How to receive payments from abroad in 2026: the complete guide (individuals and companies)
A payment that crosses the border goes through a rate, a spread, a fee and a tax. This guide shows the ways to get paid from abroad, what each really costs and when to pick individual or company.
You closed the deal, sent the invoice, and the client abroad paid. And then the part nobody explains to you begins: the money has left their account, but it isn't yours yet. Between your client's payment and the reais landing in your account there is a journey, and it is there, invisible to almost everyone, that how much you will actually receive gets decided.
How much of that money reaches you isn't luck, it's the result of choices: where the payment travels, who charges what along the way and how the conversion into reais is done. Learning how to receive payments from abroad means seeing that whole journey before accepting the first offer that comes along. This guide is the map, for individuals and for companies.
What happens when a payment crosses the border
Start with an idea that changes everything: money doesn't travel. When your client in the United States pays, their dollars don't cross the ocean inside a vault, they stay there. What happens is that here in Brazil someone (a bank, a licensed institution or an FX partner) buys those dollars and puts reais into your account. That trade is a foreign exchange transaction, and almost the entire cost of getting paid lives inside it.
The FX market has been free in Brazil since Law 14,286/2021, the new FX framework. There is no cap on amounts, and the rate is freely agreed between you and the institution. That has a good side and a side that demands attention: nobody has to authorise your incoming payment, but nobody guarantees the price offered is fair either. Price is negotiation, and you can only negotiate what you are able to compare.
And there is one piece that is your responsibility, not the bank's: classifying the purpose of the transaction, the so-called nature code. The new law moved that duty to whoever carries out the FX transaction (art. 4, §2), and it isn't a bureaucratic detail, it is what defines how much tax you pay. Being paid for a service you exported is one thing; bringing back money of your own that was sitting abroad is another, taxed differently. We'll come back to this.
The ways to get paid: what each one charges and how long it takes
Traditional bank, via SWIFT. It is the oldest route and the most opaque. Your transfer passes through correspondent banks, each one entitled to deduct its own fee along the way, and the final amount can arrive smaller than agreed without anyone telling you. It usually takes two to five business days. The cost piles up in layers: the spread built into the rate (with no line of its own on the statement), the bank's own fee and, when the transaction isn't classified as a service export, IOF on top. Adding it all up, getting paid through a traditional bank usually runs around 6% of the amount, sometimes more, depending on the institution.
Payment platforms and marketplaces. If you get paid through a gateway, a freelancer platform or a marketplace, the conversion is automatic and the rate comes already decided: you receive reais and that's that. It is convenient, and for small, occasional amounts it may be enough. The problem is that the per-transaction fee and the embedded FX add up, and you rarely see the rate that was actually applied. Convenience has a price, and here it is invisible.
International account. Receiving into an account abroad looks like it solves the problem: dollars stay dollars. Except they don't stay there forever. At some point you bring that money in to pay bills in reais, and the FX conversion happens anyway, only later, at a rate you don't control and, as we'll see, with a different tax classification from the one it would have had if the money had come straight in.
FX fintech and payment infrastructure. This is the route that trades opacity for transparency. You see the rate in real time, the total cost is stated before you accept, and settlement happens over local rails: your client pays using the method they already use in their own country (Pix in Brazil, ACH and Wire in the United States, SEPA in Europe, SPEI in Mexico, and so on), without depending on SWIFT's chain of correspondents. The international leg takes minutes, because the money doesn't travel around the world: it is settled on both sides by licensed partners. What can vary is the last step, delivery over the country's local rail. On an instant rail it lands immediately; on a slower one, such as the American ACH, the wait is down to their own system, not to the FX. That is MON 3's design: we are a technology company, and the financial operation runs on regulated infrastructure, with authorised partners in the jurisdictions where we operate. See how it works in practice and what receiving via Pix involves.
Total cost is what matters: rate + spread + fee + tax
Almost everyone compares international payments by looking only at the advertised rate. It is the most expensive mistake in the industry, because the real cost of getting paid has four layers, and the rate you are shown is only the surface.
The first layer is the reference rate: the price of the dollar on the market, your starting point for measuring everything else. The second is the spread, the difference between that price and the one you were offered. It is the institution's margin, and it is almost never announced as a margin: it is announced as "the rate". The third is the fee, fixed, percentage or both, which sometimes shows up at more than one point in the same transaction. And the fourth is the tax, which the law sets and nobody negotiates. To unpack the most hidden layer, the spread, we wrote a whole guide on what the FX spread is and how to calculate it.
The number that sums all of this up has a name: VET (Valor Efetivo Total, the total effective cost). It is the total cost of the transaction in a single figure, the price you are in fact paying for each dollar, with rate, taxes and fees already included. It is the only number you can genuinely compare between one institution and another, and the Central Bank of Brazil publishes a VET ranking that helps with that comparison. Always ask for the VET, in writing: it turns a sales conversation into a comparison of numbers.
The advertised rate is marketing. The total cost is what lands in your account.
Individual or company: when each one makes sense
Receiving as an individual is the lowest-friction way to start. You don't need a CNPJ, articles of association or an accounting structure to get paid for a freelance job, a one-off consulting engagement or a project. The FX side works exactly as it does for a company, and income tax falls on you. At MON 3, receiving as an individual costs from 1.2% to 1.8%, depending on the amount: the larger the transaction, the lower the fee. That is the total cost, with FX already included and no surprises on the statement, and you can check the exact number for your case in the simulator or on the individuals page.
Receiving as a company makes sense when three things appear together: recurrence, volume and formality. Recurrence, because a predictable monthly flow justifies setting up and maintaining the structure. Volume, because past a certain point the difference in FX cost and tax burden between the two setups stops being a detail and becomes your bottom line. Formality, because the large client abroad will ask for a contract, an invoice in a company's name and, often, a supplier with a CNPJ for their own compliance. For companies, pricing is on request and set by contract, according to the volume, frequency and timing of your transfers: talk to us.
There is no universal answer, and be wary of anyone offering one. The right question isn't "do individuals or companies pay less tax", it is "which setup, adding up FX, tax and the cost of maintaining the structure, leaves more money with you at the end of the year". That calculation belongs to your accountant, with your numbers.
The tax on the recipient: the good news almost nobody tells you
This is where much of the Brazilian content on the subject gets it wrong, and gets it wrong against you.
IOF applies on settlement of the FX contract, and the rates are set out in Decree 6,306/2007. What most articles repeat is "0.38% when receiving from abroad". That is not what the rule says. Art. 15-B, item I sets a zero rate for the inflow of export revenue, and §4 of the same article makes clear that this also applies to the export of services, not only of goods. The Receita Federal itself reinforced this understanding in COSIT Ruling No. 34 of 10 March 2026.
Service export revenue entering Brazil has a **zero IOF rate** (Art. 15-B, I and §4 of Decree 6,306/2007), an understanding reinforced by COSIT Ruling No. 34/2026. It is not 0.38%, as almost the whole market repeats.
The honest caveat: §4 ties that zero rate to the services in Sections I to V of the NBS (the Brazilian Nomenclature of Services, Intangibles and Other Operations). Section VI services, such as the assignment of intellectual property rights, fall outside it on a literal reading of the text. If what you export isn't clearly a service in the first five sections, confirm the classification with your accountant before assuming the zero rate.
And there is a catch on the other side of the same coin.
If your export revenue **sits in an account abroad** and you only bring it in later, it may lose its standing as "export revenue". In that case the inflow no longer has a zero rate and falls under the general **0.38%** rule that applies to other FX transactions (Art. 15-B, item XXV). The position is contested by tax lawyers, but it is the understanding that prevails today. Leaving the money abroad "to bring in later" may cost what it wouldn't cost now.
Two calendar warnings, because this is July 2026 and the ground has moved a great deal. In 2025 the IOF on FX changed three times (Decrees 12,466, 12,467 and 12,499/2025), Congress overturned the decrees and, on 16 July 2025, the Supreme Court reinstated Decree 12,499/2025 (ADC 96, ADI 7827 and ADI 7839), keeping suspended only the levy on "risco sacado" (reverse factoring). It was an interim decision: the merits have not yet been judged by the full court, so today's rule may change. Second warning: zero IOF does not mean a tax-free transaction. Income tax on the recipient is still due, on the individual or on the company, depending on the setup. For individuals, income from abroad is assessed month by month through the carnê-leão, payable by the last business day of the month following the month of receipt. Always confirm the rules for your case at the official source and with your accountant.
Checklist before your first incoming payment
Know the nature of the transaction
Before any quote, be able to answer what it is you are receiving: a service export, a goods export or the repatriation of your own funds. That classification is your responsibility by law and it defines the tax. Getting it wrong costs money on one side or an assessment on the other.
Have the contract and the invoice
A contract with the client and an invoice describing the service provided are not bureaucracy: they are the documentary proof of the nature of the transaction. If your classification is questioned, that is what you will show.
Align the payment method with the other side
Your client will pay by whatever is easy for them, not by what is easy for you. An American wants to click ACH; a European, SEPA. Offering their local method is the difference between being paid first time and having to chase the invoice by email three times.
Ask for the total cost, in writing
Rate, spread, fee and tax, added up, in reais: that is the VET of the transaction. If the answer comes back as loose percentages or an "it depends", you don't have a proposal yet, you have a conversation.
Agree it all with your accountant beforehand, not afterwards
The first payment sets the pattern for the ones that follow. It is worth an hour with whoever signs off on your accounting.
How to choose by total cost, not by the advertised rate
Run the simplest test there is: take the same amount, on the same day and at the same time, and ask each option for a single answer, how many reais land in your account. Not the rate, not the fee: the reais. Rates are comparable only in appearance; the number that lands in the account is comparable for real.
Then compare what comes with it: how long the money takes to arrive, whether your client can pay without friction on their side, and whether you can explain every line of the cost to your accountant. A slightly better rate that arrives in five days and carries a fee you only discover on the statement is not a better rate.
That is the standard we are after: one line of cost, stated up front and honoured afterwards. Money, as it should be.
Find out in seconds how much actually lands in your account
This content is informational and does not constitute financial, legal or tax advice. Legislation changes: always confirm with a qualified professional and at official sources.