Bringing Your Things to Panama
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Brazil 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 Brazil to Panama · Bringing your belongings
Panama's household-goods concession is not a general one for new residents: it belongs to the retirement categories. Ley 9 de 1987 gives the pensioner and the retired annuitant total tariff exemption on household and personal articles, once, up to B/.10,000, and total tariff exemption on one motor vehicle every two years. The goods cannot be sold for three years without paying the duty that was waived. And the agency that issues the exemption certificate publishes a condition the statute does not contain: its own requirement sheet says applicants will pay import duties and are relieved only of the 5% excise and the 7% transfer tax. The statute says 'franquicia arancelaria total'. The two do not say the same thing.
At a glance
- Household goods allowance
- B/.10,000, once
Total tariff exemption under Ley 9 de 1987 article 2.1. Panama is dollarised, so this is a dollar figure.
- Vehicle
- One every 2 years
- What the statute grants on the vehicle
- Total tariff exemption
- What the agency's sheet says is charged
- Import duties, but not the 5% excise or 7% transfer tax
The migration service's own requirement sheet for the vehicle exemption. It is narrower than the exemption Ley 9 de 1987 article 2.2 grants.
- Resale restriction on household goods
- 3 years
- Who else qualifies
- Panamanians retired abroad
Article 8 of Ley 9 de 1987 extends the household-goods and vehicle exemptions to Panamanian nationals pensioned abroad who wish to return.
- A general new-resident allowance
- None found
The concession is Ley 9 de 1987, quoted here, and article 8 of that Act extends it to Panamanian nationals abroad who are retired. Nothing in the Act or in article 22 of Decreto Ley 3 de 2008, which preserves it, opens an allowance to a new resident outside its terms.
Requirements
- Pensioner or retired annuitant status under Ley 9 de 1987, or a Panamanian retired abroad returning home
- A power of attorney and application for exemption addressed to the Director of the Servicio Nacional de Migración
- A unified customs declaration, shipping documents, commercial invoice and the warehouse form
- The definitive migration card, not one in process
- The vehicle's title of ownership, in original
- A national tax clearance
- No sale, lease, pledge or judicial auction of the goods without paying the duties waived; for household articles the charge drops away after three years
In detail
The statute and the sheet disagree about the car
Ley 9 de 1987 grants 'franquicia arancelaria total cada dos (2) años' for one vehicle for personal or family use - total tariff exemption, every two years. The Servicio Nacional de Migración issues the certificate that unlocks it, and the requirement sheet it publishes for that certificate ends with an asterisked line saying the applicant will pay import duties and is relieved only of the 5% excise tax and the 7% transfer tax. The sheet names Ley 9 de 1987 as its own legal basis. Whatever the explanation - a later fiscal statute we did not read, or administrative practice that has drifted - a reader planning around the statute and a reader planning around the agency's sheet will budget very differently for the same car, and the difference is the whole duty.
There is no general allowance for a new resident
The exemptions in Ley 9 de 1987 attach to the pensioner's and the retired annuitant's status, not to becoming resident. We found nothing in the migration law, its regulation or the migration service's catalogue giving an ordinary new resident - an employee, an investor, a spouse, someone on the own-means route - a household-effects concession. A returning Panamanian retired abroad does get one, by article 8 of the same law. That is a sharp difference from several of the South American countries covered here, where a household-goods franchise is a standard incident of taking up residence.
Country-level policy
Panamanian statutes and decrees write money in balboas, with the symbol B/. - a tourist must show B/.500, a pensioner needs B/.1,000 a month, the own-means route costs B/.300,000. None of those is a sum you would ever need to convert. Panama has no circulating banknote of its own: its Constitution forbids forced-tender paper money, and what circulates is the United States dollar, with the balboa surviving as coinage and as the unit in which the law is written. The migration regulation makes the equivalence operational without ever stating it: where an applicant's document is in a foreign currency, the regulation requires a conversion into dollars, while every threshold it sets is expressed in balboas.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Brazil
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
«Franquicia arancelaria total para la importación de artículos de uso
doméstico o personal por una sola vez hasta por la suma de diez mil
balboas (B/. 10.000.00).»Our translation - not official
Total tariff exemption for the importation of household or personal articles, once only, up to the sum of ten thousand balboas (B/.10,000.00).
About this source
A commercial legal aggregator reproducing the legislature's records, including the gazette facsimile text, for instruments that are hard to reach on government hosts.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited where a government source exists, and never as evidence that a text is current: it is a reproduction with no amendment tracking of its own. It is used here for one 1987 law that could not be found on any government host, and both records resting on it say in the data that their source is an aggregator.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Franquicia arancelaria total cada dos (2) años para la importación de
un vehículo automotor para uso personal o familiar.»Our translation - not official
Total tariff exemption every two (2) years for the importation of a motor vehicle for personal or family use.
About this source
A commercial legal aggregator reproducing the legislature's records, including the gazette facsimile text, for instruments that are hard to reach on government hosts.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited where a government source exists, and never as evidence that a text is current: it is a reproduction with no amendment tracking of its own. It is used here for one 1987 law that could not be found on any government host, and both records resting on it say in the data that their source is an aggregator.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«no podrán ser
vendidos, arrendados, dados en garantía ni rematados judicialmente, sin que se
paguen sobre ellos los impuestos, derechos y tasas que correspondan. En el caso
de los artículos de uso doméstico o personal no se pagará el impuesto en
referencia si la venta se lleva a cabo después de haber transcurrido tres (3) años
de la fecha de su exoneración.»Our translation - not official
may not be sold, leased, pledged or auctioned judicially without the corresponding taxes, duties and charges being paid on them. In the case of household or personal articles the tax in question is not payable if the sale takes place after three (3) years have elapsed from the date of the exemption.
About this source
A commercial legal aggregator reproducing the legislature's records, including the gazette facsimile text, for instruments that are hard to reach on government hosts.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited where a government source exists, and never as evidence that a text is current: it is a reproduction with no amendment tracking of its own. It is used here for one 1987 law that could not be found on any government host, and both records resting on it say in the data that their source is an aggregator.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Los beneficios establecidos en los numerales 1 y 2 del artículo 2 de
esta Ley, también se concederán a los nacionales panameños residentes en el
extranjero que estén jubilados o pensionados»Our translation - not official
The benefits established in numerals 1 and 2 of article 2 of this Law shall also be granted to Panamanian nationals resident abroad who are retired or pensioned
About this source
A commercial legal aggregator reproducing the legislature's records, including the gazette facsimile text, for instruments that are hard to reach on government hosts.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited where a government source exists, and never as evidence that a text is current: it is a reproduction with no amendment tracking of its own. It is used here for one 1987 law that could not be found on any government host, and both records resting on it say in the data that their source is an aggregator.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Pagarán impuestos de importación, más no así el 5% ISC + 7% ITBM»Our translation - not official
They will pay import duties, but not the 5% excise tax plus 7% transfer tax.
This is the agency's own condition on the sheet whose stated legal basis is Ley 9 de 1987, and it does not match article 2.2 of that law, which grants total tariff exemption.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Panama's migration service, under the Ministry of Public Security. It decides applications and publishes one requirement sheet per permit, which is the document an applicant and their lawyer actually work from.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for what the law says. Its sheets' legal-basis lines are wrong in both directions - they attribute amendments to articles that the decree they name never touched, and date that decree by its gazette rather than its signature - and on the retired rentista the same agency files the permit under permanent residence while the sheet behind the link quotes an article calling it temporary. It is authoritative for what the agency will ask for, and that is where its value lies. It also no longer publishes the list of visa-required nationalities. Its URLs rot: links followed from search results were already dead.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Los extranjeros a que se refiere la Ley 9 de 1987, se asimilarán para efectos del
presente Decreto Ley dentro de la categoría de residentes permanentes y mantendrán los
beneficios fiscales y franquicias arancelarias que establecen sus leyes especiales.»Our translation - not official
Foreigners referred to in Ley 9 de 1987 shall be assimilated, for the purposes of this Decree Law, within the category of permanent residents and shall retain the fiscal benefits and tariff exemptions established by their special laws.
The 2008 migration law expressly preserves the 1987 concessions rather than replacing them, which is why they still matter.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Panama's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here and carries its gazette number as part of its identity, which is how the Friendly Nations list, the migration decree-law and every decree amending them are identified.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes acts as enacted and never republishes the amended text, so it cannot be cited for consolidated law - and on Panama that bites hard: Decreto Ejecutivo 26 de 2009 alone substituted fifty-six articles of the 2008 regulation, and an article number inside an amending decree is an instruction to amend rather than the article of the resulting regulation. Worse, some issues are page images with no text layer: Gaceta 29335 of 2021 extracts only its contents page, which is why the current Friendly Nations property threshold cannot be stated. Anything quoted from a gazette must be checked for recognition damage first and declared as ocr where it is a reading of a picture.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Panama's general customs regime sits in Decreto Ley 1 de 2008 and the Código Fiscal, neither of which we read. This record describes the retirement concessions and the absence of anything comparable in the migration instruments; it is not a statement that Panamanian customs law contains no other relief.
Ley 9 de 1987 was read in a Justia reproduction of the Asamblea Nacional's Legispan record, which carries the Gaceta 20.835 page of 2 July 1987. That is an aggregator reproducing a government record and is recorded as an aggregator.
The exemption certificate is issued by the migration service rather than by customs, and its sheet requires the definitive migration card - a card still in process is expressly not enough.
Ley 9 de 1987 excludes anyone holding an immigrant visa from its benefits unless they renounce it in writing, with an exception for people pensioned from service in the Canal Area.
- reportsLey 9 de 24 de junio de 1987, que otorga exenciones a jubilados, pensionados, personas retiradas de la vida activa y a rentistas retirados
Justia Panamá
About this source
A commercial legal aggregator reproducing the legislature's records, including the gazette facsimile text, for instruments that are hard to reach on government hosts.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited where a government source exists, and never as evidence that a text is current: it is a reproduction with no amendment tracking of its own. It is used here for one 1987 law that could not be found on any government host, and both records resting on it say in the data that their source is an aggregator.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- administersCertificación de exoneración del pago de impuestos de importación de vehículo para rentistas retirados, turistas pensionados y panameños jubilados en el exterior
Servicio Nacional de Migración (Ministerio de Seguridad Pública)
About this source
Panama's migration service, under the Ministry of Public Security. It decides applications and publishes one requirement sheet per permit, which is the document an applicant and their lawyer actually work from.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for what the law says. Its sheets' legal-basis lines are wrong in both directions - they attribute amendments to articles that the decree they name never touched, and date that decree by its gazette rather than its signature - and on the retired rentista the same agency files the permit under permanent residence while the sheet behind the link quotes an article calling it temporary. It is authoritative for what the agency will ask for, and that is where its value lies. It also no longer publishes the list of visa-required nationalities. Its URLs rot: links followed from search results were already dead.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- issuesDecreto Ley No. 3 de 22 de febrero de 2008, Gaceta Oficial Digital 25986
Gaceta Oficial Digital de la República de Panamá
About this source
Panama's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here and carries its gazette number as part of its identity, which is how the Friendly Nations list, the migration decree-law and every decree amending them are identified.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes acts as enacted and never republishes the amended text, so it cannot be cited for consolidated law - and on Panama that bites hard: Decreto Ejecutivo 26 de 2009 alone substituted fifty-six articles of the 2008 regulation, and an article number inside an amending decree is an instruction to amend rather than the article of the resulting regulation. Worse, some issues are page images with no text layer: Gaceta 29335 of 2021 extracts only its contents page, which is why the current Friendly Nations property threshold cannot be stated. Anything quoted from a gazette must be checked for recognition damage first and declared as ocr where it is a reading of a picture.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source