Washington Luís' tenure as the 13th president of Brazil on 15 November 1926, after he won the 1926 presidential election, and ended on 24 October 1930, when he was deposed by the military during the Revolution of 1930.

[1] Following the troubled presidency of Artur Bernardes, Washington Luís still had to deal with the tenentist movement, with the end of the Prestes Column, which had lasted since 1925, being a significant development.

[5] As he had done as mayor of São Paulo and later president (governor) of the homonymous state, Washington Luís published old documents from the Brazil's National Archives, thus preserving many texts from the country's history, which were at risk of being destroyed by insects.

[7] Washington Luís' appointment of Júlio Prestes, then president of São Paulo, as his successor, broke with the milk coffee policy and contributed to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1930, which resulted in the end of the First Brazilian Republic and the beginning of the Vargas Era.

Washington Luís' main competitor in the 1926 election was the liberal politician from Rio Grande do Sul Joaquim de Assis Brasil.

[13] The most prominent point that was effectively put into practice was the Stabilization Bank, the new body's exclusive responsibility was to receive gold, in bars or coins, national and foreign, and in exchange issuing notes of the same value to the depositors.

[3] In August 1927, after new outbreaks of political turmoil, leading to the strengthening of the opposition, including the creation of the Democratic Party (PD) that emerged in the main state that supported the government, São Paulo,[13] Washington Luís tightened the Press Law and approved the so-called Celerada Law, which restricted civil and press freedom and made the Communist Party illegal again.

[28] On 24 October 1930, with the revolution raging, the military ministers (Army and Navy) went ahead and deposed Washington Luís, who was arrested, left the Guanabara Palace accompanied by the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro Sebastião Leme, and was taken to Fort Copacabana.

The military ministers formed a junta and assumed the presidency, but later handed it over to Getúlio Vargas on 3 November 1930, thus ending the First Brazilian Republic.