Workers can now authorize banks to consult FGTS statements for up to 90 days

Starting this Tuesday (10), workers can grant FGTS statement authorization to banks and other financial institutions, allowing them to consult the statement directly from the fund's database. The new feature was launched by Caixa Econômica Federal, the state-owned bank that manages the FGTS (Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço, Brazil's severance pay fund), and is intended to prove income or employment ties in financial operations, such as a credit application.

With the change, anyone applying for a loan or financing no longer needs to download, print, and hand over the statement to the bank. The institution performs the query on its own, but only after the account holder gives express permission, according to Agência Brasil.

How authorization works

Permission is free and can be given in two ways: through the FGTS app or at a Caixa branch. The worker chooses which institutions will have access to the information.

The main rules are as follows:

• the authorization is valid for 90 days;
• the worker can cancel the permission at any time;
• the authorized bank sees deposits made in the last 12 months;
• the total account balance is not shown to the institution and remains visible only to the account holder, in the FGTS app.

In other words, the bank can see whether there are regular deposits, which indicates formal employment and helps estimate income, but does not learn how much the worker has saved in the fund.

Why Caixa created the service

According to Caixa, the goal is to make income and employment verification more practical and more secure. Since the data comes directly from the FGTS database, the risk of altered statements or inconsistent information—a common problem when the document circulates on paper or as a file sent by the customer—is reduced.

The bank also points to an effect on financial inclusion. With more reliable information about income and employment, institutions can better assess each customer's profile and offer more suitable services, according to Caixa, as cited by the N1N portal.

What changes for workers and banks

For workers with formal employment (carteira assinada, a signed work card), the main change is the elimination of paperwork when applying for credit. It is worth remembering that the consultation always depends on an active authorization: without it, the bank has no access to the data, and the permission expires automatically after 90 days.

On the institutions' side, not all can use the tool immediately. Banks and financial companies must first be enabled by Caixa, with a request sent via corporate email and the documents required in the service's operational manual. The manual is available in the downloads area of Caixa's website and on the FGTS portal, under the option "Consulta Extrato FGTS," as reported by O Povo.

Therefore, workers who want to use the new feature should check with their own bank whether it is already enabled before granting authorization through the app. Caixa has not disclosed how many institutions have already joined the service.