Paying bills in Brazil

We're renting a house. In our case, the owner pays both the electric bill and the water bill, as this is what we agreed upon when we rented the house. We get copies of the bills and they are monthly.

The one bill that we pay is internet service because we added that on our own. It's also monthly. We usually pay this bill in person at the local Caixa bank, but we also have the option of paying it online.

Hello Priscilla,

About basics such as electricity, water, cooking gas (if canalized), condo maintenance (if residential building), annual tax, will depend on the landlord and the sort of contract you both agree upon. Those bills can be included on your, usually, monthly rent payment or they are completely separate. In this case, you pay the rent to the landlord and you are also responsible to pay the basic bills, however through proper channels.

As for the rent per see, there are 2 ways to pay, it usually depends if it is done by private negotiations or through real estate agency.

1) The rent is paid directly to the landlord.
It is advisable to request a proof of payment and, in case it is also included the basics bills, add that information in the description of the recipient as well; e.g. rent, water and electric bill payment referent to the 10th month of 2017.

2) Rent is paid through Boleto Bancário (real estate agency may use this method of payment)
Boleto Bancário is a document issued by a bank with all legal and required information as a valid proof by law that a certain product or service was charged for and paid for. It is the responsibility of the real estate agency to mail you the boleto bancário previous to the deadline to be paid. However, it is your responsibility to pay on the correct date, deadline.

So if you see the date you need to pay your rent is close and you haven't received your boleto bancário, need to contact the real state agency asking to re-issue the document with a valid date to be paid.

In another case, if the date is too close to the deadline, they may as well send you a virtual copy of the boleto bancário through email for you to print, if the case, and pay it.

Electric and water bills are paid only on banks, post office and casa lotérica (lottery house, which also provides some basic bank services, such as bills payment and more exclusive services if you have a bank account: deposit, withdraw, transfer and payment from any of our two Brazilian banks Caixa Econômica Federal and Banco do Brasil.

For general bills, land phone, internet, credit card, local store,  you can also utilize any of the aforementioned methods: banks physical or online service, post office, casa lotérica and the provider's stores.

If you have a bank account, in my opinion, the easiest, fastest and most reliable way to pay your bills is online through your own bank application. All you need is read the bar code or type the code numbers, verify if informations are correct and authorize the payment.

If one doesn't have bank access, the second method indicated and most commonly used by population in general is the casa lotérica. The issue with this method is because during certain days in the month from 30th from previous month to the 5th working day to the next month, it is when usually is paid the working salary. The establishment will most certainly be crowded with people coming and going also paying their own bills, sometimes having to stand in a bee line for an hour or more for your turn.

Majority of providers are flexible by letting the customer chose the day for the monthly payment of the bills. There are a set of days one can pick such as days 2, 5, 10, 15, 17, 20, 21, 25, 27, 30, it will depend on standard dates the provider uses.
Reminding that for rented properties, the owner most likely picked a day that suits them, so will need to communicate with them and negotiate a request to change the deadline date if you need a different one to be more convenient for yourself.

As a such, the bills can be sent to you throughout the course of the month depending on how many debts you have and the day in the month you picked as deadline to pay them. The common standard is to receive them by mail 2 weeks previous the deadline, however it isn't uncommon to happen 1 week before the deadline since unexpected events happens.

There's also the option to use your own credit card to pay your bills, however such method is not really advisable since it can generate interest rates depending on your credit card contract.

Ah right, some providers offers and incentive the practice of receiving your bills online through email instead of being billed through mail. Some offer a small incentive such as small discount or 5% off for using the sustainable channels and services.

hello,
Good morning.
What bills do you pay?
I am paying a lots of bills like - house rent, light, water, phone credit card and tax among others.

If you are renting, are bills included in the price of rent,
in my case, the rent is separate from bills while others may include light and water in the rent bills
depending on the owner of the house.

How can you pay your bills (e.g. online, at provider's store, at the post office)?
You can pay in various ways.
for me i prefer all money to pass thru my account. i pay online thru the bank applications downloaded on my phone. While at times i pay at the bank ATM machine or loterica depending on urgency of the payment and if i have money in my account.

what frequency are different bills sent in Brazil?
This is every month and depending on when you asked them to be bringing. They do ask you
to pick a particular date convenient for you to pay from 1-30 days of the month. if you pick 25th, you bill would be coming a week before 25th and you can pay before that 25th

Thanks
John Taye

Hi,

Priscilla,

Well yes there are penalties, and there are incenives to pay on time. The call the incentives a discount (like 10%) so that they can charge you a late fee, in excess of the law (6%)  they charge even if you didn't receive the bill because of a nationwide post office strike.

One way you can pay is to receive a bill with a bar-code over the internet. yo print it out and you can pay at the designated banks OR many times you can pay at one of the many lottery shops located all over the city. There are is a lot of internet faud schemes here so it might be better not to do that. You can also arrange for your bank to automatically deducti and pay regularly reoccuring bills. or have it billed to your credit card to paY monthly installments.

It depends on the type of bill and the creditor.

We pay our carnês at the store where we bought the products. For example, my wife's cellphone. We pay that at Loja Cem. We can pay it either with cash or debit.

My wife has to pay both TIM and Vivo to put time on our cellphone accounts using her Brazil-issued credit/debit cards because they appear to no longer accept foreign-issued cards. The exception there is if I got to the SEMAR grocery store in town. Since the payment is processed through their servers and not those of the phone companies, I can use my US-issued cards.

We pay our rent in cash monthly to our landlord. Our rent does include "agua e luz"-water and electricity, but that isn't always the case. Some landlords will prefer that you deposit the payments directly in their bank accounts, but ours doesn't because there are no banks within walking distance from the house.

Hello dear   I pay my bill bank and caixa eloctrenic and online also

How have you found the process of paying bills in Brazil? What different bills do you pay?

From water, elecricity and internet, I pay them all through boleto bancario at lottery
houses. Easy bill payments...

What are the different ways you can pay your bills in Brazil?

Bills can be paid by boleto bacario, cash transfer thru bank accounts or automatic
deductions from your bank account.

How often do you receive each bill? Do you incur any penalties for missing deadlines?

I receive each bill every month - the electric bill being very punctual; the water bill sometimes arrive 2 -3 days before expiration and my internet bill very frequently arrives on the day of expiration and sometimes never! So I have to go on-line and print out the boleto bancario! And then they fine you every day that passes until you pay that bill! Very bad service!

robal

Who is your Internet provider robal? I want to stay away from them if possible.

NET. The original agreement when I bought the package was thru boleto bancario. They keep insisting that I go on-line and print the boleto myself. They raised and charged me a higher price because of the mailing of the boleto thru the post office. And then they don´t want to deliver their part on the agreement...

Vivo did the same thing when I was living by the beach in Santa Catarina. During the 2
years I lived there, I only saw 2 bills coming thru the mail and 1 was even 2 days late! I had to go to the center everytime to request one of their offices to print the boleto for me and they charged 1 real for the printing. I had to spend time to get dressed, spend gas and spend more time just to pay the bill. And then sometimes their system is down and I have to return in the afternoon or another day... Their very slow line of 175kb per second  was the only one available in that isolated beach surrounded by tall mountains all around.

There are times when I just want to quit and relocate or move to another country. But there is a family that is very close to me and I´m the godfather of a very beautiful little
girl in Brazil...

robal

Ouch. 175K?  Thankfully I can get up to something like 20Meg in Bertioga. I just wish Internet service from Brazilian providers was synchronous like here in the US. My photos upload so much quicker here than down there.

I now have 60mega through NET but it sucks when it comes to bill pay. COMMON... That
should be their priority - to facilitate payments and not annoy clients. They just don't have quality control. I'm a stock investor and I trade a lot of shares in the
stock market and therefore need the speed.
There were times when I was engaging trades
through that 175k that prices change due to
delays and I've lost money through the process...

robal

Yep. I used to work for a company called Data Broadcasting Corp. Understand your pain fully.

Hi
I pay rent, water, electricity , internet, and school for my son. The rent I pay in cash to the owner. For water and electricity I get a bill in my garden (is my bad if it gets wet or so) every month. Sometimes I don't get any bill then I have to login to the company page and get a second bill (segunda via), normally there is applied an immediate fine if payment is delayed even if you have not gotten the bill. you will only know about that fine when you get your next bill. For the internet I  only get a bill on my email account. Water, electricity and internet I pay with a cell phone app with my international credit card, school I pay with my Brasil Account via internet banking ... all of the bills have to be payed on another date of the month, Water is end of month, School is 5th of every month, rent and internet is 10th of every month electricity is about 20th of the month....

While internet service leaves much to be desired, I have found that a request to the companies to mail a fatura provides me with advance notice sufficient to pay the bills online on time to avoid multas.

In some instances, I prefer to authorize direct debit, but I still receive the fatura prior to the date of payment.

For example, I received the fatura from the electric company today. It is not due until 8 November. If I had any quarrel, there is time to act.

@Priscilla Hi Priscilla , I'm trying to pay my Brazilian Girlfriend's bill here from Australia, is that possible?

Regards Warren

01/13/23 @Priscilla Hi Priscilla , I'm trying to pay my Brazilian Girlfriend's bill here from Australia, is that possible?
Regards Warren
[email protected]

Hi, Warren.  This is a very old thread, and a lot has changed since 2017.  What kind of bill are you trying to pay, and what kind of payment request have you received? 

It's my Brazilian Girlfriend's light bill

https://recargapay.com.be/

She has sent me barcodes ?

Enel company ?

01/13/23 @wazcooper. That app in your post right after mine, regcargapay (btw, the URL end in ".com.br") is available from the Play Store for my US phone and may be for your (presumably) Australian phone as well. It says that you can send a pix through it -- an instant computerized payment in Brazil -- and charge it to a credit card. I don't know anything about the app, can't vouch for its security, and don't know whether it accepts foreign credit cards, but it's there and presumably available.  You would input the barcode and your mode of payment.

You can try it, but a more secure way would probably be to wire her the money and let her pay the bill at the local Loteria. Good luck, hope it works out for you.