official text says 15% and another says 15% to 22.5%, and what that means for the person who has to pay on the day of the sale, is the opening of the article on selling property as a non-resident.

For dividends the statute is younger. Law 15,270 of 2025 inserted a new paragraph into article 10 of Law 9,250 of 1995:

§ 4º 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).

§ 4. Profits or dividends paid, credited, delivered, used or remitted abroad shall be subject to withholding income tax at the rate of 10% (ten percent).

Since January 1, 2026, dividends remitted to a non-resident carry a 10% withholding, with transition rules for results computed up to 2025 that the investing article sets out in detail. The exemption of article 45 of the instruction was true for almost thirty years; it is the sentence most likely to be repeated to you with confidence, and it is the one the law has most recently retired.

Who withholds — and who answers for it

The default is the payer. Article 775 of the Regulation: "Compete à fonte reter o imposto sobre a renda de que trata este Título" — it is for the source to withhold the tax. For a salary, a fee, a dividend or interest, the Brazilian company, bank or fund that pays you computes the tax, withholds it and remits it under the code for that income; your side of the file is the written notice of non-resident status that article 3, § 2, of Normative Instruction 208 requires from you. But the 1943 statute carved out two situations in which the duty moves to the person who represents you in Brazil, and a 2003 statute added a third — article 26 of Law 10,833, under which the buyer of Brazilian property sold by a non-resident withholds the tax on the gain, and the buyer's own attorney-in-fact does so when the buyer also lives abroad (Regulation, article 745, § 3). The Regulation consolidates the three:

Art. 781. Compete ao procurador a retenção (Decreto-Lei nº 5.844, de 1943, art. 100, parágrafo único): I - quando se tratar de aluguéis de imóveis pertencentes a residentes no exterior; II - quando o procurador não der conhecimento à fonte de que o proprietário do rendimento reside ou é domiciliado no exterior; e III - quando o adquirente for residente ou domiciliado no exterior, em relação ao imposto sobre a renda incidente sobre o ganho de capital a que se referem o inciso II do caput do art. 744 e o art. 745, auferido por pessoa física ou jurídica residente ou domiciliada no exterior que alienar bens localizados no País (Lei nº 10.833, de 2003, art. 26).

Article 781. Withholding is incumbent on the attorney-in-fact (Decree-Law 5,844 of 1943, article 100, sole paragraph): I - in the case of rent from property belonging to residents abroad; II - when the attorney-in-fact does not inform the source that the owner of the income resides or is domiciled abroad; and III - when the acquirer is resident or domiciled abroad, as regards the income tax on the capital gain referred to in item II of article 744 and in article 745, earned by an individual or legal entity resident or domiciled abroad who sells assets located in the Country (Law 10,833 of 2003, article 26).

The source of items I and II is the 1943 decree-law, still in force on this point: "Parágrafo único. Excetuam-se os seguintes casos, em que competirá ao procurador a retenção: a) quando se tratar de aluguéis de imóveis; b) quando o procurador não der conhecimento à fonte de que o proprietário do rendimento reside ou é domiciliado no estrangeiro." Three consequences for a non-resident individual. Your tenant does not withhold your rental tax; your procurador — the person holding your power of attorney in Brazil, or the agency whose mandate covers receiving the rent — does, under their own taxpayer number, and answers for it. If your representative never told the payer you live abroad, the duty is the representative's, not the payer's. And when you sell Brazilian property, the person the law charges with withholding the tax on your gain is the buyer, if the buyer lives in Brazil, or the buyer's attorney-in-fact in Brazil, if the buyer also lives abroad — the point the buying article makes from the buyer's side and the selling article from yours. Who exactly qualifies as the procurador, and why the label on the management contract does not decide it, is answered in the rental article.

Your CPF: mandatory, and now with an annual update

Every line of the table assumes one thing: that you have a Brazilian taxpayer number, the CPF. Without it there is no DARF, no bank account, no property deed, no dividend payment. The Receita Federal's rule on the CPF is Normative Instruction RFB 2,172 of 2024 (the agency's CPF hub links the text and the update service), and since a November 2024 amendment it contains an obligation aimed precisely at the foreigner who lives abroad:

Art. 23-A. O estrangeiro com endereço no exterior e idade igual ou maior que dezesseis anos deverá realizar anualmente a atualização dos dados de sua inscrição no CPF por meio do aplicativo da RFB para dispositivos móveis, no período compreendido entre 1º de janeiro a 31 de dezembro. […] § 1º Para atualizar os dados de sua inscrição no CPF o estrangeiro deverá: […] I - informar o NI-CPF e a data de nascimento; e […] II - capturar, por meio do aplicativo da RFB para dispositivos móveis, a fotografia de seu rosto e do passaporte.

Article 23-A. A foreigner with an address abroad, aged sixteen or over, must update the data of their CPF registration annually through the Receita Federal's mobile app, within the period from January 1 to December 31. […] § 1. To update the data of their CPF registration the foreigner must: […] I - provide the CPF number and date of birth; and […] II - capture, through the Receita Federal's mobile app, a photograph of their face and of their passport.

The provision was inserted by Normative Instruction RFB 2,236 of November 22, 2024, and the same instruction wrote the consequence into two other articles. Article 12 now lists, among the grounds for suspending a CPF registration, "o não atendimento da exigência prevista no art. 23-A" — non-compliance with the annual update. Article 13, § 2, II, says a registration suspended for that reason is regularized only by making the late update; and § 3 of the same article provides: "Depois de noventa dias contados da data de comunicação da suspensão, a inscrição poderá ser cancelada de ofício." — ninety days after the suspension is communicated, the registration may be cancelled by the authority. Where the app cannot be used, § 2 of article 23-A sends the foreigner to a Brazilian diplomatic representation with the app's message and the documents of the instruction's Annex IV. Of the eighteen English-language pages I reviewed for this article, none connects the annual update to the suspension, and a suspended CPF stops a property closing, a bank transfer and a dividend payment alike. How a non-resident obtains the number in the first place is covered in the buying article; what a CPF does and does not do for a bank account, in the account article.

If your country has a treaty with Brazil

Everything above is Brazilian domestic law, and domestic law yields to a treaty where one applies. The rule that makes it yield is article 98 of the National Tax Code:

Art. 98. Os tratados e as convenções internacionais revogam ou modificam a legislação tributária interna, e serão observados pela que lhes sobrevenha.

Article 98. International treaties and conventions revoke or modify domestic tax legislation, and shall be observed by legislation enacted after them.

What a treaty does, for an individual, is narrower than the word suggests. Each convention assigns the right to tax each type of income to one State or to both, sometimes with a cap on the source State's rate; it does not create a lower Brazilian rate by itself, and the paying source will not apply it unless you invoke it — the Receita Federal's own answer on pensions puts the burden on the beneficiary to inform the payer. Four things are worth knowing before you go looking for your country's text. Brazil's treaty network is roughly three dozen conventions, and whether your country is in it is a yes-or-no question that takes a minute to settle on the Receita Federal's list of conventions in force. The United States is not: Brazil and the United States have no income tax treaty, a point the investing article explains, and an American reader should work from the domestic rules above and from whatever credit United States law grants for Brazilian tax. Where a treaty does exist, the reduced rates on dividends, interest and royalties are, in Brazil's conventions, very often written for a recipient that is a company — for dividends, a company holding a minimum stake in the payer — so read the paragraph before assuming the cap is yours as an individual. And the credit for Brazilian tax in your country of residence is a rule of your law, not of Brazil's: the DARF and the withholding statement are what you will need to claim it.

What this article will not do is tell you what any particular treaty says. I did not read a treaty for it, and treaty articles on employment, pensions, real estate income, capital gains and the elimination of double taxation interact in ways that cannot be summarized safely across thirty-odd instruments. Where the firm has read one, it has written it up separately, in Portuguese, provision by provision.

How I handle a non-resident file — and the five mistakes that cost the most

The order is always the same, and it follows the table. First, status. Is the person a non-resident under Normative Instruction 208 on the date of each payment — and, if they left Brazil, was the exit filed? A missing Comunicação de Saída keeps a Brazilian on the residents' regime for a year, and a foreigner who crossed 184 days is a resident whatever their visa says. Second, the written notice. Article 3, § 2, is the non-resident's own duty; I put it in writing to every Brazilian payer before the first payment. Third, the row. Each income stream goes to its article, its rate, its base and its code — and the three superseded texts (pension at 25%, dividend exemption, gain at a flat 15%) are checked against the law in force, not against the summary. Fourth, the country. Is the recipient's jurisdiction on the Receita Federal's list? Then every rate is 25%. Is there a treaty? Then read the article for that income, and expect the caps to be written for companies. Fifth, the person who withholds. Payer or procurador, under whose taxpayer number, on which day — and the receipt kept per payment. Sixth, the CPF, updated between January and December every year the person lives abroad.

The five mistakes that cost the most, in the files that reach me:

1. Treating "15%" or "25%" as your rate. Neither is. One is the default for income without a specific rule; the other is the rule for work and services, and separately the rule for any income paid to a resident of a listed jurisdiction. The rate belongs to the row, not to you.

2. Letting a Brazilian pension be withheld at 25% in 2026. The rate was struck down for retirement and pension income (Tema 1,174) and the instruction in force applies the progressive table with the reduction table since January 1, 2026. The paying entity applies it when told; tax withheld beyond what the rule in force requires is "tributo indevido ou maior que o devido" — tax not owed, or more than is owed — which article 165, I, of the National Tax Code entitles the taxpayer to claim back; it is not forfeited.

3. Assuming the tenant, the buyer or the company "handles the tax". For rent it is the attorney-in-fact who withholds (article 781, I); for the sale of property, the buyer (Law 10,833, article 26) or, when the buyer is abroad, the buyer's attorney-in-fact (article 781, III); and a representative who never told the payer you live abroad has taken the duty onto themselves (article 781, II).

4. Filing a residents' annual return to "fix" a withholding error. The regime is exclusive at source; the annual return is a residents' instrument. A mistaken filing creates a status problem on top of the original one. The correction runs through the payer's DARF and, where tax was overpaid, a refund claim.

5. Letting the CPF lapse. The annual update of article 23-A is new, it is aimed at the foreigner abroad, and its sanction is suspension followed, ninety days after notice, by possible cancellation. A suspended number stops every transaction in the table.

The three facts that organize non-resident taxation in Brazil

Strip the subject to its skeleton and three facts carry everything else in this article about non-resident taxation in Brazil:

• Brazil taxes a non-resident only on Brazilian-source income, exclusively at source, with no annual return, no deductions and no year-end adjustment — the tax is settled by withholding or definitive payment at the moment of payment, credit or remittance, under a DARF code specific to income paid abroad (RIR art. 741; NI 208 art. 35; Receita Federal Q&A 2026, question 127).
• There is no single rate: 15% is the default for income without a specific rule (RIR art. 744), 25% is the rule for work and services (RIR art. 746; Law 9,779 art. 7) and for any income paid to a resident of a listed low-tax jurisdiction (Law 9,779 art. 8), while rent is 15% on a net base, technical services 15%, capital gains 15% to 22.5% on the residents' schedule, and dividends 10% since 2026 — and three texts still found online (pensions at 25%, dividends exempt, gains at a flat 15%) have been superseded by the Supreme Court, by Law 15,270 and by Law 13,259.
• The payer withholds, except where the law names your attorney-in-fact — rent, silence about your status, and sales to a buyer abroad (RIR art. 781) — and two duties are yours alone: telling every Brazilian payer in writing that you are a non-resident (NI 208 art. 3, § 2), and updating your CPF every year you live abroad (NI 2,172 art. 23-A), on pain of suspension and cancellation.

Carvalho Barros Advocacia Internacional handles these files from both ends — a Brazilian practice serving clients in more than 30 countries, with non-resident tax representation that runs the sequence this article described: the status analysis, the written notices to payers, the withholding under the correct article and code, the claim for tax withheld under a superseded rule, and the coordination with your adviser abroad for the credit on your side. 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 withholding, refund or filing (Brazilian Bar Provision OAB No. 205/2021). The provisions supporting it — the Income Tax Regulation, Decree No. 9,580/2018 (articles 153; 741; 744; 745, including § 3; 746; 760; 763; 765; 767; 775; and 781); Decree-Law No. 5,844/1943 (articles 97 and 100 and sole paragraph); Law No. 9,779/1999 (articles 7, in the wording of Law No. 13,315/2016, and 8); Law No. 9,430/1996 (article 24, in the wording of Law No. 14,596/2023); Law No. 10,833/2003 (article 26); Law No. 9,249/1995 (articles 18 and 28); Law No. 13,259/2016 (article 1, amending article 21 of Law No. 8,981/1995); Law No. 15,270/2025 (article 10, § 4, of Law No. 9,250/1995); Normative Instruction SRF No. 208/2002 (articles 2, 3 and § 2, 9, 11, 26, 27, 35, 36, 37, 44, 45 and 46); Normative Instruction RFB No. 1,500/2014 (article 19, sole paragraph, in the wording of Normative Instruction RFB No. 2,299/2025); Normative Instruction RFB No. 2,172/2024 (articles 12, 13 and 23-A, in the wording of Normative Instruction RFB No. 2,236/2024); Normative Instruction RFB No. 1,037/2010; the National Tax Code, Law No. 5,172/1966 (articles 98 and 165); the Supreme Federal Court's decision in ARE 1,327,491 (Tema 1,174); Parecer SEI No. 3,465/2025/MF; the Receita Federal's Questions and Answers on the 2026 individual income tax return (version 1.00 of April 23, 2026, questions 126, 127, 129, 133 and 134); and the Receita Federal's withholding-tax manual MAFON, 2025 edition — were checked against official sources on September 3, 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 shown in quotation marks are the author's working translation. The Portuguese is the only authoritative version, and any emphasis within the quotations is the author's. Method caveats and declared limits. (i) Articles 26 to 46 of Normative Instruction SRF 208/2002 were read in a third-party reproduction of the text, because the Receita Federal's legislation viewer does not deliver the text to automated readers; no passage of those articles is quoted as a block, and the rules they state are quoted from the Income Tax Regulation and from the Receita Federal's own questions and answers, which restate them. (ii) Normative Instruction RFB 2,172/2024 was read in the Receita Federal's consolidated text as captured in a public web archive in January 2025; the two later amending instructions located (Normative Instructions RFB 2,293/2025 and 2,304/2025) do not touch articles 12, 13 or 23-A. (iii) The 2025 edition of the MAFON is the latest published on the Receita Federal's site as of this writing. (iv) Article 8 of Law 9,779/1999 refers to a maximum rate “lower than twenty percent” and to article 24 of Law 9,430/1996, whose current wording reads seventeen percent; the two texts are quoted as they stand and the divergence is not resolved here — in practice the Receita Federal's list in Normative Instruction 1,037/2010 is applied. (v) No tax treaty was read for this article, and nothing in it states what any particular convention provides. (vi) The descriptions of what circulates in English-language material on this subject reflect the firm's documented review of eighteen leading results for the relevant searches, conducted in September 2026; no source is named, and each claim is answered by the provision rather than by its author. To review your specific case, contact attorney Luiz Barros — Brazilian Bar, OAB/AL 7.530.