Moving to a 0% tax country? Leave Brazil properly first

The two filings

Exit notice (CSDP)

The Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País is a short online notice of departure. You file it from the day you leave until the last day of February of the following year. After that date it can no longer be filed.

Exit return (DSDP)

The Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País is the income tax return for the part of the year in which you were still resident. It is filed in the same program as the annual return and follows its deadline: for departures in 2025, May 29, 2026. Any tax it shows is paid in one installment by that date.

Earlier years

The exit filings do not replace returns you have not filed for earlier years. Those are still owed.

When non-residence starts

A permanent move, filed

If you leave for good and file the exit notice or the exit return, you are non-resident from the date of departure.

A permanent move, not filed

Without the filings, you remain resident for your first 12 consecutive months abroad.

A trip that becomes a move

If you leave intending to return and stay away for 12 consecutive months, you become non-resident the day after those 12 months end.

Coming back

You are resident again from the day you return to stay, or once you spend more than 183 days in Brazil, consecutive or not, within 12 months.

How Brazilian income is taxed after you leave

Income from Brazilian sources is still taxed in Brazil, mostly by withholding at source. These are Receita’s headline rates; a tax treaty with your new country can lower some of them.

Work and services

25% withheld on salaries and on fees for services paid from Brazil.

Most other income

15%, or 25% if you live in a country Brazil treats as having favored taxation. Since May 13, 2025 that includes any country that taxes income below 17%, so a move to a 0% tax country raises the rate on what you still earn in Brazil.

Dividends

Since January 1, 2026, dividends paid abroad are withheld at 10%. Profits for 2025 or earlier, approved by December 31, 2025, are exempt.

Investments and gains

10% or 15% on financial investments made under the Central Bank’s rules for non-residents, and 15% to 22.5% on gains from selling assets in Brazil.

Pensions

Since an October 2024 Supreme Court decision, pensions paid to non-residents are taxed on the normal progressive table.

Banks, payers and companies

Tell every Brazilian payer that you are now non-resident and give them your departure date: employers, banks, brokers, tenants, fund administrators and platforms. They apply the non-resident withholding from then on.

Your bank keeps your account and records you as non-resident. Under the Central Bank’s current rules, nothing has to be redeemed or closed.

You do not need a representative in Brazil in general. You need one to receive a refund if you have no Brazilian bank account, and if you rent out property, your representative withholds and pays the tax on the rent.

A company in the Simples Nacional, including a MEI, cannot have a partner domiciled abroad. Decide what happens to it before you leave.