Tickets, events and payment services: what decrees No. 13,108 and 13,109 require from those processing the transaction
Two decrees published on September 1, 2026 have reshaped the regulatory framework for the events market in Brazil.
Decree No. 13,108/2026 regulates ticket sales, establishing safeguards against automated purchases, ticket individualization and traceability requirements, free transfers of ticket ownership, checkout reservation mechanisms with locked-in prices and fees, greater transparency in virtual queues, and specific rules applicable to resale platforms.
Decree No. 13,109/2026, in turn, addresses the on-site event experience, including the provision of free drinking water at events with more than one thousand attendees and oversight of price increases without just cause.
For payment service providers, the key question is: do the new Decrees affect their operations?
Decree No. 13,108/2026 does not apply to acquirers, sub-acquirers, payment institutions, payment gateways or other payment service providers merely because they participate in transaction processing.
The Decree makes no reference at all to payment institutions or payment schemes, or to reversals or chargebacks.
Instead, the obligations are imposed on event producers, primary ticket sellers and secondary-market intermediaries — categories expressly defined under the regulation.
The cancellation, postponement or material alteration of an event triggers the right to a full refund, including ancillary fees, and penalties or withholdings are prohibited where the consumer is not at fault.
Consumers may choose between attending on a rescheduled date, receiving credit or obtaining a refund — which should preferably be processed through the same payment method used for the original purchase.
The Decree also reinforces the statutory right of withdrawal, requiring a specific cancellation channel and prohibiting procedures that unduly delay or hinder cancellation.
None of these provisions creates a new obligation directly applicable to payment service providers.
The key issue lies instead in the contractual and operational interfaces between payment service providers and ticket sellers. The new rules may affect settlement arrangements, amounts already transferred, reversal capabilities and financial exposure associated with advance ticket sales.
Where the line becomes less clear
The main area of legal exposure arises in business models where the payment service provider goes beyond the provision of financial infrastructure and participates in the offer, the purchasing journey or the intermediation itself — as may occur with marketplaces, digital wallets, super apps and benefit programs.
In these arrangements, the applicable legal classification depends on the activities actually performed, rather than on the entity’s regulatory license or contractual designation.
When addressing the liability of ticket sellers and intermediaries, the new Decree applies to those that effectively perform the functions defined under the regulation — not to every entity involved in the payment flow.
The Decree itself also requires its application to be calibrated according to the characteristics of each event, focusing consumer protection measures on events that are more susceptible to speculative practices.
In fragmented transaction chains, the relevant questions therefore remain: Who structured the offer? Who determined the fees? Who controlled the customer journey? And who maintained the relationship with the consumer?
What has now become an evidentiary requirement
The Decree requires documentation of the criteria used to determine fees and their connection to actual costs or services, the retention of sales data and ticket ownership transfer records for at least two years, and the ability to produce auditable records for the National Consumer Protection System (Sistema Nacional de Defesa do Consumidor – SNDC).
Five areas to review now
More than simply introducing new rules for ticket sales, the two Decrees reinforce a broader trend: consumer protection obligations increasingly extend to operational design, technology architecture and governance arrangements among the various participants in the transaction chain.
For payment institutions, understanding where the provision of financial infrastructure ends and participation in the consumer relationship begins will be critical to managing regulatory, contractual and litigation risk.
