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In four years, the system went from 9.4 billion to 79.8 billion transactions a year. It now accounts for more than half of all payments in the country, carried a large share of the money bet on online betting sites, and landed on the list of United States complaints.
Pix went live in November 2020. In its first full year, 2021, it handled 9.4 billion transactions worth R$ 5.2 trillion (Brazilian reais). In 2025 it handled 79.8 billion, worth R$ 35.4 trillion. The number of transactions grew 8.5-fold and the value 6.8-fold.
With 213.4 million inhabitants, that works out to about 374 Pix payments per person per year: more than one a day for every Brazilian, from newborns to the elderly.
In the second half of 2025, Pix accounted for 54.7% of all payment transactions in the country: 42.9 billion out of a total of 78.4 billion. Cards, combined, had 30.4%.
By value, the picture changes. Pix had 28.6% of the money moved, behind TED (Brazil's same-day bank wire), which made up 34.7%. Pix won everyday retail; large transfers between companies and institutions still run on other rails.
At first, Pix was used mostly to send money from one person to another. In the first quarter of 2021, 79% of transactions were of that kind, and only 10% were payments from individuals to businesses. In the first quarter of 2025, the two types were nearly tied: 46% and 41%. For 2025 as a whole, person-to-business payments were already 43% of the total.
The system most often cited as Pix's peer is India's UPI. In absolute numbers, India is far ahead: more than 228 billion transactions in 2025. But India has 1.46 billion people. Per person, Brazilians use Pix more than twice as much as Indians use UPI.
A public system, free for individuals and used by nearly everyone, competes directly with the card networks. That was the point raised by Washington. In July 2025, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) opened a Section 301 investigation into six Brazilian practices. On June 1, 2026, it concluded that Brazil's treatment of Pix unfairly harms American electronic payment providers.
On July 15, 2026, the final action came: an additional 25% tariff on some Brazilian products, in effect since July 22, with a long list of exceptions. The tariff responds to all six practices investigated, not only Pix. But it is the first time a payment method created by a central bank has appeared in a trade dispute of this size.
Pix was also the main deposit channel for online betting sites. An estimate by Comsefaz, the committee of Brazil's state finance secretaries, puts Pix transfers linked to betting sites at R$ 351 billion in 2025. That is about 1% of all the value that went through Pix that year. When the government decided to shut down the sector in September, the first step was precisely to block new deposits. The numbers on Brazil's betting sites are in this companion piece.
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How to cite: Dado Bruto. Pix became the rail of Brazilian money. And a trade-policy issue. Code DB-AN-0002. Published Oct. 14, 2026. https://dadobruto.com/en/analysis/pix-brazil-payment-rail
This is the English edition of an analysis first published in Portuguese. Ler o original em português →
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