Buying Property in Brazil as a Foreigner: Rules, Due Diligence and Registration

A foreign national can buy urban property in Brazil on the same terms as a Brazilian: no residence permit, no visa, no government authorisation. You do not even have to be in the country — the purchase can be completed by a lawyer acting under a power of attorney.

Two things do change. Rural land and land inside the border strip are restricted by law. And one rule surprises almost every foreign buyer: in Brazil, signing the deed does not make you the owner. Ownership passes only at registration. This article covers what is open, what is restricted, and what has to be checked before any money moves.

What can a foreigner buy without restriction?

Urban real estate — apartments, houses, commercial units, urban plots. There is no restriction based on nationality, no minimum investment, and no prior authorisation.

The practical requirements are short:

• A CPF, the Brazilian taxpayer number. It can be obtained from abroad, through a Brazilian consulate. Nothing in the transaction proceeds without it.
• A valid passport.
• If buying through a company, a CNPJ and a representative resident in Brazil.

Note that buying property does not by itself give any immigration right. Residence by real estate investment is a separate procedure, with its own thresholds, and it is not automatic.

What is restricted, and why?

Rural land

Law 5.709/1971 governs the acquisition of rural land by foreigners, and the central rule is often misread:

• A foreign individual resident in Brazil may acquire rural land, within limits.
• A foreign individual not resident in Brazil may not.

For those who may acquire, the ceilings are cumulative: purchases above three and up to fifty modules of indefinite exploitation depend on authorisation, with the National Institute for Colonisation and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in the process; beyond that, congressional authorisation comes into play. There are also territorial ceilings — the total area in foreign hands in any one municipality is capped, and a single nationality cannot take up the whole of that cap.

A Brazilian company controlled by foreigners is treated as foreign for these purposes, so incorporating a local company does not by itself remove the restriction.

The border strip

Law 6.634/1979 defines a 150-kilometre strip along the entire land border as an area of national security. Within it, several acts — including the acquisition of rural land by foreigners — depend on prior assent from the National Defence Council.

This matters more than it sounds: the strip crosses eleven states and includes municipalities that do not feel remote at all. Before signing anything for land in the South, Centre-West or North, the first question is whether the property sits inside the strip.

Why does registration matter more than the deed?

This is the point where foreign buyers most often assume their own country’s rules apply.

In many legal systems, the signed contract transfers ownership. In Brazil it does not. Article 1.245 of the Civil Code is explicit: ownership of real estate passes between living persons only when the transfer instrument is registered at the Real Estate Registry.

The practical consequences:

• Between signing and registering, the seller is still the owner. If the seller is sued in that window, the property can be reached by the seller’s creditors.
• A signed and even notarised deed that was never registered gives you a personal claim against the seller, not ownership of the property.
• The phrase used in Brazil is blunt and worth remembering: quem não registra não é dono — whoever does not register is not the owner.

What is the matrícula, and what should it show?

Every property has a matrícula: an individual record at the Real Estate Registry, which functions as the property’s biography. Owners, mortgages, liens, attachments, easements, court claims — everything is entered in sequence, each with a number.

Law 13.097/2017 strengthened this considerably through what Brazilian practice calls concentração na matrícula: as a rule, what is not recorded on the matrícula cannot be raised against a good-faith buyer. The record became the centre of the transaction.

So the first document to obtain is an up-to-date matrícula certificate — not a copy the seller provides, but one issued recently by the registry itself.

What does due diligence actually cover?

What is checked	Where	What you are looking for
Matrícula, recently issued	Real Estate Registry of the property	Who really owns it; mortgages, liens, attachments, court claims
Negative certificates on the property	Same registry, municipality	Debts on the property itself, including property tax (IPTU)
Certificates on the seller	Federal, state and municipal courts; labour courts; protest registries	Lawsuits and debts that could make the sale void as a fraud against creditors
Condominium statement	Building administrator	Arrears, which follow the property, not the previous owner
Marital status of the seller	Civil registry	Whether a spouse’s consent is required for the sale to be valid
Boundaries and area	Registry description against the municipality and, for rural land, georeferencing	Whether the property on paper matches the property on the ground
Zoning and permits	Municipality	Unregistered construction, occupancy permit, use restrictions

The certificates on the seller matter as much as those on the property. A sale by someone who is already insolvent or facing enforcement can be set aside as fraude à execução, and the buyer who did not check is the one who loses.

A practical example

A German buyer agrees to purchase an apartment in Florianópolis. The price is agreed, a private contract is signed, and the money is transferred.

Two problems can arise from that sequence. First, without registration he is not the owner — and in the months that follow, a labour claim against the seller attaches the apartment. Second, the funds arrived as an ordinary transfer, with no foreign exchange record tying them to the purchase; years later, when he sells, he cannot cleanly evidence his acquisition cost, and repatriating the proceeds becomes an argument with the bank.

Both are avoidable, and both are cheaper to avoid than to fix. The order that works is: search the matrícula and the seller’s certificates first, then a contract with the safeguards in it, then the public deed, then the ITBI, then registration — and the foreign exchange transaction documented throughout.

Which taxes and costs arise?

• ITBI, a municipal transfer tax on the transaction value, at a rate set by each municipality. Proof of payment is required before registration.
• Notary fees for the public deed and registry fees for the registration, both set by state tables.
• IPTU, the annual municipal property tax, from the transfer onwards.
• On a later sale, capital gains tax, applied progressively. For a non-resident seller there are withholding rules, and the buyer or the seller’s Brazilian representative may be responsible for withholding — which is why the acquisition cost needs to be properly documented from day one.

Which documents will you need?

• Valid passport.
• CPF (and CNPJ, if buying through a company).
• Proof of address abroad.
• Marriage certificate, where relevant, with apostille and sworn translation.
• A power of attorney, if you will not be present at the signing — see our article on granting a power of attorney from abroad.

What is the practical next step?

Before any payment, two documents answer most of the risk: the recently issued matrícula and the certificates on the seller. They are inexpensive, they are obtained quickly, and they are what separate a straightforward purchase from a dispute that takes years.

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Sources: Civil Code, article 1.245 · Law 5.709/1971, acquisition of rural land by foreigners · Law 6.634/1979, border strip · Law 13.097/2017, articles 54 and following.