How do companies receive dollar payments in Brazil?

For companies that do business with Brazil it is essential to understand how payments are made. Brazil is a country with a relatively fluctuating exchange rate, which is free to fluctuate up to a certain point – since in case of very drastic variations the Brazilian Central Bank acts with the purchase and sale of currency using national reserves.

In addition, to send financial remittances to Brazil, it is important to be aware of the taxes that may affect the transaction, the main one is the Imposto sobre Operações Financeiras (Financial Transactions Tax), whose triggering event is exactly the closing of the exchange rate itself. Currently, the rate is 0.38% for remittances between different entities.

In cases of payment made from Brazil, attention must be paid to the destination, because the amount sent to those considered tax havens by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service are subject to taxation of 33.33%. This happens to avoid evasion of national currency and expatriation of money without the declaration of the due Income Tax.

The most used methods are exchange brokers and banks authorized to make payments in dollars (and other currencies) abroad. The dollar considered for the closing is the commercial dollar, but there is also the tourism dollar, which has a different rate, and the parallel dollar, which is illegal.

It is common for Brazilian freight forwarders to pay the exchange rate to their partners abroad only on a monthly basis. This is to avoid dollar remittance costs and so that the exchange rate is diluted between the processes of the month, avoiding very large disparities between one process and another.