Brazil's benchmark interest rate stands at 14% a year, and it shapes what families pay to finance a fridge, roll over credit card debt or take a car loan. As a yardstick: at 14% a year, reference interest alone eats R$ 140 out of every R$ 1,000 owed over twelve months. On Wednesday (16), the central bank committee known as Copom announces its next decision on the rate, and on the eve of it, news outlet g1 compiled what presidential candidates propose to cut rates, household debt and government spending.
The numbers explain why the issue has become campaign material. The Selic, as the rate is known, ended 2025 at 15% a year, its highest level in two decades, and sits one point below that today. Household indebtedness hit a record in July, with eight in ten Brazilian households carrying some kind of debt, according to a survey by CNC, the national commerce confederation, the equivalent of eight homes in debt on every street of ten.
In a Quaest poll cited by BBC News Brasil, the economy ranks as the country's second biggest problem, named by 16% of voters, nearly one in six, behind only violence at 31%. The poll heard 2,004 people between August 30 and September 1. Twelve tickets are running for the presidency in October's election.
In brief: the Selic is Brazil's basic interest rate, set by Copom, the committee of central bank directors that meets to raise, cut or hold it, much as the Federal Reserve does with US rates. High rates make credit costlier and cool consumption, which helps contain inflation but makes debts harder to pay. The "fiscal framework", in Portuguese "arcabouço", is the rule that caps the growth of public spending: when markets doubt government accounts, they push rates up.
From Desenrola to the "big scissors"
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT), running for reelection, acknowledges in his government plan that a high Selic "disorganizes the economy and concentrates income". To bring it down, he pledges to control inflation, keep the fiscal framework rule and extend Desenrola Brasil, a program that renegotiates the debts of families and small businesses. The plan also promises wider credit access for small and midsize firms and regulation of online betting to protect household income.
In an interview with Globo in late August, Lula said public debt "does not worry" him and bet on growth to shrink it relative to GDP, the value of everything the country produces in a year:
"As you start to grow the economy, debt starts to fall in relation to GDP. Eighty percent of debt, in a country, is not much. Look at the United States, Japan, Italy. Do you know what the US debt is? 120% of GDP"
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, bets on a "big scissors", his word for sweeping spending cuts, to lower the Selic, and wants to replace the fiscal framework rule. He also proposes revising the tax reform to cut taxes and exempt exports and investments. On household debt, he defends regulating online betting, banning social program funds from betting platforms and creating an income-contingent loan for university students.
"Just with my election and my team, the interest rate will already fall at the next Copom meeting", he told Globo, promising savings by cutting corruption and bureaucracy. g1 notes that the Selic is set by the central bank, though a president can take steps that weigh on the decision and on the economy's course.
Writer Augusto Cury (Avante) promises an "Banco do Empreendedor", an entrepreneurs' bank charging 5% to 6% a year on loans of up to R$ 20,000, less than half the current Selic. He also proposes reviewing banks' risk models to contain the rate and taxing online betting at 40%. "If we brought in artificial intelligence and digitalized the entire public machine, we would certainly save enough", he said in an interview with Globo.
Regulating online betting is where the plans overlap: Lula wants to regulate the sector to protect income, Flávio wants to bar social program money from the platforms and Cury wants to tax them at 40%. On public accounts the paths split, with Lula keeping the current framework, the PL candidate seeking to change the rule and Cury banking on digitalization. Wednesday's decision belongs to the central bank; voters deliver theirs in October.