How to get out of debt?

Debt doesn't weigh only on your wallet. It weighs on your sleep, your marriage, the way you answer the phone. If you've made it this far, you've already taken the hardest step: you decided to look at it. The rest is method, patience and honesty with your own numbers.

What to do now

1. Find out exactly how much you owe. Gather bills, contracts and collection messages. Check Registrato, the Central Bank's free service that shows loans and financing under your CPF, and see on Serasa and Boa Vista what has been flagged as unpaid. Build a table: creditor, amount, monthly interest, how overdue, collateral.
2. Stop creating new debt. As long as there is a revolving credit card balance, an overdraft or a loan to pay a loan, the math won't work. Put the card away, agree on it with your family and use cash or debit for a while.
3. Make a wartime budget. Write down all your income and all your spending for the month. First housing, food, water, electricity, transportation and health. Whatever is left is what can go to your debts, and not a cent more.
4. Attack the most expensive interest first. Revolving credit card balances and overdrafts usually carry the highest interest rates on the market. Swapping those debts for one with lower interest can bring relief, as long as you don't go back to using the card. If it's a payroll-deductible loan, remember the installment comes out of your salary before any other bill: it's only worth it if it fits comfortably.
5. Negotiate through official channels. The creditor's app and website, Serasa Limpa Nome, consumidor.gov.br and Procon, the consumer protection agency. For individuals, there is the Desenrola Brasil 3.0 (Provisional Measure 1,393, of 25/09/2026), with its own rules: check the conditions at gov.br and see whether your debt qualifies. For businesses, the Novo Desenrola of Provisional Measure 1,355 lapsed on 08/09/2026.
6. Only accept what fits. An agreement you can't keep becomes new debt with higher interest. Ask for time, a discount, a grace period. Keep it in writing.
7. If the total no longer fits in your life, the law protects you. The Over-Indebtedness Law (Law 14,181/2021) allows you to bring your creditors together in a conciliation and put together a plan of up to five years that preserves the minimum you need to live. Go to Procon or the Public Defender's Office.
8. Be wary of easy promises. No serious person charges up front to "clear your name" or offers fast money without a credit check. An "unmissable" investment to pay off debt is the most common scam against people who are strapped for cash. And know this: your name comes off the delinquent-debtor lists after five years (Consumer Protection Code, art. 43, §1), but the debt doesn't disappear because of that; no one can sell you that deadline as a "cleanup."

When it happened to Bairo

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez knows what it's like when the math doesn't work. He says he went broke more than once. One of those times, after investing the capital he had built up with events and digital printing in a business that wasn't what it seemed, he was left without money and with many people depending on him.

He describes that moment as being broke, broken and beaten. The way out was neither quick nor pretty. It was a sequence of decisions: not complaining, not looking for someone to blame, learning what he didn't know and trying again. The next attempt also went wrong. He kept going.

The path

Getting out of debt is rarely a leap; it's a staircase. Each step is small: a table, a cut expense, an agreement kept. Bairo says every no is the ground of a yes. Today, the "no" may be turning down one more easy loan. That no, repeated every month, is the ground for the yes of a clean name and a full night's sleep.

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