Brazil's federal government collected R$239.4 billion in taxes and contributions in September, the Receita Federal, the country's tax authority, reported on Thursday (22). The figure is a real increase of 5.6% over the same month in 2025, when revenue totaled R$226.6 billion in inflation-adjusted terms, and the highest ever for a September since the agency's historical series began.
According to G1, three forces drove the record: economic growth, the tax increases approved during President Lula's third term, and higher oil prices caused by the war between the United States and Iran. Costlier crude lifted royalty and extraction-related revenue, and the government also created a 12% export tax on oil, justified as a way to secure domestic fuel supply. InfoMoney reports that this levy alone brought in R$2.9 billion in September and R$12.9 billion so far this year.
Who paid the bill
The tax authority's breakdown, reported by InfoMoney, shows where the money came from. Social security revenue, which tracks the payroll, reached R$64.6 billion in September, a real gain of 6.18% year on year, driven by a 1.72% expansion of the total wage bill and a 7.42% rise in collections from the Simples Nacional, the simplified tax regime for small businesses. Withholding tax on capital income totaled R$12.1 billion, a real increase of 9.87%, reflecting the taxation of dividends introduced in 2026 and a 9.68% rise in fixed income held by individuals and companies. Corporate income taxes (IRPJ and CSLL) yielded R$29.8 billion, up only 1.06%, while the IOF financial transactions tax fell 9.06% in real terms, to R$8 billion.
From January through September, revenue totaled R$2.38 trillion in adjusted values, a real expansion of 7% over the same period of 2025 and also a record for the period, according to the Receita Federal.
The result pads government coffers months before the 2026 accounts close and three days before the presidential runoff. This year's fiscal target is a primary surplus of 0.25% of GDP, roughly R$34.3 billion, with a tolerance band that allows the target to be considered met even at zero. The fiscal framework, known as the arcabouço fiscal and approved in 2023, also lets the government exclude R$57.8 billion in spending from the calculation, including court-ordered debt payments (precatórios). In practice, G1 reports, the government's own projection is a R$23.3 billion deficit at year end, even if the official target number comes out positive.
For producers, the record has a direct cost: oil exporters pay the new 12% levy on foreign sales, companies absorb the gradual payroll tax restoration and the end of benefits such as the Perse events program, and high-income investors pay more on exclusive funds, offshore holdings and dividends. For consumers and workers, the same result shows up on two sides: part of the revenue comes out of fuel prices, taxed again since 2023, and out of the wage growth that feeds social security revenue; on the other side, the fuller treasury is what the government has available to try to close 2026 within its fiscal target and pay obligations such as precatórios.