Calculation considers the division of federal debts by the number of Income Tax payers, with a lower base due to the exemption for up to R$5,000; if shared with all inhabitants, debt would be R$42,329 per capita
Every Income Tax payer in Brazil wakes up every day with a debt of R$248,800. The calculation considers the number registered in May divided by the total number of people who have to declare IRPF, already considering the base. This group was considered to be the one that most moves the Brazilian economy.
When the account is divided by the country’s total population (213.4 million people), the per capita value of the federal public debt is R$42,329.
The majority of this debt is in the domestic market, in bonds issued in Brazil. A smaller portion corresponds to external debt, contracted or issued outside the country. These securities can have different forms of remuneration: part follows the Selic rate, part is adjusted for inflation, part has pre-fixed interest and a smaller portion is linked to the exchange rate. The total amount of debt increases steadily, every month. With the president (PT), the public deficit rose from 71.7% of GDP in January 2023 to 80.4% in April 2026, an increase of 8.7 percentage points.
The increase in debt occurs when the government issues more bonds than it redeems and also when interest is incorporated into the stock. In May, due to these 2 factors: net new issues and interest appropriation.
The PT administration increased the amount spent on several programs launched by President Lula. For this reason, you always need to raise more. When the taxes collected do not cover expenses, the debt grows.
IR payers are one of the groups that most move the Brazilian economy. In 2025, the total paid in income tax, considering IRPF, IRPJ and withholding tax, was 31.71% of federal revenue –a.
LESS PAYERS TO GO
If today’s federal public debt were divided with the , the value for each would be R$ 197.2 thousand.
There was a drop of around 10 million people in the IR payer base in 2026 because Lula stopped those earning up to R$5,000 per month. Thus, the federal debt for each of the 36.3 million current payers rose to R$248,800, considering a hypothetical calculation.
The exemption for those earning up to R$5,000 came into effect on January 1, 2026, and will count towards when Brazilians file their income tax returns in 2027. The tax withheld at source, however, already comes without the discount for the benefiting group.
As the infographic below shows, the total number of Income Tax payers fell to the level of the pandemic with the change sponsored by Planalto.
How the Poder360 In May 2025, by increasing the Income Tax exemption range to up to R$5,000, Brazil began to give, according to former Federal Revenue Secretary Everardo Maciel.
GROWING DEBT
The federal public debt reached R$9 trillion in May 2026. The stock went from R$8.798 trillion in April to R$9.033 trillion, a nominal increase of R$234.4 billion, or 2.66% in the period.
Growth was driven mainly by net bond issues of R$134.46 billion and the incorporation of R$99.94 billion in interest into the debt stock.
Already at 80.4% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in April. There was an increase of 8.7 percentage points during the Lula government. This indicator, different from the federal public debt, considers broader debts, from the federal government, INSS, States and municipalities.
This percentage. The director of the IFI (Independent Fiscal Institution of the Senate), Alexandre Andrade, stated that the President of the Republic to be elected in October 2026 will have to face “tough discussions” on public accounts in the next term.
RAF 113 (Fiscal Monitoring Report), on Thursday (June 25) by the body linked to the Senate, projects that . For the institution, this is “an extremely high level of debt” for an emerging economy. Read the document (PDF – 2 MB).
On June 10, President Lula returned to the deficits that have been recorded since the beginning of his government. The PT member declared, that an annual loss of around 0.20% of GDP does not “fall the world”. He compared Brazil’s economic situation with that of rich countries.
Japan, Italy, the United States and France, for example, have debt above 100% of GDP. But these nations are already developed. These are high-income economies, with complete infrastructure, more dynamic markets and lower financing costs. They don’t have as many problems as Brazilians.
