Buying a house in Brazil: free in the city, capped on the land, and ownership that only exists after registration

Yes, as a foreigner you buy a house or an apartment in Brazil in your own name, without a permit and without a residence card; what you need is a CPF and a notary. On top of the price count on the ITBI, the municipal transfer tax — in São Paulo 3 percent — plus the notary's fee and the costs of the registry, which are in a tariff table per state. The pitfall is in two places: in the countryside, where the law of 1971 limits a foreigner, and in the registry, because in Brazil you only own once the deed is registered on the matrícula of the property. What is not in the registry, you have not bought.

In your first year you do not buy. You rent, get to know the city and the rainy season, and decide afterwards. This article is for the moment you are ready.

Item	Rule	Source
Urban property	freely bought by a foreigner, in his own name	no restriction in the law
Agricultural land	at most 50 módulos de exploração indefinida; up to 3 módulos without permission, above that with	Lei 5.709, article 3
Land in an area of national security	prior assent of the Conselho de Segurança Nacional	Lei 5.709, article 7
ITBI	municipal; São Paulo 3 percent on the higher of purchase price and reference value	Constituição article 156; municipality
Ownership	only after registration of the deed on the matrícula	Código Civil 1.245; Lei 6.015 article 176
Residence right	none, unless through the investment route: 700,000 reais in the North and Northeast, 1,000,000 elsewhere	Decreto 9.199 article 123; RN 36/2018

May I buy anywhere as a foreigner?

In the city, yes. The restrictions of Brazilian law concern agricultural land, imóvel rural, and are in Lei 5.709 of 1971. Article 1 says that the foreigner living in Brazil may acquire agricultural land "only in the form of this law". Article 3 sets the measure: no more than fifty módulos de exploração indefinida, contiguous or not; up to three módulos the purchase is free, without a permit, and for the area in between the executive sets the rules. The registry keeps, according to article 10, a separate book of every acquisition by a foreigner. Article 12 moreover caps the sum: all land in foreign hands together may not cover more than a quarter of the territory of a municipality.

So whoever buys a piece of land with a house on it — a sítio, a chácara — must first know whether the property is in the registry as urban or as rural. That determines whether the law of 1971 applies, and the notary reads it from the matrícula.

What is the matrícula, and why is it everything?

Article 1.245 of the Civil Code: ownership passes between the living "by the registration of the transfer deed in the Registro de Imóveis". Not by the payment, not by the signing at the notary, but by the registration. And article 176 of the registry law gives every property its own matrícula, the number under which all owners, mortgages and attachments are listed.

The purchase therefore runs in two steps that you both pay for: the escritura pública at a tabelionato de notas, the notary, and the registro at the cartório de registro de imóveis of the place where the property lies. Before you sign, ask for a recent certidão de matrícula: it shows whether the seller is the owner and what burdens the property. A "contrato de gaveta", a private sale that was never registered, is not ownership, however much you pay for it.

What do I pay on top of the price?

The ITBI, the imposto sobre transmissão de bens imóveis, is according to article 156 of the constitution a municipal tax, and every municipality sets its own rate. São Paulo charges 3 percent on the base, and that base is the higher of the purchase price and the valor venal de referência that the municipality sets itself; only for a financed purchase under the housing schemes does a lower rate apply on the financed part. Added to that are the notary's fee and the costs of the registry, both according to the tariff table of the state — those tables have not been checked at the source here; ask the notary for the tabela de emolumentos of his state.

Does a house give me a residence right?

No. Article 123 of the migration decree says it literally: "the possession or ownership of a good in the country does not confer the right to obtain a residence permit", except for the rules for investors. Those rules, RN 36/2018, have according to the consulate in Amsterdam a threshold of 700,000 reais in the North and Northeast and 1,000,000 reais in the rest of the country, from your own resources from outside Brazil, and the application starts in Brazil. The ordinary residence routes run through pension, work or family, not through the deed.

Where is my house taxed?

The tax treaty of 1990 is simple here: income from immovable property may be taxed in the country where it lies (article 6), and the gain on sale too (article 13). If you let your Brazilian house, Brazil taxes that; if you keep a home in the Netherlands, it stays, according to the Belastingdienst, always taxed in the Netherlands, in box 3. The rest of the sum — AOW, pension and tax — is in an article of its own.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey, step 5.6: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Brazil or go straight to step 5.6 in the open plan.