How to Get a CPF in Brazil as a Foreigner
Three channels lead to the same number, and the one most guides skip is a web form the tax authority runs specifically for foreigners. What decides your route is not your visa — it is which ID document the rules accept from you.
By Jeff Bruno
· Editor, Curitiba
In this article
Three channels lead to the same number: a web form the tax authority runs for foreigners, a Brazilian consulate abroad, or a counter inside Brazil. It is free, except up to R$ 7.00 at an accredited unit, and the number is issued at the end of the appointment that completes it.
What decides your route is the ID you hold, not your visa. A passport works if you live abroad or are in transit in Brazil; a resident needs the migration card instead.
Who can apply, and which route is yours
The registry covers foreign individuals, resident and non-resident, and anyone not obliged to register may ask to be registered anyway. Neither sentence mentions nationality or visa class. What a CPF is covers where the number is demanded; this covers getting one.
The three channels: online, through a form the tax authority runs specifically for foreigners; at a Brazilian consulate, in person, if you live abroad; or inside Brazil, at a Receita Federal counter, a partner registry office, Banco do Brasil, Caixa or the post office.
A widely repeated claim says a foreigner abroad must appear at a consulate. It is accurate about the consular service — the email channel really is reserved for Brazilians — but it is not a monopoly: the annex in force, which sets channels by nationality, includes the RFB website in the line covering all other nationalities.
At a glanceChecked August 26, 2026
- Cost
- Free, except up to R$ 7.00 at an accredited unit
- Online form for foreigners
- Yes — separate from the general one
- ID if you live abroad or are in transit
- Passport, CRNM or CIE/RNE, or a Mercosur ID
- ID if you are a resident of Brazil
- CRNM and equivalents — not the passport
- Plastic card
- No longer issued — the CPF is a number
- Annual update, address abroad, age 16+
- Required, through the RFB app
- Processing time, consular route
- "Not estimated yet", on the service page
Receita Federal — service charter, IN RFB nº 2.172/2024 as amended, and Annex IV in the wording of IN RFB nº 2.236/2024. Accessed August 26, 2026.
The document decides, not the visa
No official page uses the word "tourist". The rules sort people by where they live and by which ID document they can produce. That is the entire distinction.
| Your situation | ID documents the annex in force accepts |
|---|---|
| Living abroad, or in transit in Brazil | Passport; CRNM or the old CIE/RNE; or an ID document from a Mercosur member or associated state |
| Resident in Brazil | CRNM or the old CIE/RNE; a CRNM protocol; a DPRNM; a refugee protocol; a consular registration certificate carrying a photo; or a Mercosur travel document |
The passport sits in the first row and is absent from the second: a visitor presents a passport, a resident presents the migration card the Federal Police issues.
For an adult, the photo ID has to show nationality and date of birth. You add a birth or marriage certificate only if it does not. Foreign adults are not asked to prove parentage — that falls on applicants under 18, and a passport rarely names your parents. Translation is not required, though apostille, consular legalization or a sworn translation may be demanded. In-person service takes originals or authenticated copies only.
The Mercosur row carries a clock. The wording in force runs to December 31, 2026, and that deadline has already moved twice: it was June 30, 2025, then December 31, 2025. Check the current wording before counting on it — it affects Argentines, Uruguayans, Paraguayans and Chileans who plan to use a national ID rather than a passport.
The online route, from anywhere
There are two online forms, and picking the wrong one wastes an afternoon. The general public form demands a Brazilian voter registration number, restricts its place-of-birth field to Brazilian states and asks for your mother's name — unusable if you were not born here.
The one that works is a separate form, listed in the service charter as Inscrever Estrangeiro no CPF. Its document dropdown offers four options, Passport among them, and its country-of-residence field carries the full list of countries with none pre-selected — which is what makes it usable from outside Brazil.
One honest limit: the page never says whether it completes the registration or only opens a protocol. The rules allow a service started on the internet to be non-conclusive, in which case a protocol lists the documents you then present. We did not submit the form, so we cannot tell you which it is.
Through a Brazilian consulate
If you live abroad and want the matter settled by a person, find the consular post with jurisdiction over your address and book through the e-consular system. Bring three things: the Ficha Cadastral de Pessoa Física (FCPF), filled out and signed on the RFB website; an ID document; and a birth or marriage certificate.
Two details make this route worth the trip. Brazilian diplomatic posts can complete the registration rather than merely start it, and when they do they must print and hand over the Comprovante de Inscrição no CPF, the registration receipt. The service is free.
Two details cut the other way. Neither the tax authority nor the foreign ministry publishes a processing time. And coverage is not universal: the e-consular system states in writing that if the consulate in your jurisdiction lacks the system, you are redirected to that post's own page for instructions.
Inside Brazil, in person
The tax authority lists the non-resident among the cases it serves directly. It also works through a closed list of partners: Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, the post office, federal public bodies, the civil registry association and the securities commission. No travel agency or paid assistance service appears on it, and the charter says as much: no intermediaries are needed.
The registry office on that list is a cartório, and it is not a government counter: the Constitution has notarial and registry services carried out privately, by delegation of the State. The same family of offices is where "originals or authenticated copies" sends you, at a notarial desk — Law 8,935/1994 reserves authenticating a copy to notaries alone.
At a partner unit the act is performed on the spot, and handing you the receipt is mandatory. The published estimate for the service is 15 minutes. When the counter cannot finish, you get a protocol number listing what to bring. You close it by emailing the documents to the address for the state where you live — a channel the authority says averages 48 hours. It asks for a selfie holding your document and caps attachments at 10 MB.
What it costs, and what you actually receive
Free is the rule. The single exception is an accredited unit, where up to R$ 7.00 may be charged — a ceiling written into the rules, not a fee the tax authority collects. Registry offices and federal bodies can do it free under their agreements.
What you receive is a number, generated once the appointment ends — no plastic card, and the printed or in-app receipt takes effect only once its authenticity is confirmed on the RFB website.
That number is also the gate for PIX. If your stay is short and paying for things is the whole problem, what tourists can do about PIX and getting cash without a local card are the better use of an afternoon.
The renewal nobody mentions
Most guides stop at the moment the number is issued. The rules do not.
A chapter added in November 2024 requires a foreigner with an address abroad, aged 16 or over, to update their CPF registration once a year, at any point between January 1 and December 31. It runs through the tax authority's mobile app: you supply the CPF number and date of birth, and the app captures a photo of your face and of your passport. If the app does not work, the rules point to a Brazilian diplomatic post. It was optional in 2024 only; since 2025 it is a duty.
So the CPF behaves differently depending on where you live. Register a Brazilian address and this chapter does not reach you; keep one abroad and you are in an annual cycle tied to a phone app and a passport photo. What a CPF is explains the status that depends on keeping the data current.
Sources
- Receita Federal — service charter, "Inscrever no CPF": eligibility, channels, cost and the 15-minute estimate. gov.br/pt-br/servicos/inscrever-no-cpf (page last modified August 4, 2026; accessed August 26, 2026)
- Receita Federal — IN RFB nº 2.172/2024, consolidated text with all five later amendments: the R$ 7.00 ceiling, non-conclusive service, consular powers, the Mercosur deadline and the annual update. Consolidated text (accessed August 26, 2026)
- Receita Federal — Annex IV in the wording of IN RFB nº 2.236/2024, in force since November 26, 2024: accepted documents and channels by nationality. Annex IV, PDF (accessed August 26, 2026)
- Ministério das Relações Exteriores — "Inscrever no CPF no exterior": the consular route, its documents and its cost. gov.br/pt-br/servicos/inscrever-no-cpf-no-exterior (page last modified December 15, 2025; accessed August 26, 2026)
- Receita Federal — the foreigner registration form itself: document options and country field. Inscrição CPF Estrangeiro (accessed August 26, 2026)
- Receita Federal — "Obter cartão de CPF": the plastic card is no longer issued. gov.br/pt-br/servicos/obter-cartao-de-cpf (page last modified August 6, 2026; accessed August 26, 2026)
- Presidência da República — what a cartório is: Constitution, art. 236 and Law 8,935/1994, art. 7 (accessed August 27, 2026)
More about how these guides are checked is on our method page, written by Jeff Bruno in Curitiba. Other guides in this topic are under money and payments, and everything published so far is in all guides.
What we could not verify
- Whether the online form for foreigners completes the registration or only opens a protocol. We read the form's full HTML on August 26, 2026 and it never says. Finding out would mean submitting a real person's data, which we did not do.
- How long the consular route takes. The service page answers "not estimated yet" in all three places it could publish a number. That is an absence declared by the agency, not a gap in our reading.
- Which consulates actually offer CPF booking. We opened the e-consular system on August 26, 2026: one country selector, 196 entries, no mention of CPF on the landing page. Enumerating post by post would mean walking each booking flow.
- Any official page saying, in those words, that a tourist may register. We searched the tax authority's questions and answers, its service charter, the consular service page and the full text of the rules. The word "tourist" appears zero times; "in transit" is the operative term.
Frequently asked
The rules never mention visa type. They sort people by residence and by accepted document, and a passport is valid ID for anyone living abroad or in transit in Brazil.
No. The consulate is one channel. The tax authority also lists a web form for foreigners, and its own annex includes the RFB website among the channels for other nationalities.
Nothing, with one exception. An accredited unit may charge up to R$ 7.00, which is a ceiling written into the rules, not a fee the tax authority collects.
Yes, through a representative. A power of attorney drawn up abroad needs an apostille if your country signed the Hague Convention, or recognition by a Brazilian consular post.
The number does not. But a foreigner with an address abroad, aged 16 or over, has to update the registration every year through the tax authority's mobile app.
Jeff Bruno
Curitiba, Paraná
Runs online retail in Brazil. Pays suppliers by PIX, ships through the Correios, crosses to Paraguay for stock.
About the author →Every guide names its sources
And says what it could not verify. That is the whole point.
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