How Pix payment integration works for businesses selling in Brazil: gateway vs direct routes, fees of 0.22% to 0.99%, Pix Cobranca and Automatico, and a build checklist.
Pix is Brazil's instant payment system, built and regulated by the Banco Central do Brasil since November 2020. A business integrates Pix through a licensed payment provider and pays roughly 0.22% to 0.99% per transaction, against about 1.13% for debit and 2.34% for credit cards. A gateway setup takes one to four weeks; a direct connection to the central bank's rails takes six months or more.
Pix settles in seconds, 24/7, in Brazilian reais. The customer scans a QR code or pastes its text into a banking app and approves. The payment clears through the SPI (Sistema de Pagamentos Instantâneos), and the receiving account is found through a Pix key (CPF, CNPJ, email, phone, or a random key) in the DICT directory. In 2025 the system moved R$35.3 trillion across 79.8 billion transactions and was used by about 148 million people and 12.8 million companies.
For your business, integrating Pix means handling three things. First, generate a QR code for each sale, almost always a dynamic code that carries the amount and an order reference. Second, receive confirmation when the payment lands, usually through a webhook from your provider. Third, match that confirmation to the right order so you can ship or activate the product.
The tricky part is everything around the happy path. Pix is instant and final, so there are no card-style chargebacks to reverse a payment. Refunds are a separate outbound transfer you trigger yourself. A webhook can arrive twice or late, so every charge needs an idempotency key. And QR codes expire, so checkout must handle an expired code and let the customer restart.
You only code against the central bank directly if you are a licensed financial institution. Everyone else goes through one of three routes.
A gateway or aggregator is the fast path. Stripe (through EBANX), EBANX, dLocal, PagSeguro, and Mercado Pago all expose Pix as a payment method in their API. You create a charge, get a QR code string, render it at checkout, and wait for the webhook. Providers like EBANX and Volt act as merchant of record, so a foreign business can accept reais without a Brazilian entity and settle in its own currency.
An indirect participant connection runs through a sponsor bank or PSP that is itself a Pix participant. This is the common choice for Brazil-domiciled companies that want lower negotiated fees, their own Pix keys, and access to Pix Cobrança and Pix Automático without running settlement infrastructure.
A direct participant connects straight to the SPI and DICT. It is open only to banks and licensed payment institutions. The central bank requires integration with its fraud information system (Pix FRAUD) and the RSFN secure channel before go-live. The control is real, but this route is measured in months and compliance staff, not a developer sprint.
Two numbers matter: the per-transaction fee and the build effort.
Per transaction, payment providers charge from about 0.22% to 0.99% depending on volume, the provider, and whether the payment is domestic or cross-border. Person-to-person Pix is free, but business Pix is not. Foreign merchants also face the 3.5% IOF tax on the foreign-exchange leg, which the customer sees on international purchases. Pix Cobrança and Pix Automático can carry a small extra fee.
The build is a normal payment integration. A single gateway with dynamic QR and webhooks is a one-to-three-week job for a team that has integrated a card processor before. The time goes into the parts cards hide from you: webhook retries, refunds, and matching a payment to an order when the customer pays from a different Pix key than the one you issued. See our payment gateway integration guide for the webhook and testing detail.
| Integration route | Who it fits | Time to live | Typical fee per transaction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gateway or aggregator | Foreign or small merchants, no local entity | 1 to 4 weeks | 0.22% to 0.99% plus FX or IOF |
| Indirect participant via PSP | Brazil-domiciled businesses, lower fees | 2 to 6 weeks | negotiated, often 0.22% to 0.5% |
| Direct participant | Licensed banks and institutions | 6 to 12+ months | lowest marginal, high fixed cost |
Pix started as one-off instant transfers. Two features matter for businesses beyond checkout.
Pix Cobrança adds boleto-style collections to the Pix rail: a charge with a due date, interest, and discounts, delivered as a dynamic QR code. It replaces a printed bank slip with something the customer pays in seconds.
Pix Automático, live since June 2025, handles recurring billing. The customer approves a mandate once, and debits run on each due date without further action. It covers subscriptions and installment plans and reaches the large share of Brazilian customers who do not use credit cards.
The QR code and webhook are the easy half. The parts that decide whether the integration holds up sit around them.
Reconciliation is the one most teams under-scope. Payments land against a Pix key, not always your order ID. You need a ledger that matches settled transactions to orders, including partial and overdue Pix Cobrança payments.
Status handling comes second. Dynamic codes expire (Adyen defaults to 24 hours, EBANX to 5), and a customer can pay from a different key than the one you issued. Your checkout and back office both need to cope with that.
Refunds and idempotency come third. Pix refunds are outbound transfers you trigger, and a repeated webhook must never double-credit an order.
GlobeSoft builds this kind of integration as part of payment and FinTech projects, including for clients in Brazil. We treat the provider choice, the reconciliation model, and the webhook contract as design decisions rather than afterthoughts. If you sell into Brazil, see our FinTech development service and our notes on offshore development for the Brazil market.
Through a gateway such as Stripe, EBANX, or dLocal, one to four weeks including testing. A direct participant connection to the SPI and DICT takes six months or more because of licensing, the mandatory fraud-system integration, and compliance work.
Not necessarily. Providers such as EBANX and Volt act as merchant of record and settle in your currency, so a foreign business can accept reais without a local company. You still pay the 3.5% IOF tax on the cross-border leg.
Business Pix fees run about 0.22% to 0.99% per transaction, versus roughly 1.13% for debit and 2.34% for credit cards in Brazil. Person-to-person Pix is free.
Yes. Pix Automático, live since June 2025, debits a customer on a schedule after one authorization. Pix Cobrança covers due-date collections with interest and discounts.
A static code is fixed and suits a shop counter where the customer types the amount. A dynamic code carries the amount and order reference for each transaction, which online checkouts use so payments reconcile automatically.
No. Pix settles in Brazilian reais only. A foreign merchant uses a provider's foreign-exchange leg to convert to its own currency, which is where the IOF tax applies.
Planning to accept Pix or build a payment product for Brazil? Talk to us about your project. GlobeSoft can help you pick the integration route, design the reconciliation, and estimate the build.
GlobeSoft builds custom software, AI applications, SaaS, FinTech and enterprise systems for clients worldwide. Message us on WhatsApp for the fastest answer, or email us — we typically reply within 24 hours.
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