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08/05/25 @thetravelfox.  I had to have my Brazilian bank account for a year before the bank was willing to give me a credit card, and the first credit limit was ridiculously low, although it was raised relatively quickly.

The fact that you're a Bradesco Prime customer may well give you some special privileges, though.  Talk to your personal banker at Bradesco Prime and see what they can do for you.   If anyone else is a Bradesco Prime, or an Estilo (Banco do Brasil's equivalent) or a Personalité (Itaú's equivalent) customer, was it any easier for you to get a credit card?

Thanks @abthree -- good info.  I do have one card from my first iti (now Itaú Digital) account from when I only had a CPF -- with a R$ 650 limit. 😂 

I went down the Prime route hoping it might help in this process; we shall see.

Thoughts from any others very welcome.

6 August 2025

For Brazil, is it more important to get a local credit card or to have PIX?  I believe that PIX has a limit of R$5000 per day - which is typically enough for daily use....

Are there as many choices of credit cards with benefits, points, or rebates in Brazil as there are in the US?  I would definitely be interested in starting to build my credit in Brazil.

Is there an equivalent of nerdwallet for Brazil?  This site is very helpful for picking credit cards in the US.

You can raise the limit of your payments using pix to R$30,000, simply by registering the recipient' details with your bank 24 or 48 hours in advance of the payment, although most people will never need this higher level. Initial credit card limits, as @abthree noted, are really low, and most people I know do not bother - they just use pix.

08/07/25 For Brazil, is it more important to get a local credit card or to have PIX? I believe that PIX has a limit of R$5000 per day - which is typically enough for daily use....
Are there as many choices of credit cards with benefits, points, or rebates in Brazil as there are in the US? I would definitely be interested in starting to build my credit in Brazil.

Is there an equivalent of nerdwallet for Brazil? This site is very helpful for picking credit cards in the US. - @Pablo888

Hi, Pablo888.  As @Peter Itamaraca writes, Pix limits are flexible and you can adjust them, depending on your bank.  Both of us in our house happen to get paid on the first of the month and have front-loaded our bills for that first week, so my PIX limits are probably higher than average (got there in a couple of steps) to accommodate a flurry of big PIX early in the month to fund the bills, then three weeks of "normal" ones.  PIX lets you transfer between your own accounts with no service fee, which is a useful feature for us, since we pay our bills from a dedicated account for household expenses.  As Peter said, you can go even higher if you register a recipient in advance.

I only use my local credit card for online purchases from Amazon-BR and Mercado Livre, and that's just for convenience.  It lets me pay off all my purchases of the previous month with no interest during the first week of the month with a single debit to my bank account.  PIX or debit card for everything else.  I get Livelo points for purchases, and turn them in periodically for cashback.  I use US credit cards mostly for travel; in Manaus they're not universally accepted.

No good answer for your last question from me; as you can tell from the above, I just use my credit card as an extension of my bank account to space payments out, so card benefits aren't interesting for me.

7 August 2025

Much appreciated @abthree and @peter_itamaraca for the feedback. 

Seems like getting a credit card in Brazil is not as important as having access to Pix.

Thank you.

From NU bank conta digital, you can get an instant credit card approved for maybe 50/100 Reais, then you have to start using it and pay it and re-use it and keep doing it within the same monthly cycle, do it for 2-3 months then you can request a raise through the app, and they usually raise it substantially seeing your spending pattern. Once you have a credit score through them, you can apply for virtually any credit card from any bank with near about guranteed approval.

About the question of pix v. Brazilian credit cards - for me, a credit card with a decent limit would be helpful for online in-country purchases from websites that are not configured to accept international credit cards.  In many cases they take pix, but some do not. And after a lifetime of earning points on US cards, it's a little sad to not earn something when using in pix, a basic card, etc., but that's just me.  For the rest, the US cards do the trick.

In terms of my specific situation., I did look up my credit score on the Serasa website here out of curiosity sake, and also submitted an application to Nubank. A card was approved with a more generous limit than I received from the traditional banks.  It's still on the order of my first credit card I received in college 30 years ago, but better than the measly limits offered by Itaú and Santander.