Brazil has bought Miami property for four decades. The route is thoroughly worn, and the buyers who find it difficult are almost always the ones who started in the wrong order.
This page covers what changes because you are resident in Brazil. What any specific building offers is a separate question, and one the desk answers building by building. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
There is no United States restriction on a Brazilian national or resident owning residential property in Florida. You do not need residency, a visa, or citizenship to buy, and ownership does not confer any immigration status of any kind.
What actually changes for a buyer resident in Brazil is not permission. It is process: how funds are moved and documented, how tax is handled in two places at once, how the purchase is structured, and how the residence is looked after when you are in São Paulo and it is here.
The purchase itself is the straightforward part. Sequencing the process around it is where the work sits, and it is entirely doable.
Brazilian buyers have been a structural part of this market for a long time, and that has consequences that are useful rather than sentimental. Developers know the buyer, sales teams work in Portuguese, and the professional layer of attorneys, accountants and bankers who serve Brazilian clients in South Florida is deep and experienced.
The practical reasons buyers give are consistency and access. Direct flights from São Paulo and Rio are frequent, the time difference is small enough that a working relationship with advisers here is easy to maintain, and a large Brazilian community means the residence is not an isolated holding.
Currency and diversification come up constantly, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we will not do is frame a property purchase as a hedge, because that is a financial argument and we do not make financial arguments. What we will say is that buyers who purchase for the use of the asset rather than for its performance tend to be happier with the outcome.
The reason that matters is timing. A residence bought to be used is bought for a building you want to be in, and that is a different search from one driven by a number.
Brazil regulates the movement of funds abroad, and outbound transfers are reported through the banking system under the applicable exchange regime. The framework has been modernised in recent years, and the position is best confirmed at the time of the transaction with your bank and with counsel.
The practical instruction is unchanged by any of that: use your bank, follow the process fully, declare what is required, and keep the documentation. Brazilian buyers complete this constantly and the mechanism is well understood by every institution involved.
Two things are worth planning early. Currency conversion is a decision with a real cost attached, and institutions differ meaningfully in what they charge for it, so ask directly rather than accepting a default. And Brazilian reporting obligations in respect of assets held abroad are a matter for your accountant in Brazil, who will tell you what has to be declared and when.
Buyers who bring their accountant into the conversation before the first transfer rather than at the following year end find the whole subject unremarkable.
The United States taxes property held here regardless of where the owner lives, and your own country will have its own view of a foreign asset. Where the two overlap, the question is one for advisers in both places, working together. We name the issues so you know they exist and we do not characterise them further.
On the United States side, ownership by a non resident involves annual property tax at county level, income tax reporting if the residence is leased, and withholding provisions that can apply on a sale. Each of these is routine and each is handled constantly by professionals who specialise in it.
One point is worth naming specifically because it is stable and because buyers rarely hear it early enough. The United States levies estate tax on property situated here that is owned by a non resident, and the exempt amount available to a non resident is very much smaller than the one available to a United States person. The United States has estate tax treaties with a limited number of countries that can modify this, and it does not have one with the countries in this region. That does not make ownership inadvisable and it is routinely planned for, but it should be planned for before purchase rather than discovered later. Confirm the position with counsel qualified in both jurisdictions.
We do not publish rates, thresholds or exemption figures. They change, they depend on circumstances, and a figure taken from a web page is exactly how people make expensive assumptions. Engage a cross border adviser early and the whole subject becomes administrative.
Individually, jointly, through a company, through a trust, or through a structure that involves entities in more than one country. Each has different consequences for tax, for estate treatment, for privacy, for reporting and for cost, and the consequences differ in the United States and at home.
The right answer depends on your circumstances, on your family, on whether you intend to lease the residence and on what your own country does with foreign holdings. There is no structure that is correct for everybody, and anybody who offers you one before asking about your situation is selling rather than advising.
What matters practically is that this is decided before the contract is signed, because changing it afterwards ranges from awkward to expensive. It is the single most common thing buyers leave too late.
We do not advise on structure. We will make sure the question is in front of you early, and introduce you to counsel qualified to answer it in both jurisdictions.
Engage a cross border tax adviser and a Florida attorney before you commit to anything. This is the step buyers skip and the one that determines how smooth the rest is.
Speak to your own bank about the transfer early, and follow any local requirement to register or report an outbound movement of funds properly and in full.
Assemble your identity and source of funds documentation once, into a single folder that serves every institution in the chain.
Settle the ownership structure before signing.
Read the condominium documents inside the statutory rescission window, with counsel.
Put an arrangement in place for looking after the residence before you close, not after the first problem.
Buyers resident in Brazil who engage advisers before choosing a building have a materially easier transaction than those who choose first and ask afterwards. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will map the sequence for your situation and introduce you to counsel and advisers who handle brazilian buyers routinely.
We hold no listings and we are not the developer. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will go through the current position on any building we cover, including the parts a sales gallery would rather skip. Where a question is legal, tax or structuring, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.