Brazil expects to collect an extra R$ 67.5 billion this year from the surge in oil prices. That is more than the government is spending to shield drivers from fuel price hikes: the relief paid at the pump is being financed by oil itself, with change to spare. The head of the National Treasury, Daniel Leal, presented the numbers on Tuesday (29), according to news site G1.
On the spending side, the Treasury authorized R$ 32.4 billion in emergency credits through August to subsidize fuels, plus R$ 8 billion in tax cuts early in the year, about R$ 40 billion in all. The gap between that and the extra revenue is roughly R$ 27 billion. For scale, that is nearly twice the R$ 13.6 billion the government froze from this year's budget last week.
What are emergency credits?
In Brazil, creditos extraordinarios are emergency expenses approved outside the annual budget. They sit outside the cap of the fiscal framework, the rule that limits spending growth to 2.5% a year above inflation, but they do count toward this year's fiscal target, which calls for a primary surplus, when revenue exceeds spending before interest payments on the debt.
The money comes from the war in the Middle East, which has pushed up the price of a barrel. Because Brazil produces and exports oil, the same shock that squeezes consumers fills public coffers: the extra revenue includes oil sales, royalties (fees paid by drillers, shared with producing states and municipalities), special participation payments and a 12% oil export tax created this year. The effect shows in trade data: from January to August, crude oil exports totaled US$ 36.9 billion, up 24% from the same period of 2025, according to magazine VEJA.
With revenue outrunning subsidy costs, the economic team freed room for other spending, including a raise in Bolsa Familia, the cash-transfer program for poor families, granted weeks before the first round of the presidential election. The bill will still grow: fresh measures, such as extending for 30 more days the diesel subsidy of R$ 0.32 per liter, have not been counted yet.
Through August, total federal spending rose 5.7% in real terms, more than double the framework's cap, since war credits and precatorios, court-ordered debts, stay outside the limit. Finance Minister Dario Durigan has repeated that Brazil would not be a "partner" of the war: the extra revenue serves to cushion the conflict's effects on the population, not to profit from it.