Debt Collection Agency in Brazil - No Win, No Fee

Passo 1 - Como funciona a cobrança amigável (pré-judicial) de dívidas no Brasil?

The amicable phase is where most Brazilian claims are resolved. A licensed local partner contacts the debtor, issues a formal written demand and negotiates either full payment or a written instalment agreement, without any court involvement and without upfront cost to you.

When the debtor is legally in default

For an obligation with a fixed due date, default (mora) arises automatically on that date under Código Civil art. 397: no reminder is needed for interest to start running. Where the obligation has no fixed term, default requires a judicial or extrajudicial notice to the debtor, known as an interpelação. This is the single most important date in a Brazilian file, because it fixes both the interest start point and the practical start of the limitation clock.

What the amicable phase looks like

Debitura's Standard Debt Collection Agreement sets a six-month Collection Period with minimum activity levels that scale with the claim, so a larger claim receives more letters, more contact attempts and deeper skip tracing than a small one. In Brazil the partner runs that campaign, verifies the debtor's CPF or CNPJ and current contact details, and issues the formal demand.

Two Brazilian traps in the amicable phase

First, the limitation clock can only be interrupted once (Código Civil art. 202). A part payment or a written acknowledgement obtained during negotiation restarts the full period, which is valuable, but that lever cannot be pulled twice, so it should be used deliberately rather than incidentally.

Second, a debt that has become time-barred cannot be reported to credit bureaux in a way that blocks the debtor's access to credit (Código de Defesa do Consumidor art. 43, §5º). Delay does not merely weaken the claim; it removes the commercial pressure that a negative entry would otherwise apply.

Quando escalar o caso

Escalate when the debtor disputes the claim on substance, when an instalment agreement is signed and then broken, when contact stops entirely, or when the limitation period is approaching and no interruption has been secured. Escalation is a separate, priced and approved step, never an automatic consequence of the amicable phase ending.

Passo 2 - Como obter um título executivo no Brasil?

Brazil offers three routes, and the document you already hold decides which one applies. Choosing correctly is the largest single lever on how long recovery takes.

Route 1: you already hold an extrajudicial title

Some documents are enforceable in themselves and let you skip the merits stage entirely. Under art. 784 of the Código de Processo Civil these include bills of exchange, promissory notes, duplicatas, cheques, public deeds, and a private instrument signed by the debtor and two witnesses. With one of these you file an execution directly (Step 3), not an ordinary claim. This is why the two-witness signature block on a Brazilian contract is worth insisting on at the point of sale.

Route 2: ação monitória, for written proof that falls short

Where you hold written evidence of the debt that is not an art. 784 title, the ação monitória under art. 700 of the Código de Processo Civil converts it into a judicial title. The court issues an order to pay within 15 days. If the debtor neither pays nor opposes, the order becomes an enforceable title and the case moves straight to enforcement. If the debtor opposes, the matter continues as an ordinary claim on the merits.

Route 3: Juizados Especiais Cíveis or ordinary proceedings

Where there is no usable written instrument, the claim is decided on the merits. For claims up to 40 minimum wages, which is R$64,840 in 2026, the Juizados Especiais Cíveis are the faster and cheaper venue (Lei 9.099/1995, art. 3). They also handle the execution of extrajudicial titles up to the same ceiling. They do not handle every subject: alimony, bankruptcy, tax matters, claims involving the Fazenda Pública, work-accident claims and civil-status matters are excluded by art. 3 itself. Above the ceiling, or where the subject matter is excluded, the claim goes to a Vara Cível under the ordinary procedure with mandatory legal representation.

Mais sobre processos judiciais no Brasil

Which court hears the claim

Venue follows the claim's value and subject matter, and the branch (state or federal) follows the parties and the nature of the dispute. Most private commercial debt sits in the state branch. Where a claim is close to the 40-minimum-wage line, the ceiling is calculated on the minimum wage in force in the year of filing, which changes each January, so a claim that was above the line in one year can fall below it in the next.

How long court proceedings take

No reliable published figure for the duration of a Brazilian debt claim from filing to judgment could be verified for this guide, and none is stated here rather than repeating an estimate. What can be said with confidence is structural: the ação monitória compresses the merits stage into a 15-day order that only becomes contested if the debtor actively opposes it, and an art. 784 title removes the merits stage altogether. Ask your partner for a current, court-specific estimate before choosing a route.

Filing does not stop the clock by itself

It is the order for judicial citation that interrupts the limitation period under Código Civil art. 202, not the act of preparing a claim. Where a period is close to expiring, the practical question is whether the interruption has actually been secured, and whether it has already been used once, since art. 202 allows it only once.

Passo 3 - Como funciona a Execução de dívidas no Brasil?

Enforcement in Brazil is an expropriation process run through the court: the debtor's assets are seized (penhora), and then converted into money by adjudication to the creditor, private sale or judicial auction (Código de Processo Civil, arts. 824 to 879). You do not appoint a private enforcement agent. The judge orders the acts and the court's Oficial de Justiça carries them out.

What you need before enforcement starts

An enforceable title. That is either a judicial title, such as a judgment or an unopposed ação monitória order, or an extrajudicial title under art. 784: a cheque, promissory note, bill of exchange, duplicata, public deed, or a private instrument signed by the debtor and two witnesses. With an extrajudicial title you file the execution directly, without a merits stage.

Bank funds first: the Sisbajud attachment

The most effective single measure in Brazilian enforcement is the electronic attachment of bank funds. On the creditor's request the judge orders the debtor's accounts blocked through Sisbajud, the system that connects the judiciary to the banking system, and the debtor then has five business days to challenge the block, for example by showing the funds are impenhoráveis (Código de Processo Civil, art. 854). Because the order can be issued without prior warning to the debtor, timing matters: an execution filed before the debtor has moved funds is worth considerably more than the same execution filed later.

The sequence of an execution

What cannot be seized

Brazilian law places certain assets and a minimum level of income outside the reach of penhora. The exempt categories are set by statute and are the debtor's most common line of defence to a seizure, so the practical question in any file is not whether exemptions exist but whether the specific asset you have located falls inside one. Confirm the position for the identified assets with your partner before an enforcement plan is settled, rather than assuming an asset is reachable because it is visible.

Enforcement against a company that has stopped paying

If enforcement is frustrated because no assets can be found, that failure is itself significant. A frustrated execution is one of the grounds on which a creditor may petition for the debtor's bankruptcy under Lei 11.101/2005, art. 94, alongside unpaid protested titles above 40 minimum wages. At that point the file moves from Step 3 to Step 4, and the calculus changes from recovering in full to ranking well among creditors.

Cross-border debt collection in Brazil

A foreign judgment does not enforce itself in Brazil. Before it can be used against a Brazilian debtor's assets, it has to be recognised by the Superior Tribunal de Justiça, the court that holds exclusive competence for the homologação of foreign judgments. Brazil is not part of any regional regime comparable to the European instruments, so there is no automatic recognition and no European Payment Order equivalent.

The practical consequence for a foreign creditor is that suing at home and then taking the judgment to Brazil adds a recognition stage that suing in Brazil does not. Where the debtor's assets are in Brazil and the claim rests on a document that qualifies as an extrajudicial title under art. 784 of the Código de Processo Civil, filing the execution directly in Brazil is usually the shorter path. Where a foreign judgment already exists, the recognition route is the one available, and it should be planned as a distinct phase with its own timetable rather than treated as a formality.

One point applies in both directions: the limitation periods in this guide are Brazilian periods, and they run on Brazilian rules regardless of where the contract was signed or where the creditor sits. A claim that is still live under the law of your own country can be time-barred in Brazil.