Amid the arrests of Fernando Collor and Jair Bolsonaro, detained last year, the Union’s lifetime expenses with the former presidents of the Republic exceeded R$9.53 million in 2025 and maintained the same level as in previous years, according to the Civil House’s Open Data Portal. The benefit, which can be used to pay for airline tickets, accommodation and fuel, is granted to anyone who has held the position, who acquires the right to have four employees for security and personal support activities, two advisors, two vehicles and two drivers.
Living in China, the person who spends the most is Dilma Rousseff, with R$2.37 million. In addition to the expenses common to other former presidents, the president of the Novo Banco de Desenvolvimento, known as Banco do Brics, accumulates international air tickets and staff compensation for services outside the country: in addition to the salary, employees receive allowances, housing allowance and Foreign Representation Compensation (IREX), which totaled R$509,350 in 2025.
Dilma is closely followed by Collor, who accumulated R$2.27 million in expenses. He has been in prison since April last year for passive corruption and money laundering, but, despite being sentenced to eight years and ten months of closed detention, he was transferred to house arrest authorized by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court, due to his age and health reasons.
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Despite this, people from Alagoas are the ones who use the money the most for tickets, travel expenses and hotel stays: R$1.03 million. The amount is intended for his employees, as Collor is serving his sentence in the penthouse of a building in Maceió, located on the edge of Ponta Verde beach.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) — who sanctioned the law in 2008 — is the only one who stopped receiving the funding, as he was re-elected in 2022. In values adjusted for inflation, total spending on former presidents in 2024 was R$9.89 million. In 2023, the value was R$9.73 million, compared to R$8.84 million in 2022 and R$7.08 million in 2021, the first year registered on the government portal.
Benefit suspended
Before his conviction for an attempted coup d’état, Bolsonaro’s average monthly expenses had already been reduced amid the trial of the criminal case in the STF and the preventive detention ordered by Moraes in August, related to another case.
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While in 2024 the budget used exceeded R$1.88 million — a value adjusted for inflation —, in the following year the cost was R$1.19 million, with R$243,284 in expenses with tickets and transportation. He and Collor, together, cost around R$3.47 million to the Union’s coffers in 2025.
Bolsonaro had his benefit suspended by the 8th Federal Court of Belo Horizonte at the beginning of December, in an action filed by the capital’s councilor Pedro Rousseff (PT), motivated by the fact that Bolsonaro was serving a prison sentence. The same happened to Lula in 2018, as part of the Lava-Jato operation, but the PT member managed to reverse it.
“The structure provided for employees in security activities and drivers of the former president was designed for a context of free circulation in public space, not for the reality of closed custody”, justified the decision, which also claimed that it was “redundant” to maintain its own team to act in parallel to the penitentiary escort.
The Federal Regional Court of the 6th Region (TRF-6) suspended the injunction against Bolsonaro 20 days later, maintaining the suspension of the use of drivers and official vehicles, but preserving the rest of the structure, such as employees who work in security. The justification for the decision was that he was “an elderly person with a history of health problems”, and the suspension of the benefit would represent a “risk of irreparable damage to the dignity and well-being of a former dignitary of the Republic”.
Other expenses
Michel Temer is third on the list of former presidents, above Bolsonaro, with R$1.6 million. The highlight of the budget used by him goes to expenses on tickets abroad, with R$208,698 — compared to only R$13,632 for domestic flights. The amount is very close to that invested by Dilma, who used R$229,763. No other former president used the benefit.
Temer also spent more on daily allowances abroad than the former president: R$193,650 versus R$54,964. It comes in second place with the amount invested in fuels, R$27,305, a segment that Collor leads with R$56,805.
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In addition to them, José Sarney used R$1.10 million, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso closes the list with R$981 thousand. FHC’s only expenditure on transport was on vehicle rentals worth R$6,200, being the only one that did not invest in air tickets and accommodation.
