Combined with all previous currency changes in the country's history, this reform made the new real equal to 2.75 × 1018 (2.75 quintillion) of Brazil's original réis.

Soon after its introduction, the real unexpectedly gained value against the U.S. dollar, due to large capital inflows in late 1994 and 1995.

Between 1996 and 1998 the exchange rate was tightly controlled by the Central Bank of Brazil, so that the real depreciated slowly and smoothly to the dollar, dropping from near US$1=R$1 to about US$1=R$1.2 by the end of 1998.

In January 1999 the deterioration of the international markets, disrupted by the Russian default, forced the Central Bank, under its new president Arminio Fraga, to float the exchange rate.

[3] In the following years, the currency's value against the dollar followed an erratic but mostly downward path from 1999 until late 2002, when the prospect of the election of leftist candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, considered a radical populist by sectors of the financial markets, prompted another currency crisis and a spike in inflation.

Many Brazilians feared another default on government debts or a resumption of heterodox economic policies and rushed to exchange their reais into tangible assets or foreign currencies.

The crisis subsided once Lula took office, after he, his finance minister Antonio Palocci, and Arminio Fraga reaffirmed their intention to continue the orthodox macroeconomic policies of his predecessor (including inflation-targeting, primary fiscal surplus and floating exchange rate, as well as continued payments of the public debt).

In May 2007, for the first time since 2001 (six years), the real became worth more than US$0.50 — even though the Central Bank, concerned about its effect on the Brazilian economy, had tried to keep it below that symbolic threshold.

[7] Following Lula's reelection in the 2022 general elections, the market, which was expected to have reacted poorly, turned out favorable in the first week.

[8][9] The US dollar exchange hit its lowest point since 29 August 2022, dropping from roughly US$1=R$5.30 immediately before the second round of the election, to about US$1=R$5.05 a week after Lula's win.

[24] Despite the initial skepticism, it was later supposedly confirmed via FOIA [pt] requests and interviews that Casa da Moeda do Brasil had minted trial strikes of the R$1 coin prior to the currency design change in 1998, with custom designs that were purposefully different to the final product as to avoid leaks.

They claim to have done extensive research into the piece, and to have concluded that it is not a trial strike or test coin, but instead a sort of vending machine token with no numismatic value.

[27] In 1994, banknotes print "A" were issued by Casa da Moeda do Brasil in the amounts of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 reais, in addition to supplementary issues of banknotes ordered abroad in the values of 5, 10 and 50 reais of the print "B" produced abroad by the companies Giesecke+Devrient, Thomas de la Rue and François-Charles Oberthur Fiduciaire respectively.

The Brazilian Mint printed 250 million of these notes, which at the time accounted for about half of the 10 real banknotes in circulation.

On 3 February 2010, the Central Bank of Brazil announced the new series of the real banknotes which would begin to be released in April 2010.