Intermediary, custodian or broker: Brazil's three VASP categories
Every Brazilian virtual asset service provider authorisation starts with one classification decision, and firms routinely get it wrong because they answer it with their marketing rather than their architecture. Resolução BCB 520, art. 4 sets out three categories of prestadora de serviços de ativos virtuais. Which one you fall into is a question of what your systems actually do.
The three categories
- Intermediário — intermediation. You bring buyers and sellers together, execute or route orders, or otherwise stand between two parties to a virtual asset transaction.
- Custodiante — custody. You hold or control clients' virtual assets, which in practice means you hold or control the keys, or hold the credentials that let you move the assets without a further instruction the client alone can give.
- Corretora — broker. Intermediation and custody together, in the same entity.
The determinative point is that the category follows function, not the name on the product. A firm that describes itself as a “non-custodial swap interface” but in fact takes control of client keys at any point in the flow is a custodian for these purposes, and if it also matches orders it is a corretora. Conversely, a firm calling itself an exchange that never holds a client key is an intermediário, not a corretora. Map the asset flow before you map the marketing.
Why the category is not a labelling exercise
The category feeds directly into the capital requirement, which is the item most likely to decide whether a Brazilian authorisation is viable for a given firm. The BCB has publicly framed minimum capital as running from roughly R$10.8 million to R$37.2 million, but that range is the output of a calculation, not a price list. The arithmetic sits in the annexes to Resolução Conjunta 14/2025, read with Resolução BCB 517/2025 of 3 November 2025, and has two parts:
- A cost parcel, driven by the number of registered operational categories, with an uplift where the firm runs its own technology infrastructure, subject to a ceiling.
- An activity parcel, driven by the services actually performed, the nature of the funds handled, and multipliers applied to those.
The practical consequence of the cost parcel is worth sitting with: because it counts registered operational categories, registering for a category you do not need raises your capital requirement. A firm that registers as a corretora out of a vague preference for optionality pays for that optionality in paid-up capital.
A caution about the worked examples circulating
Several Brazilian firms have published worked examples of the formula. Figures around R$9.2 million for intermediation only and around R$13 million for intermediation plus custody have appeared in print. Both sit below the R$10.8 million floor the BCB has announced, which looks like a contradiction and mostly is not: the formula varies with assumptions about infrastructure, services and fund types, and different published examples make different assumptions.
Treat all of these as reporting rather than as instrument text. The annexes govern, and component values are not reported consistently in commentary. If you need a number to take to a board or an investor, run the annex arithmetic on your own facts and have it checked — do not adopt someone else's worked example.
Capital must be real, and it must be there early
Two features of the requirement catch firms out. First, the capital must be subscribed and paid up in cash, with integralisation immediately following subscription. A commitment letter, a parent guarantee, or an intention to fund on approval is not capital for this purpose. Second, capital is a Phase 1 gate, not something demonstrated later in the process. Under Instrução Normativa BCB 704, art. 9, providers already operating on 2 February 2026 must file their Phase 1 set by 30 October 2026, and the capital position forms part of what that filing has to stand on.
That is a funding timetable as much as a legal one. Moving cash into a Brazilian entity, having it subscribed and integralised, and evidencing it, is not a task that compresses well in the final month.
Classification also sets what comes afterwards
Authorisation is not an endpoint. Resoluções BCB 552 and 553 bring authorised providers into the Banco Central's prudential and accounting frameworks, so the category you register determines the ongoing supervisory and reporting relationship you are signing up to, not just the entry cost. A firm that adds custody to an intermediation-only permission later is re-opening the capital calculation and the surrounding obligations, not filing a variation form.
So: settle the classification first, on the facts of the system rather than the pitch deck, then compute capital from the annexes, then work backwards to a funding date.
The checklist behind this article
The Brazil PSAV readiness checklist walks the Phase 1 set item by item, including the classification decision and the three years of CVM-audited financial statements that usually dictate the filing date. Every item is cited to an article of IN BCB 704 or the relevant Resolução, every figure is marked as instrument text or as reporting of it, and the open points are left marked open. USD 79, with updated editions free as the position develops.
If your asset flow clearly sits in one category, the checklist is enough on its own. If custody is ambiguous in your architecture — delegated signing, MPC arrangements, a third-party custodian you nonetheless instruct — the 48-hour gap check is aimed at exactly that question.