Financing Options for Foreign Buyers

The routes open to a foreign buyer

A buyer who wants to borrow has four places to look: a Brazilian bank, the developer of a new building, the seller, and a lender at home. Each one differs in currency, in what it can seize, and in how much a foreign borrower has to prove.

Nobody publishes reliable figures on how many foreign buyers borrow, or how many pay cash. Treat the round percentages you see online as guesses. What the law says is simpler. No Brazilian rule stops a foreigner from taking a loan or giving a home as security. The Migration Law, Law 13.445/2017, protects migrants' property rights and their right to open a bank account (art. 4). Whether a given bank says yes is its own credit policy, and those policies aren't published.

Timing matters more than most buyers expect. Sellers in Brazil generally want a date, and a bank's review of your file and the title takes weeks. If a loan is part of your plan, your purchase contract needs a condition covering it. Without that, you can lose the deposit if the credit fails.

Mortgages from Brazilian banks

Most home lending in Brazil falls into two systems. The Sistema Financeiro da Habitação (SFH) is the regulated one, funded in large part by savings deposits. Its ceiling on the appraised value rose to R$ 2,250,000 on 10 October 2025 under CMN Resolution 5.255/2025. Above that ceiling a loan runs on market terms. That resolution also starts a new framework for how banks must direct savings deposits into housing credit, and most of it takes effect on 1 January 2027, so bank products may keep changing.

How far R$ 2,250,000 goes depends on the market. At FipeZAP's September 2026 average, it buys about 199 m² in Rio de Janeiro, 184 m² in São Paulo and 165 m² in Florianópolis. In districts well above the city average, such as Leblon or Jardins, far less. Those averages cover whole cities, so check real listings.

Don't rely on a stated loan-to-value figure from any website. The share a bank lends comes from its own policy within limits set in CMN Resolution 4.676/2018, and it may be lower for someone whose income is abroad. Ask for it in writing.

What you can verify is the price of credit. The Banco Central publishes the average rate each bank charged on new home loans. These are September 2026 figures, and the rate shown comes before any index is added on top.

For scale, the Selic policy rate stood at 13.75% in early November 2026, after a cut in September and with the next meeting that same week. TR is a reference rate published by the Banco Central. IPCA is the consumer inflation index. An IPCA-linked loan has a lower headline rate because your balance grows with inflation.

What a loan costs each month

Two repayment systems dominate. SAC keeps the capital repayment fixed, so the monthly payment starts high and falls. Price keeps the payment level and lets the mix of interest and capital shift. The example below uses R$ 600,000 over 30 years at 12.05% a year, close to what several large banks charged on market-rate TR loans in September 2026.

Real payments are higher. TR is added to the balance, and insurance against death and permanent disability is required by law (Law 9.514/1997, art. 5). Compare offers using the CET, the total effective cost, which rolls fees and insurance into one rate. The interest figures show why term and system matter as much as the headline rate.

The Superior Court of Justice has addressed compound interest in SFH contracts. REsp 1.070.297, a 2009 repetitive-appeal ruling, bars capitalizing interest in any period under that system. Law 9.514/1997 lets loans in the separate SFI system include it (art. 5). Whether a specific contract charges interest on interest is a question of its clauses and an expert's reading.

Income in one currency and debt in another

A foreign earner with a Brazilian loan owes reais and earns something else. The real can move a long way over 30 years, and your payment in dollars moves with it. Keeping everything else equal, this is the first SAC payment from the last chapter at three exchange rates.

That table isn't a prediction. It shows where the risk sits. Debt in reais on a home in Brazil does have a natural offset: if you let the home to a tenant, the rent arrives in reais too, and by law it can't be set in foreign currency. Non-residents pay 15% on net rent, and loan interest isn't among the deductions in article 14 of Law 7.739/1989. So the cash left after tax may cover less of the installment than the gross figure suggests.

Each monthly payment you send from abroad is also a separate exchange operation with its own margin and IOF. On a loan with hundreds of payments, those small charges add up. Holding reais in a non-resident account is one way to bundle them, though it doesn't remove the rate risk.

How the bank secures the loan

The security you will meet on a Brazilian home loan is alienação fiduciária, a fiduciary transfer of the title, under Law 9.514/1997. You live in the home and you hold the right to get full title back once the debt is paid, but the lender holds the fiduciary title recorded on the matrícula. Enforcement runs through the registry, with no judge in the chain.

Here is the sequence if payments stop, under article 26 and following, as rewritten by Law 14.711/2023:

1. The contract sets a grace period. If it is silent, the period is 15 days.
2. The registry officer notifies the borrower to pay within 15 days. Non-residents need to think about this step: a stale address in the contract makes it hard to catch a notice in time.
3. If the debt isn't cured, the registry consolidates the title in the lender's name, after the lender pays the transfer tax.
4. The lender must hold a public auction within 60 days of that registration.
5. At a second auction the lender may accept a bid of at least half the appraised value.

Law 14.711/2023 also added article 26-A for residential financing. If the second auction brings no bid that covers the secured debt and the listed costs, the debt is treated as ended, with a release on both sides (§ 4). Ask your lawyer whether your contract falls under that article, because what you still owe after an auction turns on it. The same law lets a later lien be recorded on the same home.

A traditional mortgage (hipoteca) is still possible, and the same 2023 law created an out-of-court route for enforcing those too (art. 9). Under § 10 of that article, a loan to buy or build "the debtor's residential property" releases the debtor from any remaining balance after enforcement, consortium loans aside. Whether a non-resident's vacation home fits those words is a separate question, so ask before you rely on that release.

A lawyer checking the title, as set out in how to check a title, will read any existing lien the same way. A seller's unpaid bank loan has to be released at closing, and the registry must record it.

Paying a developer in installments

A new building is the one place a foreigner can often pay over time without a bank's credit committee. The developer collects a deposit and monthly installments during construction, usually with a larger payment at delivery, and either you pay the balance or you take a bank loan for it then. The terms come from the contract, so they vary by project and developer. Older figures you may have seen for deposits and rates aren't rules.

What you need to watch:

• The index. Installments during the works normally follow the INCC construction-cost index. Your balance can grow even while you pay. The off-plan guide covers INCC and patrimônio de afetação, the ring-fencing of the project's assets.
• The change at delivery. Contracts often switch the index, and add interest, once keys are handed over. Find that clause before you sign.
• The balloon. A large payment at delivery is the point where many foreign buyers need a bank, which brings back all the questions earlier in this guide. Ask for a bank's view before you commit to a large balloon payment.
• The money trail. Each monthly wire is a separate exchange. Keep each record for the day you sell.

If you are looking at new buildings in Campeche, Pina or Balneário Camboriú, ask for the full installment table before you visit the model unit. From 2027 developers also start paying CBS on sales under the consumption tax reform, and that may affect prices. How far it does is something nobody can tell you yet.

Seller financing between private parties

On a direct sale from an owner you may be offered time to pay. It is legal, and it needs real drafting. Three questions decide whether it works.

Who holds the title meanwhile? If the deed passes to you and you owe the balance on an unsecured note, the seller is exposed. If the seller keeps the title under a promise of sale, you are exposed to the seller's creditors until you register. The usual fix is to transfer title by public deed and give the seller an alienação fiduciária. Law 9.514/1997 lets any individual or company take that security, not only banks (art. 22, § 1). A registered promise of sale also gives protection, and since Law 14.382/2022 the seller can cancel it out of court after 30 days' notice if you default (Law 6.015/1973, art. 251-A).

What interest can be charged? A private seller isn't a bank. The Usury Decree, Decree 22.626/1933, bars interest above twice the legal rate and bans interest on interest (arts. 1 and 4). Law 14.905/2024 lifted that limit for deals between companies, debts represented by credit instruments or securities, loans from banks and certain other lenders, and financial-market operations (art. 3). So a plain contract between two people stays under it. Ask a lawyer whether putting the debt in a note changes that. The legal rate is now the Selic minus IPCA, published monthly. From January to October 2026 it added up to 7.24% in simple interest, about 8.7% a year, so the cap for those months averaged about 17% a year. It changes each month, and a lawyer should set the clause to follow it.

What currency? Law 14.286/2021, art. 13, II allows foreign currency where one party is a non-resident. That is one reading of a law with few cases behind it for this use, and the money guide sets out the disagreement. Most deals stay in reais with an index. The seller pays capital gains tax as each installment comes in, under article 21 of Law 7.713/1988, and any interest is taxable income for the seller as well.

Borrowing at home and paying cash in Brazil

You can borrow where you earn and arrive in Brazil as a cash buyer. Common forms are a mortgage or home-equity line on a home abroad, a loan against a securities portfolio, or a personal or business loan. Brazil's rules hardly touch this. Banco Central Resolution 278/2022 defines external credit as a debt taken on by a resident (art. 2, I), so a loan from a foreign bank to someone who lives abroad doesn't belong in its reporting system. The money reaches Brazil as an ordinary exchange, with 0.38% IOF on the way in.

What you get is currency matching. Your debt and your income are in the same currency, so the rate risk moves to the home's value in your own currency. What you give up is protection at home: a default can reach the house you live in or force a sale of your portfolio when markets are down. Rates, fees and tax treatment depend on your country and lender, and this guide can't compare them for you. Ask a lender and a tax adviser where you live.

Two details matter on the Brazilian side. Keep the loan agreement and statements with your exchange file, so that a bank can later see the source of the money. And if you move to Brazil while the loan is running, you become a resident debtor. Direct loans of US$ 1,000,000 or more from a non-resident must then be reported under the Banco Central's Resolution 278. Tax residence starts on day 184 in any 12-month period for someone on a temporary visa, and on arrival with a permanent visa (IN SRF 208/2002, art. 2). The residency guide covers what else that changes.

Tax and fee breaks for financed buyers

Taking a loan can shrink your closing bill, though the breaks are narrow and they aren't written for foreign buyers in particular.

• ITBI in São Paulo. The city charges 0.5% instead of 3% on the slice covered by the loan, for homes up to R$ 600,000 bought through the SFH or certain housing programs, with that slice capped at R$ 100,000 (city Law 11.154/1991). A R$ 500,000 apartment with R$ 100,000 or more borrowed pays R$ 12,500 rather than R$ 15,000. Other cities have their own rules.
• Registry and notary fees. Fees on the first home purchased with SFH finance are cut by 50% under article 290 of Law 6.015/1973. The registry applies it on request, so ask, and expect questions on what "first" means if you already own abroad.

Full numbers by market are in closing costs. Remember that a loan also adds its own charges: the appraisal, registration of the lien and insurance. The bank can't lend against a home whose paperwork fails its review either, so a loan can expose a problem a cash buyer would have to catch alone. When you find a home on Brazil Keys or through a broker in the directory, ask whether any bank has financed a sale in that building. A past loan isn't a guarantee, but it tells you the paperwork has been read once by people who had money at risk.

Questions

Sources

1. Banco Central do Brasil, average home-loan rates by institution, Sept 2026 (open data)
2. Banco Central do Brasil, Selic target series 432
3. Banco Central do Brasil, CMN Resolution 5.255/2025
4. Planalto, Law 9.514/1997 (alienação fiduciária)
5. Planalto, Law 14.711/2023 (guarantees)
6. Planalto, Law 14.905/2024 (legal interest and usury)
7. Planalto, Decree 22.626/1933 (usury)
8. Sijur, monthly legal rate table (Banco Central series 29543)
9. Sijur, Price and SAC, citing STJ REsp 1.070.297
10. Banco Central do Brasil, Resolution 278/2022 (English version)
11. Planalto, Law 13.445/2017 (Migration Law)
12. São Paulo city, Law 11.154/1991 (ITBI)
13. Planalto, Law 6.015/1973, art. 290
14. Planalto, Law 14.382/2022 (registries, promise-of-sale cancelation)
15. Planalto, Law 7.739/1989, art. 14