Brazil: New Rules for Pix Automatic and Pix by Contactless Payment

Brazil is continuing to expand Pix with two important payment options: Pix Automático for recurring payments and Pix por Aproximação for contactless purchases.

Pix Automatic allows customers to authorise regular payments for services such as streaming, gyms, schools, insurance and software subscriptions. It provides an alternative to direct debit, payment slips and recurring card payments.

Since January 1, 2026, financial institutions that already offered interbank direct debit have been required to support Pix Automatic. From October 1, 2026, customers will also be able to request changes to their daily limits and set separate limits for individual recipients.

Pix by Contactless Payment enables customers to pay in stores by bringing their mobile phone close to a payment terminal, similar to a contactless card. Since April 2026, all Pix participants have been required to support this functionality.

A new Central Bank rule will remove the fixed R$500 (~ EUR 90) limit for contactless Pix payments. Instead, transactions will follow the customer’s normal account and security limits. Financial institutions have until October 1, 2026, to update their systems.

At present, contactless Pix is mainly available on Android devices through services such as Google Pay and Samsung Wallet. Availability on iPhones remains limited because of restrictions on access to Apple’s NFC technology.

The Central Bank is also considering allowing automatic Pix payments directly from salary accounts, although no final implementation date has been confirmed.

These developments strengthen Pix as an alternative to cards and traditional banking payments, while requiring banks, merchants and payment providers to update their systems and payment processes.