Leaving Brazil with a US LLC

When you move abroad with a US LLC, the destination usually gets all the attention. Brazil's Receita Federal looks at something else: how you leave. As long as Brazil treats you as resident, your LLC's profits belong in your Brazilian return. And a proper exit takes two filings that are easy to mix up: the Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País (the departure notice) and the Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País, the DSDP (the departure return).

When you stop being resident

The rules are in Instrução Normativa SRF nº 208/2002, and they turn on your departure date:

• Permanent departure with the Comunicação: you become non-resident on the day you leave.
• Permanent departure without the Comunicação: you remain resident for the first 12 consecutive months of absence. Receita's own guidance says the Comunicação is mandatory.
• Temporary absence: you become non-resident from the day after you complete 12 consecutive months abroad.

Once your status has changed, it only changes back when one of the events listed in the rules occurs. A Brazilian who returns with the intention of staying becomes resident again on the day of arrival.

Step 1: the Comunicação de Saída Definitiva do País

You can file the Comunicação from your departure date until the last day of February of the following year. Dependants registered in the CPF who leave on the same date must be listed in your Comunicação. It does not replace the DSDP: the rules say expressly that both are required.

Step 2: the Declaração de Saída Definitiva do País (DSDP)

The DSDP covers the part of the departure year in which you were still resident. Since 2010 it is completed and sent with the same software as the ordinary annual income tax return.

• Deadline: the last working day of April of the year after your permanent departure, the same deadline as the annual return (Declaração de Ajuste Anual). In 2026 that deadline, originally 30 April, was extended to 29 May 2026.
• Calculation: tax is computed with the monthly progressive table of the departure year, multiplied by the number of months you were resident that year.
• Payment: the tax assessed and every other unpaid tax debt are paid in a single instalment by the DSDP deadline. Their payment dates are treated as expired on that day.
• Back returns: any earlier annual returns that were mandatory and never filed must be filed as well.

Step 3: tell your Brazilian payers

Receita's checklist for leavers ends with a step many people skip: tell your paying sources, so they withhold tax as for a non-resident. From the date of permanent departure, Brazilian-source income is taxed only by final withholding at source. As a non-resident, what Brazil taxes is your Brazilian-source income:

• Work and services paid to a non-resident: 25% withholding (royalties and technical services follow a separate 15% rule).
• Sale of assets located in Brazil: taxed as a capital gain under the rules for residents.
• Profits and dividends remitted abroad: 10% withholding from 1 January 2026 under Lei 15.270/2025. Profits for years up to 2025 whose distribution was approved by 31 December 2025 are carved out, on the law's conditions. This matters if you keep a Brazilian company after you leave.

The exit sequence

Why the exit matters for your LLC: Lei 14.754/2023

Lei 14.754/2023 governs the income that individuals resident in Brazil earn from financial investments, controlled entities and trusts abroad. It has applied since 1 January 2024. That is why the date on which you stop being resident is the date that counts.

While you are resident, this is the picture:

• Your LLC is a controlled entity. The law treats an entity as controlled where you hold more than 50% of its capital, profit rights or liquidation rights. A single-member LLC meets that test.
• The 31 December regime does not cover every controlled entity. It applies only to entities located in a tax-favoured jurisdiction or benefiting from a privileged tax regime (Lei 9.430/1996, arts. 24 and 24-A), or to entities whose own active income is below 60% of their total income. For those, profits go into your annual return on 31 December of the year they appear in the balance sheet, distributed or not, taxed at 15% of the annual amount with no deductions.
• Other controlled entities are taxed on profits from 2024 onwards only when those profits are actually made available to you.

So where does a US LLC fall? Instrução Normativa RFB nº 1.037/2010, art. 2, VII, lists as a privileged tax regime the regime for US state LLCs whose members are non-residents and that are not subject to federal income tax. The statute defines a privileged regime, among other things, as one that does not tax income or taxes it at a maximum rate below 17%. A zero-tax LLC owned by a Brazilian resident matches that description. Applying the rule to a specific LLC is our reading of the two texts: we have not read any Receita ruling, such as a solução de consulta, that applies it to a particular LLC. If that reading holds, the profits fall into the 15% annual regime, and IN RFB 2.180/2024 also requires a 31 December balance sheet under Brazilian accounting standards (BR GAAP).

There is an alternative: declaring the controlled entity's assets, rights and obligations as if you held them directly (the transparency election). It is irrevocable for as long as you hold the entity and, for holdings acquired from 2024, must be made in the first annual return after the acquisition. IN RFB 2.180/2024 limits the election to controlled entities that fall within the annual regime, one entity at a time. How the LLC is treated on the US side is explained in the tax treatment of an exempt LLC.

What skipping the exit costs

Then come the penalties. A late or missing DSDP costs 1% per month or part month of the tax due, with a minimum of R$ 165.74 and a maximum of 20% of the tax. If no tax is due, the fine is R$ 165.74. And if you became non-resident more than 6 years ago without ever filing the Comunicação, you must send the supporting documents by email to cpf.residente.exterior@rfb.gov.br.

If your route also runs through Portugal, what Portugal expects when you leave it is on Leaving Portugal.

Sources

Checked 26 October 2026.

• Instrução Normativa SRF nº 208/2002, arts. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 11-A, 13, 35 and 36: normasinternet2.receita.fazenda.gov.br
• Receita Federal guidance on the DSDP: overview, how to file, resident and non-resident, taxation of non-residents
• gov.br service page, Comunicar saída definitiva do país: gov.br
• Lei nº 14.754/2023, arts. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 47: planalto.gov.br
• Lei nº 15.270/2025, arts. 3 and 8: planalto.gov.br
• Lei nº 9.430/1996, art. 24-A: planalto.gov.br
• Instrução Normativa RFB nº 1.037/2010, art. 2, VII: normasinternet2.receita.fazenda.gov.br
• Instrução Normativa RFB nº 2.180/2024, arts. 22, 27 and 36: normasinternet2.receita.fazenda.gov.br

General information, not advice for your case

This page is general information and does not replace advice on your own situation. Your individual case is checked in the consultation, which is held in English.