Published and sources checked: 2026-09-25. Scope: Pix Automático, the recurring product of Brazil's Pix scheme, read from Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) material only — the Pix Regulation as amended by Resolution BCB No. 402 of 22 July 2024, the implementation guide for participants and the participant FAQ — plus one provider page for integration wording and one press release for market context. This is regulatory and operational research for merchants that bill in Brazil; it is not legal advice and not a claim about any provider's implementation.
What the product actually is
The BCB definition is short and worth reading literally: "O Pix Automático é a solução que permite o pagamento de uma cobrança recorrente, de forma automática, mediante a concessão de uma permissão pelo usuário pagador ao usuário recebedor e de uma autorização ao PSP pagador, utilizando a infraestrutura do Pix."[1] Two separate grants are involved: the payer gives a permission to the payee, and an authorisation to their own payment service provider. Only together do they let charges move without a fresh payer action.
The mechanics follow from that split. The guide describes the receiving side sending recurring charge information to its PSP, and the paying PSP then scheduling and settling the debit: "O PSP Recebedor então gerará a instrução de pagamento correspondente e a enviará ao PSP Pagador que, por sua vez, realizará o agendamento do débito e, posteriormente, sua liquidação na data prevista, de forma automática, sem a necessidade de qualquer ação do usuário pagador a cada nova transação."[1] In merchant terms, the payee drives each cycle; the payer's bank is the party that must honour the standing authorisation. Stripe's documentation frames the same object in English terms: "Pix Automático supports recurring payments through mandates." and "The customer must accept an enrollment, which is the mandate."[5]
A mandate is created once; a cycle is a date range
The guide defines the cycle as a period, not a reminder: "Ciclo: período a que se refere uma cobrança recorrente no âmbito do Pix Automático, cujas datas de início e de término são determinadas a partir da periodicidade e da data de início da recorrência correspondente."[1] It then gives the rule for dates that do not exist — a monthly recurrence first due on 30 December produces cycles that end on the last existing day of the following month, not on a date the calendar never reaches.
The operational consequence is that your billing ledger has to store cycle boundaries as intervals [start, end) derived from the recurrence's start date, and derive the expected charge date from them, rather than storing "send a reminder on the 30th". A proration, a downgrade or a mid-cycle cancellation then maps to a cycle that already has defined edges, which is what your reconciliation and your refund logic need.
The two-hour booking window
The participant FAQ answers a timing question directly: "Em até duas horas após o recebimento da instrução de pagamento, em conformidade com as informações contidas na respectiva instrução de pagamento."[2] The paying PSP must schedule the debit and return the confirmation within two hours of receiving the payment instruction. If the confirmation message is missing, the FAQ sets a second timer: "O PSP pagador deve aguardar a resposta pelo prazo de 1 hora, podendo realizar reenvios da mensagem pain.012 durante esse período."[2]
Treat both timers as part of your integration contract. A webhook handler that assumes "scheduled means settled" will mis-report the cycle; a retry loop that fires at the five-minute mark is inside the window in which a duplicate instruction is still being resolved. Wait for the confirmation, make the send idempotent on the recurrence and cycle identifiers, and only then mark the invoice as collected.
A failed charge does not cancel the mandate
This is the single line most likely to be missing from a home-grown dunning script: "A não liquidação de uma cobrança específica não implica o cancelamento da autorização. Ela permanece ativa para cobranças subsequentes."[2] A cycle that fails to settle leaves the authorisation alive for the next cycle, and the FAQ adds that the payee may then choose other ways to collect that particular charge.
So "payment failed" and "customer cancelled" must be different states in your system, with different follow-ups: retry or collect out of band for the first, stop every future instruction for the second. Merging them either chases customers who have cancelled or silently ends recurring revenue that the payer never ended.
Who cancels what
The FAQ is precise about direction: "Apenas o usuário recebedor cancela, via pain.011."[2] Only the payee cancels a recurrence-confirmation request; the payer can accept or reject it. On the payer side, the payer-facing disclosure must carry the option to stop: the FAQ requires that the customer "deve ser informada também a possibilidade de cancelamento da autorização a qualquer momento".[2]
Support scripts should therefore mirror the rails: a payer who asks you to stop is asking you to cancel the authorisation with their own PSP, not to delete a record in your database. Record the request, cancel the recurrence through the correct message, and keep the evidence — because the payer's cancellation and your cancellation are not the same event, and only one of them stops the next instruction.
Who is allowed to offer it
The rules themselves moved: "Em 22 de julho de 2024, o BCB publicou a Resolução BCB nº 402, que alterou o Regulamento do Pix para instituir as regras de funcionamento do Pix Automático."[3] The launch date was not the original one — "não será possível o lançamento do Pix Automático em 28 de outubro de 2024", the board wrote when it moved the date set by Resolution BCB No. 360 of 2023.[4] The 2025 vote confirms that participants had to make initiation of Pix Automático transactions available from 16 June 2025, and it tightened who may be a payee: the CNPJ must have been active for at least six months, the participant must show no fraud indicators, and the payment service provider has to check its client's suitability before and during the contract.[3]
Market context, from a vendor press release rather than a regulator: "Ahead of its first anniversary on June 16, Pix Automático—the recurring billing feature of Pix, Brazil's widely popular instant payment system—has become a key driver of new customer acquisition for global companies with subscription business models operating in the country."[6] Treat the accompanying figures as vendor-reported, not audited.
What a merchant operation should check first
Three checks, in order of how often they fail. First, evidence: can you show, per cycle, the permission, the authorisation, the charge instruction and the confirmation, in the identifiers the rail uses? Second, dates: does your ledger derive cycle boundaries from the recurrence as the guide defines them, including the "previous existing date" rule, or does it merely fire jobs? Third, state: are "failed to settle", "cancelled by payer" and "cancelled by payee" three separate states with three separate downstream actions? Everything else — dunning cadence, refunds, tax treatment — hangs off those three.
Sources and limits
Checked 2026-09-25. Rule text is quoted from Banco Central do Brasil documents as retrieved; two of them carry the PDF document date rather than a printed publication date, which is stated per source. Provider documentation and vendor press material are used only where marked, for integration wording and market context. No claim is made about any particular provider's compliance, limits or timelines; verify against the rules and your own PSP before you bill.
- [1] Guia de implementação do Pix Automático (Banco Central do Brasil) — Version 1.3, document date 2026-08-19; Brazil; checked: 2026-09-25.
- [2] FAQ Pix Automático para participantes (Banco Central do Brasil) — Document date 2025-05-13; Brazil; checked: 2026-09-25.
- [3] VOTO 68/2025–BCB, de 29 de maio de 2025 (Banco Central do Brasil) — 2025-05-29; Brazil; checked: 2026-09-25.
- [4] VOTO 113/2024–BCB, de 17 de julho de 2024 (Banco Central do Brasil) — 2024-07-17; Brazil; checked: 2026-09-25.
- [5] Pix Automático — Stripe documentation — Living page, no publication date shown, retrieved 2026-09-25; Brazil integration; checked: 2026-09-25.
- [6] More than 60% of Pix Automático users are brand-new subscribers to digital platforms, EBANX data shows — 2026-06-12; Brazil; vendor figures; checked: 2026-09-25.