PIX: Brazil’s Instant Payment System, Keys, Limits, and Fees

Brazil’s PIX instant payment system, built and run by the Central Bank of Brazil, moves money between any two Brazilian accounts in seconds, at any hour, on any day of the year. It launched in November 2020 and was approaching eight billion monthly transactions by late 2025, with more than 170 million users. Every participating bank and fintech connects to the same settlement rails, so a transfer from a large commercial bank to a small digital wallet clears just as fast as one between accounts at the same institution. For individuals, sending and receiving PIX is free.

Who Can Use PIX

Any individual or business with a checking, savings, or prepaid payment account at a participating Brazilian institution can use PIX. For residents, registration usually happens inside the bank’s mobile app in a few taps.

Foreign nationals can use PIX too, but there is a prerequisite: you need a CPF, Brazil’s individual taxpayer ID. Without a CPF you cannot open a Brazilian bank account, and without a Brazilian bank account you cannot register for PIX. Any foreigner can apply for a CPF regardless of visa status, including tourists, students, digital nomads, and investors. Once the CPF and account are in place, PIX setup works the same way it does for any Brazilian.

PIX Keys and QR Codes

Instead of exchanging full bank details, PIX users identify their account with a Chave Pix, or PIX key. Four types are allowed: your CPF or CNPJ tax ID, an email address, a mobile phone number, or a randomly generated alphanumeric code for people who would rather not share personal information.¹ Individuals can register up to five keys per account; businesses can register up to twenty.

Each piece of identifying information can only be linked to one account at a time. If your phone number is registered as a key at Bank A and you want it at Bank B, you request a portability transfer. The Central Bank’s rules cover portability for phone numbers and email addresses between accounts you own, and also a claim process when the key belongs to someone else.² Key management is available from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Brasília time, though some institutions extend those hours.

If you would rather not hand out a key at all, you can generate a QR code. A static QR code can be reused, which suits merchants and anyone accepting repeated payments. A dynamic QR code is single-use and can lock in a specific amount or invoice reference. For desktop situations where scanning is awkward, there is a copy-and-paste option: the receiver produces a text string, the sender pastes it into their banking app, and the payment details load automatically.

How to Send a PIX Payment

Open the PIX section in your bank’s app. Type the recipient’s key, scan their QR code, or paste a copy-and-paste string. The app pulls up the recipient’s name and a partial tax ID so you can confirm you have the right person before entering an amount. You then authenticate with a biometric scan or PIN.

Once authenticated, the funds arrive in the recipient’s account within seconds and a digital receipt appears with a unique transaction ID. Keep the receipt. It is your official proof of payment. Settlement through the Central Bank’s clearing system is final and irrevocable, so there is no undo button once you have authorized a transfer.

Transfer Limits

The Central Bank sets baseline limits under Resolution BCB No. 142 to reduce fraud losses. The one most users notice: person-to-person transfers made between 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM are capped at R$1,000.³ The cap exists because forced transactions and scams cluster in late hours.

You can request a higher limit inside your banking app, but any increase takes at least 24 hours to activate.³ That waiting period is deliberate: if someone is coercing you into raising your limit, the delay gives you time to report it. Lowering your limit takes effect immediately.⁴

New devices carry their own restriction. Under BCB Normative No. 491, the first time a device is used to send PIX, it is capped at R$200 per transaction and R$1,000 per day until the institution registers and verifies it. Businesses can negotiate higher limits for large B2B transfers, but the defaults apply everywhere else.

Fees for Individuals and Businesses

Individuals, including sole proprietors, cannot be charged by their financial institution for sending or receiving PIX.⁵ The only situation where an individual might see a charge is on funds received that are specifically tagged as a purchase payment, and even then the fee is at the institution’s discretion.

Businesses registered under a CNPJ operate under different rules. Institutions can charge them on both sending and receiving, and the rates vary by provider. PIX often runs well below credit card processing fees, which is a significant part of why merchants adopted it so quickly. Institutions cannot charge each other on PIX transactions, which prevents costs from being layered between the sender’s and receiver’s banks.⁵

If Something Goes Wrong: The Special Refund Mechanism

PIX is irrevocable, which is the point of instant settlement but also a problem when a scammer is on the other end. The Central Bank’s answer is the Mecanismo Especial de Devolução (MED), a structured process for recovering money lost to fraud or a bank’s system error.⁶

If you are the victim of a scam involving PIX, you have 80 days from the transaction date to file a refund request with your bank. Speed matters. The sooner you report, the better the odds that the money is still sitting in the fraudster’s account. Once your institution accepts the claim, the recipient’s funds are blocked and the case is analyzed within seven days. If fraud is confirmed, you get the money back, in full or partially depending on what remains, within 96 hours. Where only a partial refund is possible because the fraudster already moved some of the money out, the recipient’s bank keeps blocking and returning funds as they land in that account for up to 90 days after the original transaction.⁶

The original MED could only freeze funds in the first account that received them, so sophisticated scammers scattered the money immediately. MED 2.0, which became mandatory for all PIX account providers on February 2, 2026, adds cascade tracking that follows the money through chains of intermediary accounts and applies blocks at each step. Recoveries under MED 2.0 are designed to complete within 11 days of a dispute.

Separately, institutions can preemptively freeze incoming PIX funds for up to 72 hours when they suspect fraud on the recipient’s side.⁴ If fraud is confirmed inside that window, the money goes back to the sender. If not, the block lifts and the recipient gets access.

One boundary trips people up: MED covers fraud, scams, and bank system errors such as a duplicate transaction from a glitch. It does not cover a transfer you made voluntarily to the wrong person. If you mistype a phone number and send R$500 to a stranger, you have to contact the recipient directly, and if they refuse to return the money your remaining option is small claims court.

Getting Cash with PIX

PIX also works for physical cash withdrawals at participating stores, lottery outlets, and ATMs.⁷ Two variants exist:

PIX Saque: you scan a QR code at a participating location and send a PIX transfer to the establishment. They hand you the equivalent in cash, essentially turning a corner store into an ATM.
PIX Troco: you make a purchase and ask for cash back in the same transaction. The PIX covers both the purchase and the extra cash, with the withdrawal limit applying only to the cash portion.

Between 6:00 AM and 8:00 PM, individual withdrawals can reach R$3,000. The nighttime cap drops to R$1,000, matching the general transfer restrictions. Individuals get up to eight free withdrawal transactions per month across both services combined, and traditional ATM withdrawals count against that total. Businesses offering these services may be charged from the first transaction.⁷

PIX Automático for Recurring Bills

PIX Automático, launched on June 16, 2025, lets you authorize a business to debit your account on a recurring schedule for utilities, subscriptions, tuition, and similar bills. It runs on PIX’s instant settlement rails and is free for individual payers.

When you authorize a recurring charge in your banking app you set the terms: maximum amount per debit, frequency, due dates, and an optional expiration. Every incoming charge is checked against those parameters. If a charge exceeds the authorized amount or arrives outside the approved schedule, it is denied.⁸

If a scheduled payment fails because of insufficient funds or a temporary system issue, the system retries up to three times over seven calendar days. You can pause or cancel any authorization at any time inside your banking app, and the cancellation takes effect as long as you submit it by 11:59 PM the day before the next scheduled charge.⁹Banco Central do Brasil. Normative Instruction BCB No 436

Unlike credit card subscriptions, there is no automatic refund mechanism once a PIX Automático debit clears. Disputes over a completed charge have to be worked out directly with the billing company.

Using PIX Outside Brazil

PIX was designed as a domestic system, and cross-border access is still uneven. In March 2026, Banco do Brasil launched “PIX Abroad” in Argentina, placing PIX QR codes at over 6,000 points of sale in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities so Brazilian travelers can pay in Argentine pesos with settlement in reais. Cross-border PIX was already working in Uruguay through fintech partnerships, with similar arrangements extending acceptance to Chile, Peru, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States through various intermediaries.

These are individual bank and fintech implementations rather than a unified Central Bank framework. The Central Bank has expressed interest in the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Nexus for linking national instant payment systems, but Brazil has not formally joined the founding group. Whether PIX works where you are traveling depends on which bank you use and which country you are in.

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Banco Central do Brasil. Pix En
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Banco Central do Brasil. Resolution BCB 1 – Pix Regulation
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Banco Central do Brasil. Resolução BCB nº 142
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Central Bank of Brazil. Pix FAQ
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Central Bank of Brazil. Pix Participants
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Banco Central do Brasil. O que é e como funciona o Mecanismo Especial de Devolução (MED)
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Banco Central do Brasil. Pix e Transferência
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Banco Central do Brasil. Normative Instruction BCB No 436
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