Inheriting Property in Brazil as a Non-Resident Heir

The message usually arrives through a relative: your Brazilian grandmother has died, and her apartment in São Paulo — or the farm, or the beach house bought decades ago — is partly yours. You live in Chicago, or Lisbon, or Toronto. You may not speak Portuguese, you may never have set foot in Brazil, and you now hold a stack of unfamiliar words: inventário, cartório, ITCMD, legítima. Somewhere in the family group chat, someone insists the whole thing can be handled through the will filed back home. Someone else says you must fly to Brazil next week or lose everything.

Both are wrong, in instructive ways. You will almost never lose an inheritance by staying home — but you also cannot collect it from home through your own country’s probate. Brazilian succession runs on its own rails, in Brazil, on a clock that started at the death.

The thing this guide turns on is jurisdiction: for assets situated in Brazil, Brazilian authorities have exclusive jurisdiction over the estate proceeding. No American, Portuguese, or Canadian court order — however valid at home — transfers a Brazilian apartment. Once you accept that the proceeding happens in Brazil, everything else becomes logistics: choosing the right probate route, meeting the deadline, paying the state inheritance tax, and equipping yourself — CPF, documents, a representative — to participate from abroad without boarding a plane.

This is educational content prepared by the ZS Advogados Associados team for heirs living outside Brazil — children and grandchildren of Brazilians, foreign spouses, beneficiaries of mixed-nationality families — who have just learned they inherit Brazilian assets. It covers why probate happens in Brazil, the judicial and notarial routes, deadlines and late-opening penalties, the ITCMD and the reform reshaping it, what a non-resident heir actually needs, forced heirship, and the tax when you later sell. It builds on our guides to international inheritance in Brazil, property inventory and estate proceedings, and how estates are divided among heirs.

Why does probate happen in Brazil even though you live abroad?

Because Brazilian law says so, in terms courts do not bend. Article 23, II of the CPC/2015 (Código de Processo Civil, Lei 13.105/2015) provides that, to the exclusion of any other authority, Brazilian courts have jurisdiction, in matters of succession, to conduct the inventário (the estate proceeding) and the partilha (partition) of assets situated in Brazil — even if the deceased was a foreign national or domiciled outside Brazil.

Three practical consequences for the heir abroad:

• A foreign probate order does not transfer Brazilian property. The Brazilian real-estate registry (Registro de Imóveis) records transfers based on a Brazilian judicial partition or a Brazilian notarial deed — not on letters testamentary from Illinois or a Portuguese habilitação de herdeiros.
• Parallel estates are normal. If the deceased had assets in two countries, expect two proceedings: one at home for home assets, one in Brazil for Brazilian assets. They should be coordinated — but neither substitutes for the other. The mirror-image also holds: Brazilian courts generally do not administer the deceased’s foreign assets.
• A foreign will is not ignored — it is processed in Brazil. A will made abroad can, in principle, be given effect over Brazilian assets, subject to Brazilian formalities and to the forced-heirship limits below. How, and through which route, is case-specific.

The rule cuts both ways and surprises both directions: Brazilians abroad discover their home country cannot probate the São Paulo apartment; foreign families discover Brazil will not defer to their home court. Our guide on international inheritance in Brazil maps the cross-border coordination in more depth, and heirs who suspect the deceased relative’s Brazilian records were never in order may also want our guide on citizenship by descent through a deceased Brazilian relative’s estate — the same document-hunting often serves both projects.

Legal basis: exclusive Brazilian jurisdiction over the inventário and partilha of assets situated in Brazil, whatever the deceased’s nationality or foreign domicile, is article 23, II, of the Código de Processo Civil (Lei nº 13.105/2015); the succession itself is governed by the Código Civil (Lei nº 10.406/2002).

Judicial or extrajudicial — which route will your inventário take?

Brazil offers two probate routes, and the difference in cost and calendar is enormous.

Judicial inventário runs in court (CPC arts. 610–673): a judge appoints an administrator (inventariante), assets are listed and valued, creditors and taxes are addressed, and the partition is approved by sentence. It is mandatory whenever the heirs disagree, and in configurations the notarial rules do not accept. Contested judicial estates routinely run years.

Extrajudicial inventário is done by public deed at a notary office (cartório de notas), a route created by Lei 11.441/2007 and regulated nationally by CNJ Resolução 35/2007. Its core requirements: all heirs in consensus, participation of a lawyer, and taxes settled before the deed. When available, it is dramatically faster — consensual estates close in weeks to months.

The notarial route was significantly widened by CNJ Resolução 571/2024, which amended Resolução 35/2007. Two former absolute blockers softened:

• A will no longer automatically forces court. Estates with a testament can, under conditions, proceed at the notary — in practice after the will is processed/registered and where all interested parties are capable and agree. Before 2024, any will meant judicial inventário (or a specific judicial authorization).
• Minor or incapable heirs no longer automatically force court. The deed can proceed if the minor or incapable heir receives their share in an ideal fraction of every asset (no unequal trades against them) and the Ministério Público (public prosecutor’s office) manifests favorably.

Resolução 35/2007 also allows free choice of notary anywhere in Brazil, regardless of where the property sits — useful when heirs’ counsel and documents are concentrated in one city. State notarial authorities apply these rules with local variations, so availability must be confirmed for the specific case and state.

For the heir abroad, the headline is: consensus is money. If all heirs agree, a non-resident can typically participate through a procurador holding a power of attorney, without traveling, and the estate can close at a cartório in months. Our comparison guide on judicial versus extrajudicial routes and how estates get divided goes further.

Legal basis: the judicial inventário is governed by arts. 610–673 of the CPC/2015; the notarial route by Lei nº 11.441/2007, regulated by Resolução CNJ nº 35/2007, as amended by Resolução CNJ nº 571/2024 (wills and minor/incapable heirs at the notary under conditions, including favorable manifestation of the Ministério Público).

Speak to counsel — route selection is state- and fact-sensitive. Whether your estate qualifies for the notarial route — with a foreign will, an heir abroad, a minor, or a disputed asset — depends on the state’s notarial rules and the cartório’s practice as much as on the national resolutions. Have counsel test the route before committing documents and taxes to it.

What deadlines apply — and what does missing them cost?

Two clocks start at the death.

The procedural clock. Article 611 of the CPC/2015 directs that the inventário be opened within 2 months of the opening of the succession (the death) and concluded within 12 months, with courts able to extend. In practice, the conclusion deadline is routinely extended; the opening deadline is the one that bites — through tax law.

The tax clock. The states enforce the opening deadline with ITCMD surcharges. São Paulo is the clean example: under Lei estadual 10.705/2000, art. 21, if the inventário is not requested within 60 days of death, the ITCMD is calculated with a 10% penalty surcharge; if the delay exceeds 180 days, the surcharge is 20%. On a R$2,000,000 estate at São Paulo’s 4%, that is R$8,000–R$16,000 of pure delay cost. Other states have their own surcharges, rates, and clocks — some harsher, some softer — and São Paulo courts have nuanced how the deadline applies to notarial inventários, so treat the 60-day figure as the planning rule, not the last word.

Heirs abroad are structurally exposed here: news of the death travels slowly, documents need apostilles and sworn translations that take weeks, and coordinating siblings across time zones takes longer than anyone expects. The working answer is to open first, perfect later — Brazilian counsel can open the proceeding (judicial or notarial protocol, per state practice) within the window while the document file is still being completed.

Legal basis: the 2-month opening and 12-month conclusion directive is art. 611 do CPC/2015; the São Paulo late-opening surcharges (10% after 60 days; 20% after 180 days) are art. 21 da Lei paulista nº 10.705/2000. Each state legislates its own penalties — confirm the law of the state that taxes your estate.

How much is ITCMD — and what is changing with the 2023–2027 reform?

The ITCMD (Imposto sobre Transmissão Causa Mortis e Doação) is the state inheritance and gift tax, charged on the market value of what each heir receives. Because it is state law, everything — rate, exemptions, base, penalties — varies by state:

• São Paulo currently charges a flat 4% (Lei 10.705/2000), with limited exemptions for small values.
• Other states charge up to 8%, the current ceiling set by the Federal Senate, many with progressive brackets (Rio de Janeiro, for example, runs progressive rates to 8%).

Which state collects? For real property, always the state where the property is located. For other assets, the connecting factors were historically litigated, especially when the deceased lived abroad — a gap the reform now closes.

The reform. EC 132/2023 (the constitutional tax-reform amendment) rewrote the ITCMD’s constitutional frame: progressivity by the size of the inheritance share became mandatory, and transfers connected to persons domiciled abroad — previously a constitutional void that some states taxed and courts struck down — received an express basis. LC 227/2026 (Lei Complementar 227, of 13 January 2026) then set the national general rules: mandatory progressivity displacing flat-rate systems, a broader and more uniform tax base (including rules for shares in companies and foreign trusts), aggregation of successive gifts, and, for a deceased domiciled abroad, allocation of the tax on non-real-estate assets to the state where the heir is domiciled — with specific rules where the heir, too, lives abroad. States are now adapting their statutes, and flat-rate states like São Paulo are widely expected to move to progressive schedules — with proposals reaching toward the ceiling — in the transition to 2027. Estates opening in 2026 sit exactly on this fault line: the law in force at the death governs, which is one more reason not to let the proceeding drift. Our dedicated guide on the ITCMD and the 2027 reform tracks the moving parts.

Legal basis: the ITCMD is art. 155, I, of the Constitution, as amended by Emenda Constitucional nº 132/2023 (mandatory progressivity; foreign-domicile rules); national general rules are in Lei Complementar nº 227/2026; the São Paulo tax is Lei estadual nº 10.705/2000 (currently 4%).

Speak to counsel — hedge every ITCMD number by state and date. Rates, exemptions, small-estate thresholds, penalty clocks, and the pace of post-LC 227 adaptation differ across all 27 units of the federation and are changing now. The figures above are orientation, not a computation; the estate’s actual tax must be run against the current law of the specific state.

What does a non-resident heir actually need?

The equipment list for inheriting from abroad is short, but every item has lead time:

Item	What it is	Practical notes
CPF	Brazilian individual taxpayer number	Required even for non-residents to inherit, pay ITCMD, and be registered as owner; obtainable abroad via consulates/online (IN RFB 2.172/2024)
Identity documents	Passport, civil documents	Copies generally apostilled and sworn-translated
Proof of kinship	Birth/marriage certificates linking you to the deceased	Foreign certificates need apostille + sworn translation; Brazilian ones are pulled from registries
Death certificate	Brazilian, or foreign if death occurred abroad	Foreign certificate must be apostilled, translated, and typically registered in Brazil
Power of attorney (procuração)	Appoints your procurador in Brazil	Can be signed abroad — at a Brazilian consulate, or locally with apostille + sworn translation; scope should cover the inventário, tax filings, and (if desired) sale
Sworn translations	Tradução juramentada of every foreign document	Only translators enrolled in Brazil; per-page pricing; weeks of lead time
Bank route for proceeds	How your share eventually reaches you	Sale proceeds/remittances flow through the FX system; plan with counsel and the bank

Two of these deserve a word. The CPF surprises everyone: yes, a person who has never entered Brazil needs a Brazilian taxpayer number to inherit Brazilian assets — it is how you exist in the tax, notarial, and registry systems. It can be obtained without traveling; our guide on getting a CPF from abroad walks through it. The power of attorney is what makes the whole proceeding remote-friendly: with a well-drafted procuração, your Brazilian lawyer signs the deed, pays the tax, and registers the property while you stay home. Draft the scope carefully — a POA that covers the inventário but not a subsequent sale means a second round of consular paperwork later.

Speak to counsel — document formats are where months are lost. Apostille conventions, translation requirements, consular practices, and each cartório’s preferences differ. Have Brazilian counsel fix the exact list and formats before you start collecting — redoing a POA across an ocean is the classic three-month delay.

Can the will cut you out? The legítima in one paragraph

Brazil is a forced-heirship jurisdiction. The Código Civil designates necessary heirs (herdeiros necessários) — descendants, ascendants, and the spouse (arts. 1.845) — and reserves for them the legítima: 50% of the estate (art. 1.846). Only the remaining half (a parte disponível) can be freely willed to anyone. A will — Brazilian or foreign — that tries to give away more is not void; it is reduced until the reserved half is intact. Disinheriting a necessary heir outright requires narrow statutory grounds, formally invoked. For assets situated in Brazil, these rules apply in the Brazilian proceeding regardless of the deceased’s nationality or the more testament-friendly rules of their home country. If you are a child or grandchild of the deceased reading a will that leaves you nothing, do not assume it stands as written — and conversely, if you are the chosen beneficiary of everything, do not assume it either.

Legal basis: necessary heirs and the 50% reserved share are arts. 1.845 and 1.846 do Código Civil (Lei nº 10.406/2002); Brazilian constitutional and conflict-of-laws rules further protect the Brazilian spouse and children in cross-border successions, applying the law most favorable to them — a point counsel should analyze case by case.

What happens when you sell the property afterwards?

Many non-resident heirs have no intention of keeping a Brazilian apartment. The exit has its own tax layer, and one decision inside the estate quietly determines its size.

The tax. A non-resident selling Brazilian real estate pays capital-gains tax on the difference between the sale price and the acquisition cost. The baseline non-resident practice applies 15%; the progressive brackets of Lei 13.259/2016 (15% up to R$5 million, then 17.5%, 20%, and 22.5% above R$30 million) are written for residents, and their extension to non-residents remains debated — confirm the current administrative position before pricing a sale. Collection is at the closing: the buyer, or the non-resident seller’s procurador, is responsible for the withholding and payment. Residents’ exemptions — notably the 180-day reinvestment rule for residential property — generally do not shelter non-residents.

The acquisition-cost decision. Here is the trap and the planning lever in one: your acquisition cost as heir is the value at which the property passed to you in the estate. Brazilian law lets the estate transfer assets either at the deceased’s historical declared value or at market value — and if market value is chosen, the step-up difference is taxed as the estate’s capital gain at the transfer. Transfer low, and the ITCMD base may argue lower today, but your entire appreciation since the deceased’s purchase decades ago becomes your taxable gain at 15% when you sell. Transfer at market, and tax is paid sooner but the later sale may show little gain. Which is better depends on rates, timing, and intentions — it is a computation, not a guess. Our guide on capital gains for non-residents selling inherited Brazilian property runs the scenarios, and the proceeds themselves exit Brazil through the regular FX channels with the tax paperwork in order.

Legal basis: capital-gains rates are Lei nº 13.259/2016 (progressive 15–22.5% brackets; application to non-residents subject to the current Receita Federal position); the option to transfer estate assets at declared value or market value, taxing the difference, is art. 23 da Lei nº 9.532/1997.

What does it cost and how long does it take?

Honest ranges, because estates vary wildly (illustrative, as of August 2026; FX ~R$5.4/US$1):

Timeline. A consensual extrajudicial estate with organized documents commonly closes in 1–4 months from opening; add the weeks-to-months of foreign document preparation (apostilles, translations, POA) in front. A judicial consensual estate often runs 6–18 months; a contested judicial estate runs years — 2 to 5 is unremarkable, longer where assets or heirs are hard to find.

Costs. The estate typically bears: ITCMD at the state’s rate (planning range 2–8% of asset values, plus any late-opening surcharge); notary and registry fees (emolumentos), set by state tables and scaled to asset values — often on the order of a few thousand to tens of thousands of reais for a deed plus registration on a typical apartment; court costs in the judicial route; sworn translations (charged per page — full foreign document sets add up) and apostille/consular fees abroad; and legal fees, which Brazilian firms commonly structure as a percentage of the estate (market practice often quoted in the single digits) or as fixed/staged fees for consensual notarial estates. A rough composite: on a R$1,500,000 (~US$280,000) São Paulo apartment passing consensually to cooperative heirs, total transaction costs frequently land in the 6–10% band, dominated by the ITCMD. These are market-education ranges, not quotes.

Hypothetical illustration — not a real client.

Imagine a woman in Chicago, granddaughter of a Brazilian, who learns that her late grandmother left an apartment in Campinas to be shared with two Brazilian cousins. There is no will; everyone is an adult and gets along. From Chicago she obtains a CPF online, signs a power of attorney at the Brazilian consulate appointing the family’s Brazilian lawyer, and couriers apostilled, sworn-translated birth certificates proving the chain of kinship through her late mother.

The cousins choose the extrajudicial route. Because the family only organized itself four months after the death, São Paulo’s 10%-surcharge band applies to the 4% ITCMD — an avoidable cost the lawyer flags for the file. The deed is signed at a Campinas cartório with the procurador standing in for the Chicago heir; the apartment is registered in the three names ninety days later, at market value, positioning a planned sale with minimal further gain.

Every distinguishing detail here is invented. Real situations turn on their own facts, dates, and documents, and require individual analysis. Nothing in this example predicts any outcome.

What are the most common mistakes?

• Trying to run the estate through home-country probate. Brazilian-situs assets pass only through a Brazilian inventário (CPC art. 23, II). Foreign orders do not transfer Brazilian property.
• Missing the 60-day opening window. In São Paulo, that is an automatic 10% ITCMD surcharge, 20% past 180 days. Open first, perfect the file later.
• Assuming the will controls everything. The legítima reserves 50% for necessary heirs; wills operate on the disposable half only.
• Not getting the CPF early. Every downstream act — deed, tax, registry, sale — needs it; it can be issued from abroad.
• Under-scoping the power of attorney. A POA covering the inventário but not the sale, the tax filings, or the FX remittance means repeating consular paperwork.
• Ignoring the declared-value vs. market-value election. It silently allocates tax between the estate’s ITCMD/gain today and your capital gain at the future sale.
• Letting one holdout heir default everyone into court. Consensus unlocks the notarial route; often the cheapest concession in the file is the one that preserves it.
• Forgetting the reform clock. Progressive ITCMD under EC 132/2023 and LC 227/2026 is arriving state by state toward 2027; the law at the date of death governs, and delay can change the landscape.

Inheriting in Brazil at a glance

Question	Answer	Where
Who has jurisdiction?	Brazil, exclusively, for Brazilian-situs assets	CPC art. 23, II
Probate routes	Judicial (court) or extrajudicial (notary; consensus + lawyer; wills/minors possible under conditions)	CPC 610–673; Lei 11.441/2007; CNJ Res. 35/2007 e 571/2024
Opening deadline	2 months from death; SP adds 10%/20% ITCMD surcharge after 60/180 days	CPC art. 611; Lei SP 10.705/2000, art. 21
Inheritance tax	ITCMD, state-level; SP flat 4% today; up to 8% elsewhere; progressivity becoming mandatory	Lei SP 10.705/2000; EC 132/2023; LC 227/2026
Heir’s toolkit	CPF (even non-resident), apostilled + sworn-translated documents, procuração	IN RFB 2.172/2024; Hague Apostille
Forced heirship	50% (legítima) reserved for descendants, ascendants, spouse	CC arts. 1.845–1.846
Selling later	Non-resident capital gains, 15% baseline; cost = estate transfer value	Lei 13.259/2016; Lei 9.532/1997, art. 23

Key terms

• Inventário — the Brazilian estate proceeding, judicial or notarial.
• Partilha — the partition allocating assets among heirs; formal de partilha is the judicial partition instrument.
• Cartório de notas — the notary office where extrajudicial estates are deeded.
• ITCMD — the state inheritance and gift tax.
• Legítima — the 50% of the estate reserved for necessary heirs.
• Herdeiros necessários — descendants, ascendants, and the spouse.
• Procuração / procurador — the power of attorney and the attorney-in-fact who represents an absent heir.
• Tradução juramentada — sworn translation by a Brazil-enrolled public translator.
• Inventariante — the estate’s administrator.

Key takeaways

• Brazilian probate is exclusive: assets situated in Brazil pass only through a Brazilian inventário (CPC art. 23, II) — no foreign order substitutes.
• Consensus is the fork in the road: agreement among heirs unlocks the fast notarial route (Lei 11.441/2007), now open in many will and minor-heir cases after CNJ Resolução 571/2024; disagreement means years in court.
• The clock is fiscal: open within 60 days or pay São Paulo’s 10–20% ITCMD surcharge — other states have their own penalties.
• Budget 2–8% for ITCMD, 4% flat in São Paulo today — and watch EC 132/2023 + LC 227/2026 push all states to progressive rates toward 2027.
• You need a CPF even as a non-resident, plus apostilled, sworn-translated documents and a well-scoped power of attorney — and with them, you likely never need to board a plane.
• The will cannot touch the legítima: 50% belongs to descendants, ascendants, and spouse by law.
• The estate’s valuation election (declared vs. market value) largely determines your capital-gains bill — 15% baseline for non-residents — when you sell.
• Engage Brazilian counsel immediately on learning of the death — the deadline, the route choice, and the valuation election all reward speed.

Related guides on this site

• International inheritance in Brazil
• Property inventory and estate proceedings in Brazil
• How estates are divided among heirs in Brazil
• Brazil’s ITCMD inheritance tax and the 2027 reform
• Capital gains for non-residents selling inherited Brazilian property
• Getting a CPF from abroad, without coming to Brazil
• Citizenship by descent through a deceased Brazilian relative’s estate

How ZS Advogados can help

An inheritance with an heir abroad is a coordination problem before it is a legal problem: the proceeding must open in Brazil within the fiscal window while documents are still crossing borders; the route — notarial or judicial — must be tested against the state’s rules and the family’s actual consensus; the ITCMD must be computed under a statute that is itself in transition; and elections made casually inside the estate (valuation, POA scope) determine the tax bill years later at the sale. Distance amplifies every small error into months.

Our team represents non-resident heirs across that entire arc — opening and conducting the inventário, obtaining CPFs and structuring powers of attorney for remote participation, the ITCMD computation and payment, coordination with foreign counsel where there are parallel estates, and the eventual sale and remittance of proceeds. We work in English and Portuguese, and every matter is built on the client’s actual documents, family configuration, and state law.

• Family law — succession, forced heirship, and the estate proceeding itself
• International law — cross-border coordination, foreign documents, remote representation, and remittances
• Tax law — ITCMD, the valuation election, and non-resident capital gains at the sale

Book a consultation to have your inheritance, deadlines, and route options reviewed before decisions harden.

Technical review by the ZS Advogados Associados team, including co-founding partner Karina Peres Silvério (OAB/SP 331.050) and founding partner Zachariah Zagol (OAB/SP 351.356). Contact: contato@zsassociados.com — +55 (18) 3908-1653 — Presidente Prudente, SP.

Sources and legal basis

• Lei nº 13.105/2015 — Código de Processo Civil (arts. 23, 610–673) (Planalto)
• Lei nº 10.406/2002 — Código Civil (succession; arts. 1.845–1.846) (Planalto)
• Lei nº 11.441/2007 — extrajudicial inventário, partition, separation, and divorce (Planalto)
• Resolução CNJ nº 35/2007 — notarial acts under Lei 11.441/2007 (CNJ)
• Resolução CNJ nº 571/2024 — amendments widening the extrajudicial route (CNJ)
• Lei estadual nº 10.705/2000 — ITCMD de São Paulo (ALESP)
• Emenda Constitucional nº 132/2023 — tax reform; ITCMD progressivity and foreign-domicile rules (Planalto)
• Lei Complementar nº 227, de 13 de janeiro de 2026 — ITCMD general rules (Câmara dos Deputados)
• Lei nº 13.259/2016 — capital-gains rates (Planalto)
• Lei nº 9.532/1997 — art. 23, estate transfer at declared or market value (Planalto)
• Receita Federal — Meu CPF (registration, including for non-residents) (gov.br)

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This guide is for informational and educational purposes only, in line with Provimento No. 205/2021 of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB). It is not legal or tax advice, an opinion, or an offer of services, does not refer to any specific case, and does not guarantee any result. It describes Brazilian law and practice; references to foreign probate and documents are factual context only. ITCMD rates, exemptions, penalty rules, and notarial practice vary by state and are in active transition under EC 132/2023 and LC 227/2026 — figures cited here, including São Paulo’s 4% rate, must be confirmed against the law in force at the relevant date. Rules and provisions are cited as of August 2026; changes after that date are not reflected. Each situation requires individual analysis by a licensed attorney. Last updated August 2026.