Opening a Bank Account
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Venezuela on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Venezuela to Brazil · Opening a bank account
Brazil's migration law gives a migrant a statutory right to open a bank account, in four words in a list of guaranteed rights. Two others here write banking into migration law as well - Guatemala as a right of residence, Mexico as a permission that does not depend on status. What no instrument does is say what you have to produce to exercise it. The current deposit-account rule revoked the old prescriptive lists and replaced them with a duty on each bank to verify and validate the identity and standing of its customers and to write its own criteria down in an internal document. Two things are therefore certain and one is not: the right exists, a tax number is effectively unavoidable because the revenue makes CPF registration compulsory for any non-resident holding a Brazilian bank account, and the document list is each bank's own.
At a glance
- Statutory right
- Yes, guaranteed to migrants by the migration law
- Tax number
- CPF, compulsory for a non-resident holding a Brazilian bank account
- Document list set nationally
- No
The 2019 deposit-account resolution revoked the older prescriptive rules and leaves the criteria to each institution, recorded in a document held for the central bank
- Accounts for people domiciled abroad
- Covered by the same resolution
- Opening channel
- Any channel the bank offers, including electronic, except voice telephone
Requirements
- A CPF, the individual taxpayer registration, which the revenue requires of any non-resident holding a Brazilian bank account
- Whatever identification and standing documents the individual bank's own formalised criteria require
Country-level policy
Lei 13.445/2017 replaced the 1980 foreigners' statute and changed the thing that shapes every other answer about Brazil: residence can be applied for from inside the country, regardless of the status you are in. Both the statute and its regulation say so in terms. A visitor may turn a visit into residence by request and registration; an irregular overstayer may apply on any ground whose conditions they meet. That is why Brazil has no equivalent of Paraguay's consular visa for residency or Chile's rule that residence is applied for from abroad. The same law abolished the permanent and temporary visa categories, replacing them with residence authorisations of determinate or indeterminate term - which matters because two instruments that still govern real decisions, the revenue's residence test and older agency pages, were never rewritten.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Venezuela
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«direito a abertura de conta bancária;»Our translation - not official
the right to open a bank account;
A right of the migrant, listed alongside freedom of movement and access to justice. Guatemala states it as a right too, at article 32 of its Migration Code and article 45 of its residence regulation; Mexico's Ley de Migración puts it as a permission rather than a right.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Publishes the compiled text of laws and decrees with amendments woven in and superseded wording struck through on the same page.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what is in force without reading the strike-throughs: the page stacks every historical wording of an article above the current one, so quoting the wrong layer produces a repealed rule that still passes a verbatim check. It is also not the point of legal effect; that is the gazette.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«As instituições referidas no art. 1º, para fins da abertura de conta de depósitos, devem adotar procedimentos e controles que permitam verificar e validar a identidade e a qualificação dos titulares da conta»Our translation - not official
The institutions referred to in article 1 must, for the purpose of opening a deposit account, adopt procedures and controls allowing them to verify and validate the identity and standing of the account holders
An obligation of result on the bank, not a list of documents for the customer. This is why two Brazilian banks can ask for different things and both be compliant.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Sets the rules for opening and maintaining deposit accounts, including for non-residents.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what a customer must present to open an account. The 2019 resolution deliberately abolished the prescriptive document list and delegates the criteria to each institution's own unpublished internal document, so there is no national answer to quote.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«Os critérios para a definição das informações necessárias à identificação e à qualificação dos titulares da conta, bem como os procedimentos de controle adotados, devem ser formalizados em documento específico.»Our translation - not official
The criteria for defining the information needed to identify and qualify account holders, as well as the control procedures adopted, must be formalised in a specific document.
The document is the bank's, kept available to the central bank. It is not published, which is why no national answer to "what does a foreigner need" exists.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Sets the rules for opening and maintaining deposit accounts, including for non-residents.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what a customer must present to open an account. The 2019 resolution deliberately abolished the prescriptive document list and delegates the criteria to each institution's own unpublished internal document, so there is no national answer to quote.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«Observada a regulamentação específica, o disposto nesta Resolução aplica-se também às contas de depósitos em moeda nacional de titularidade de pessoas naturais ou jurídicas, residentes, domiciliadas ou com sede no exterior, bem como às contas de depósitos em moeda estrangeira no País.»Our translation - not official
Subject to specific regulation, the provisions of this Resolution also apply to deposit accounts in national currency held by natural or legal persons resident, domiciled or headquartered abroad, as well as to deposit accounts in foreign currency in the country.
Non-resident accounts are inside the same framework rather than governed by a separate document rule.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Sets the rules for opening and maintaining deposit accounts, including for non-residents.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what a customer must present to open an account. The 2019 resolution deliberately abolished the prescriptive document list and delegates the criteria to each institution's own unpublished internal document, so there is no national answer to quote.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«a Resolução nº 2.025, de 24 de novembro de 1993;»Our translation - not official
Resolution No. 2,025 of 24 November 1993;
The first of fifteen revoked resolutions. Resolução 2.025/1993 was the rule that did list the documents an account holder had to produce, and it is the one most older guidance is still repeating.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Sets the rules for opening and maintaining deposit accounts, including for non-residents.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what a customer must present to open an account. The 2019 resolution deliberately abolished the prescriptive document list and delegates the criteria to each institution's own unpublished internal document, so there is no national answer to quote.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«é obrigatória a inscrição no Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF) de não-residente que possua no Brasil bens e direitos sujeitos a registro público»Our translation - not official
registration in the Individual Taxpayer Registry (CPF) is compulsory for a non-resident holding assets and rights in Brazil subject to public registration
The list that follows includes bank current accounts, financial market investments and capital market investments, which is why the tax number comes first in practice even though no banking rule says so.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Sets tax residence and the customs treatment of travellers' goods, and serves its instructions as consolidated text.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for current migration categories: its residence instruction still defines residence by reference to visa classes the 2017 migration law abolished. And because the served text shows both the old and the new wording of an amended provision in sequence, a quotation can verify against a superseded version.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
We looked for a published national rule stating what documents a foreigner must present, and did not find one. Checked: the migration law and its regulation; Resolução CMN nº 4.753/2019 in the consolidated version the central bank publishes; and Instrução Normativa SRF nº 208/2002. A bank's own account-opening page is a fact about that bank and is not cited here for what Brazil requires.
The chain of causation is worth understanding because it repeats across the whole move: a residence authorisation gives an identity document, the identity document supports a CPF, and the CPF is what the bank's own criteria are almost certainly built around.
The resolution has been amended since 2019, most recently by Resolução CMN nº 5.218 of 26 May 2025 according to the central bank's own consolidated file, and the quotations here are taken from that consolidated version.
- consolidatesLei nº 13.445, de 24 de maio de 2017 - Lei de Migração
Presidência da República - Portal da Legislação (Planalto)
About this source
Publishes the compiled text of laws and decrees with amendments woven in and superseded wording struck through on the same page.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what is in force without reading the strike-throughs: the page stacks every historical wording of an article above the current one, so quoting the wrong layer produces a repealed rule that still passes a verbatim check. It is also not the point of legal effect; that is the gazette.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
- issuesResolução CMN nº 4.753, de 26 de setembro de 2019
Banco Central do Brasil / Conselho Monetário Nacional
About this source
Sets the rules for opening and maintaining deposit accounts, including for non-residents.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what a customer must present to open an account. The 2019 resolution deliberately abolished the prescriptive document list and delegates the criteria to each institution's own unpublished internal document, so there is no national answer to quote.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
- issuesInstrução Normativa SRF nº 208, de 27 de setembro de 2002
Secretaria Especial da Receita Federal do Brasil
About this source
Sets tax residence and the customs treatment of travellers' goods, and serves its instructions as consolidated text.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for current migration categories: its residence instruction still defines residence by reference to visa classes the 2017 migration law abolished. And because the served text shows both the old and the new wording of an amended provision in sequence, a quotation can verify against a superseded version.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source