Foreigners Buying Rural Land in Brazil

The rule and who it reaches

Art. 190 of the Constitution tells Congress to regulate and limit purchases and leases of rural property by foreign individuals and companies. Law 5.709/1971 and Decree 74.965/1974 do that. They apply across the whole country, on the coast and inland, so a limit does not vanish because the land is far from a border.

The law's opening words set the frame: a foreigner resident in Brazil, and a foreign company authorized to operate here, may buy rural property only as the law allows (art. 1). INCRA, the federal land agency, reads that as a requirement. Its manual calls residence "o primeiro requisito", the first requirement. Its Normative Instruction 88/2017 and the official service page both ask for residence and a permanent card.

So a foreigner who lives abroad cannot buy rural land in Brazil. Size does not help. A one-hectare plot is barred in the same way as a large farm.

Urban property is outside all of this. A foreigner, resident or not, can buy an apartment or a house in town under the ordinary purchase process. That is why the classification of the land decides everything.

The penalty is severe. A purchase that breaks the law is null (art. 15). The seller must return the price, and the notary and registrar answer for damages, with possible criminal liability. INCRA asks the state court's inspector general to declare the sale non-existent and cancel the registration, and it must notify prosecutors (IN 88/2017, art. 27).

Urban or rural

Law 5.709 does not define rural land, and neither does IN 88/2017. Other laws offer two tests, and they conflict.

That last line matters most at the beach. By one law firm's reading, land outside the urban perimeter stays rural even if nobody farms it, and INCRA has refused requests on that basis. A vacant plot with a sea view does not become urban because it is sold as a house lot.

What to read

• The matrícula. Does it describe a fazenda or sítio, and does it cite a CCIR number?
• The tax bill. ITR suggests rural and IPTU suggests urban. Neither is proof on its own.
• A municipal certificate. It should say whether the plot lies inside the urban perimeter and name the law that set it.
• The INCRA cadaster. The manual builds its process around the SNCR, the national rural register.

A rural plot can become urban. The owner needs to prove urban location and use, and INCRA's cadaster must be updated. A firm's reading is that changing the registry's classification needs INCRA's prior statement. Older routes have closed. IN 82/2015 revoked IN 17-B, and INCRA's Technical Note 02/2016 ended subdivision for urban purposes outside urban zones, including sítios de recreio, a type of leisure plot. A plot sold with that label needs a closer look.

Ask a lawyer who knows this municipality. A plan to change the classification after you buy puts your title at risk in the meantime, because the nullity applies from the purchase.

Residence and special cases

INCRA's manual requires residence in Brazil and registration as a permanent foreigner, with a valid or indefinite term where the law provides for one. The official service page says the same and adds a minimum age of 18. These texts still use the old term RNE. The Federal Police now issues the Carteira de Registro Nacional Migratório, valid nine years in cases of indefinite residence (Decree 9.199/2017, arts. 58 and 74).

Whether a two-year temporary residence counts is less clear. The agency's wording favors permanent or indefinite status, so ask the INCRA regional office in writing before relying on anything else. Residency options and the investor visa guide show which routes lead to which status.

Cases that change the answer

• Portuguese nationals. Holding a reciprocity certificate from the Ministry of Justice removes them from these rules (IN 88/2017, art. 9).
• Brazilian spouse of a foreigner. The rules also reach a Brazilian married to a foreigner where the marital regime shares ownership (IN 88/2017, art. 10). Putting the land in your Brazilian spouse's name under community property does not escape them.
• Inheritance. Law 5.709, art. 1, §2 exempts legitimate succession. INCRA's manual and IN 88/2017, art. 7 say the heir must still live in Brazil as a permanent resident. These are in tension for a non-resident heir, so see inheritance and property and take advice.
• Lenders. Since Law 13.986/2020, taking a real guarantee and receiving the land in settlement of a debt are exempt from the rules (art. 1, §2).
• Immigrants. Decree 74.965, art. 6 still mentions a promise of purchase signed abroad, conditional on moving to Brazil within 3 years. The law article behind it was revoked by Law 6.815/1980, so do not build a plan on it.

An attorney cannot solve this. A power of attorney passes your signature to someone else and leaves your legal status unchanged.

Module limits

The limits use the Módulo de Exploração Indefinida, or MEI, a unit of land set by INCRA for each zone. It runs from 5 to 100 hectares across nine zone types (A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2 and D). Divide the plot by the MEI to get the count.

Figures for beach municipalities

INCRA's Special Instruction 5/2022 reset the indices and restates that the free limit is three times the MEI. Its municipal annexes were not readable for this guide, so confirm each value on INCRA's current table before relying on it.

Worked examples in Porto Seguro

• A resident buys 12 ha: 1.2 MEI. First purchase, so no permit. The public deed, the special registry entry and the INCRA record still apply.
• The same person then buys 5 ha: 0.5 MEI, total 1.7. The decree requires authorization because it is a second purchase.
• A resident buys 45 ha: 4.5 MEI. Authorization needed.
• A resident buys 250 ha: 25 MEI. Authorization and an exploitation project.
• A non-resident buys 2 ha: 0.2 MEI. Not allowed.

The second-purchase rule has critics. A November 2025 opinion published by IRIB, the registrars' institute, argues that Decree art. 7, §3 goes beyond the law and that the law's nullity does not reach it. It also treats fractions of one rural property as a single purchase. That is one author's view. INCRA's manual applies the decree as written.

The municipal cap

Foreign-held rural land may not exceed a quarter of a municipality's surface. People of one nationality may not hold more than 40% of that quarter, which comes to 10% of the municipality (Law 5.709, art. 12; IN 88/2017, art. 6). Leased land counts too.

Surface figures come from INCRA's 2013 table. A small municipality reaches these totals sooner than a large one.

Exemptions (art. 12, §2 of the law; art. 5, §2 of the decree):

• Purchases under 3 modules.
• Acquisitions with a deed or registered agreement filed before 10 March 1969.
• A buyer with a Brazilian child, or married to a Brazilian under community property. INCRA's manual adds a stable union with a Brazilian.

The decree lets the president allow purchases above the cap for priority projects (art. 5, §3). Law 8.629/1993, art. 23, §2 gives Congress the power to authorize purchases beyond these limits. Either way this is a route for major projects, and few home buyers will use it.

The evidence sits with the registry. Registrars keep a special auxiliary book of foreign rural purchases (Decree, art. 15) and send lists every quarter, on pain of losing their post (art. 16). The National Justice Inspectorate confirmed in July 2010 that registries are bound by these reporting duties. The certificate from that book is what INCRA reads when it applies the cap.

Companies and the Supreme Court

Forming a Brazilian company is the first idea many non-residents have. It does not work the way they hope. Art. 1, §1 of the law treats a Brazilian company as foreign if foreign persons living or based abroad hold most of its capital. INCRA's manual extends this to decisive control. A foreign minority holder without control does not trigger it.

For a company in that position:

• INCRA authorization is required at any size.
• The purchase must serve an approved project linked to its corporate purpose. The law lists farming, livestock, industry and colonization, and the manual also names forestry and tourism.
• Above 100 modules in total, Congress must authorize it.
• Indirect purchases count. Buying the shares of a landowning company needs authorization too (manual 3.10; Decree, art. 20).

How the position has moved

What the Supreme Court decided

The court upheld the law and art. 1, §1, and it confirmed the Union's power to authorize these deals. ADPF 342 was dismissed. ACO 2463, brought by the Union and INCRA, was granted, and São Paulo's Opinion 461/12-E was declared null, which ends that state's exception. Justice Edson Fachin said the law sets limits, and it would be unconstitutional only if it set insurmountable barriers.

Three things were still open in the alerts published after the session. Justice Gilmar Mendes was to write the judgment, and its publication was pending. A firm's July 2026 article said the effect on past deals might be addressed through modulation. Another firm said clarification motions might ask that INCRA decide within a reasonable time, a point Justice Zanin raised. The latest sources read for this guide did not confirm publication or any motion, so check the docket.

For an individual, nothing changed. For a company structured on the old São Paulo view, one firm advises reviewing current and planned transactions.

Leases, usufruct and other workarounds

Leases. Law 8.629/1993, art. 23 applies all the same limits to a lease of rural land by a foreigner. CNJ Provimento 43/2015 took this to the registries. A long lease to avoid the rule does not avoid it.

Surface rights and usufruct. INCRA's manual admits no law expressly requires its authorization here, but it notes these rights give more power than a lease. Until its legal office rules, it opens a file in each case to check residence and the municipal limit. Expect scrutiny, and expect the same border rules.

Usucapião. Long possession does not clean the problem. The manual says the requirements of Law 5.709 are checked when the land enters the cadaster, and it cites a federal court holding that someone who does not meet them cannot acquire this way.

A friend's name. If a Brazilian holds the deed for you, the Brazilian owns the land. Your side letter gives you a claim against a person, with no title, and if it was built to dodge the law it adds its own risk.

Buying possession. Some coastal land is sold as a transfer of possession with no matrícula. INCRA's first two essential requirements are a registered title and a rural cadaster entry, both in the seller's name. A sale of possession cannot meet them. Posse and escritura covers that risk on its own terms, and checking a title shows how to confirm what exists.

Regularizing later. IN 88/2017, art. 28 allows a limited clean-up, with wording later changed by INCRA: a foreigner married to a Brazilian with children, a transfer of the land to a Brazilian, or a purchase before 7 October 1972. The fix for many buyers would be to sell. A good-faith third party who has met the usucapião requirements is protected from the nullity, per one commentary on the instruction.

Trancoso, Jericoacoara and other beach towns

Coastal plots can begin as farms. The urban perimeter may stop short of the beach, and a sales sheet may not say so. That is where a foreign buyer can get caught.

Trancoso

Trancoso is a district of Porto Seguro, where the MEI is 10 ha. A resident could buy up to 30 ha on a first purchase without a permit, and a non-resident could buy none of it if the land is rural. Coastal plots toward Praia do Espelho or the Outeiro ridge need the municipal certificate before anything else.

Land here has other burdens. The Caraíva-Trancoso environmental protection area covers part of the district. A 2022 FolhaPress report described occupations of at least three large rural properties near Trancoso since 2020, with about 3,000 families and possession suits pending in Bahia's courts. Check for lawsuits and for who is on the land before you pay. Beachfront plots can also carry federal coastal land issues, which have their own limit for foreigners within 100 meters of the sea.

Jericoacoara

The village lies in Jijoca de Jericoacoara, where the MEI is 30 ha. The title picture there is unsettled. A private claimant says she owns about 80% of the Vila, which covers about 88.2 ha, based on farm deeds. The state's attorney's office negotiated a settlement and then put the process on hold in November 2024 while other agencies, including INCRA, reviewed it. Three suits over land in the national park were pending in the federal regional court in 2024, and the land question was still open in June 2025, the latest report found for this guide.

For a foreign buyer this adds two questions: does the plot's chain of title run through a farm deed, and does that make it rural on paper? Plots in the Vila may sit differently from those near Lagoa do Paraíso or Praia da Preá. Don't assume. Ask for the documents.

Elsewhere

The same check applies in São Miguel dos Milagres, Pipa, Praia do Rosa and Paraty. INCRA's table also lists a minimum subdivision size for rural land, so a small plot carved from a farm may have no matrícula of its own. Browse homes for sale with that in mind: "lote" and "sítio" on a listing say nothing about the legal class of the land. A broker may know the local perimeter, but ask for the certificate.

Border strip and security areas

Law 6.634/1979 treats the 150 km strip along Brazil's land border as vital to national security. Without prior assent, deals that give a foreigner ownership or possession of rural land there are barred, and so is a foreign stake in a company holding such land (art. 2, items V and VI).

INCRA's manual says any plot in the strip or in an area marked as vital to national security goes through the regional office to the Casa Civil and then to the Conselho de Defesa Nacional, whatever its size. That removes the 3-module freedom. It applies to inherited land too.

The strip follows the land border, so it does not touch the coastal markets on this site. It does matter for farm purchases in the far south, west and north. Decree 87.040/1982 lists other security areas, and the manual cites it, so have a lawyer check for any land near sensitive sites.

As the Planalto text of Law 5.709 reads on 3 November 2026, the latest amendment is Law 13.986/2020. Treat any report of a looser regime with caution until you find it in the statute itself.

Questions

Sources

1. Planalto, Law 5.709/1971, rural land purchases by foreigners
2. Planalto, Decree 74.965/1974, regulation of Law 5.709
3. Planalto, Law 8.629/1993, art. 23 on leases
4. Planalto, Law 4.504/1964, Land Statute, art. 4
5. Planalto, National Tax Code, arts. 29 and 32
6. Planalto, Law 6.634/1979, border strip
7. Planalto, Decree 9.199/2017, migration regulation
8. INCRA, Manual on purchase of rural land by foreigners
9. INCRA, Table of basic indices by municipality, 2013
10. Legisweb, INCRA Normative Instruction 88/2017
11. Lex, INCRA Special Instruction 5/2022
12. Gov.br, Obtain authorization for a foreigner to buy or lease land
13. STF, Court upholds limits on land purchases by foreign-controlled Brazilian companies, 23 April 2026
14. AGU, STF confirms limits on land sales to foreign capital, April 2026
15. Demarest, STF confirms restrictions on purchase and lease of rural land, April 2026
16. Mayer Brown, Brazilian Supreme Court upholds the regime, April 2026
17. VBSO Advogados, STF ratifies restrictions, April 2026
18. Barbieri Advogados, what the STF decided on foreign land purchases, July 2026
19. Conjur, registries must report land purchases by foreigners, July 2010
20. IRIB, opinion on purchase without INCRA authorization, November 2025
21. IRIB, STJ on ITR for rural land in an urban area, REsp 1.112.646
22. VLF Advogados, removing rural status under INCRA's IN 82/2015
23. Migalhas, revocation of INCRA's IN 17-B
24. Jus.com.br, analysis of IN 88/2017
25. Jornal de Brasília, FolhaPress on occupations near Trancoso, August 2022
26. InfoMoney, the land claim in Jericoacoara, October 2024
27. Diário do Nordeste, land and speculation in Jericoacoara, June 2025