Brazil's central bank will bar virtual assets, including stablecoins, from settling one specific type of international payment flow starting Oct. 1.

Resolution 561 targets the settlement leg between regulated foreign-exchange providers and their overseas counterparties, requiring that leg to run through a licensed FX transaction or a qualifying non-resident real account.

Individual international transfers using virtual assets remain permitted under Brazil's existing framework .

Oscar Guillermo Farah Osorio, founding partner at Zanella & Farah, described the move to CryptoSlate as resolving genuine ambiguity.

Brazil's 2022 virtual assets law had already given the central bank authority to decide which crypto operations count as foreign-exchange activity, but specific rules never followed, leaving a gap some market participants used to their advantage.

The eFX model these providers operate under lets them bundle many individual payments together, netting balances across an entire day before settling once with their foreign counterparty.

That structure suits high-volume, low-value flows like streaming subscriptions, online gaming payments and e-commerce transactions especially well. Farah said the new resolution directly closes that ambiguity, giving the central bank clearer visibility into flows it previously could not fully see within the formal exchange system.

Providers can still net and consolidate balances before settling with foreign counterparties. Farah framed the practical effect as removing one settlement method from an otherwise intact structure, since providers retain both the consolidated eFX model through permitted channels and the option of individual virtual-asset transfers outside it.