Importing into Brazil: what the process actually involves

This section covers each of those in turn, with the acts behind them and the date every figure was checked.

The sequence, in the order it actually happens

1. Someone has to be accredited. Only a Brazilian entity or an individual acting in their own name can file an import declaration. A foreign company cannot. This is the first thing to settle, because it determines who your counterparty is.
2. The product has to be classified. The NCM code drives the duty rate, the IPI rate, whether a licence is needed, and which agency has to consent. A classification error is not a paperwork problem, it is a tax and compliance problem discovered at the border.
3. The product may need a registration. ANVISA for health regulated goods, MAPA for products of animal origin, beverages and unprocessed plant produce, INMETRO for goods on the compulsory certification list. This runs on its own timeline, and where a full registration applies it is normally what the launch date is built around.
4. The shipment may need a licence. Automatic or non automatic, depending on the situation rather than on the product family. The act allows licensing after shipment only in one narrow case, so the licence question is settled before the goods move.
5. The taxes are calculated in a fixed order. Import duty, then IPI, then PIS and COFINS, then ICMS grossed up on a base containing all of them.

Most of the money and most of the delay sit in steps 3 and 5.

Who can import

Accreditation in Siscomex, known as RADAR, is granted under Instrução Normativa RFB nº 1.984 of 27 October 2020, amended by IN RFB nº 2.292 of November 2025, to Brazilian legal entities and to individuals acting in their own name. There are three modalities, and they are widely described incorrectly: only one of them is defined by transaction value.

There are also three ways to structure the import, depending on who buys the goods abroad and who owns them on arrival. The choice changes who is liable for the tax.

If the answer is your own Brazilian entity, two rules decide most of the structure and both are stated wrongly in most English language material: foreign capital receives national treatment, and the administrator does not have to live in Brazil.

Full detail: RADAR and Siscomex, who can actually import and setting up a Brazilian company as a foreign founder.

What it costs

Six charges apply to a typical commercial import: the import duty, IPI, PIS and COFINS on imports, ICMS, the merchant marine charge (AFRMM) at 8% of international sea freight, and the Siscomex fee of R$ 115.67 per declaration plus R$ 38.56 for each additional item. The order matters more than the individual rates, because the import duty feeds the base of two of the others, and ICMS is calculated on a base that contains itself.

Verified on 7 September 2026 through the official customs simulator, for four sample codes:

NCM	Import duty	IPI	PIS	COFINS
8413.70.90 pumps	12.60%	0%	2.10%	10.25%
2204.29.10 wine (EX IPI XXXX)	18.00%	6.50%	2.10%	9.65%
3304.10.00 lip make-up	16.20%	14.29%	3.52%	16.48%
1806.31.10 filled chocolate	18.00%	3.25%	2.10%	9.65%

The IPI column is derived from the amounts the simulator charges rather than read from the TIPI table, so it can sit a hundredth of a point off the published rate. The COFINS figure of 10.25% for pumps is the ordinary 9.65% plus the temporary 0.6% surcharge that Lei 14.973/2024 sets for 2026 alone; it falls to 0.4% in 2027.

ICMS sits on top and varies by state and by product category. We verified two states: 18% standard in São Paulo, and 39% in Rio de Janeiro on goods that state classifies as supérfluos, being 37% plus the 2% poverty fund contribution. The other 25 jurisdictions were not checked, and the ranges circulating in commercial guides are not something we are willing to repeat.

Full detail: how Brazil's import taxes cascade and ICMS on imports, São Paulo and Rio compared.

What has to be registered before you can sell

This is the part that sets the launch date, and it is separate from anything to do with tariffs or trade agreements.

Which agency you deal with depends on the product, not on where it comes from. MAPA covers products of animal origin, beverages in general and plant products sold unprocessed. ANVISA covers processed foods, food additives, cosmetics, perfumery, hygiene products, supplements and sanitising products. Where a product mixes animal and plant ingredients the boundary is qualitative rather than a fixed percentage of anything, and it is worth settling with the agency before a launch plan is built on an assumption.

Within ANVISA the path splits again. Food runs on three tracks under RDC 843/2024, and only one of them puts an ANVISA review ahead of the sale date. Cosmetics, perfumery and hygiene products split by risk grade under RDC 907/2024: Grau 1 products are notified, and the nine categories named in article 34, among them sunscreens, tanning products, hair straightening and waving products and hand sanitising gel, are registered.

Outside food and cosmetics the third regulator is INMETRO, which runs mandatory conformity assessment object by object rather than by tariff code. Its published list of covered objects is dated January 2022, and a certificate on its own does not authorise sale.

Full detail: ANVISA registration and the three tracks, MAPA requirements for importing into Brazil, INMETRO certification and labelling rules for imported packaged food.

Licensing

Some goods clear without a licence, some need an automatic licence, and some need a non automatic licence reviewed by a consenting agency. Under Portaria SECEX nº 249/2023 an automatic licence carries a ten day period, a non automatic licence sixty days, and a licence is valid for 180 days.

Portaria SECEX 249/2023 does not draw the line between the two tracks by product family. It draws it by situation: tariff and non tariff quotas, assessment of national similarity under article 26, used goods under articles 29 to 34, United Nations Security Council restrictions, and suspected breaches of foreign trade rules under article 43.

The official list of consenting agencies published on gov.br names fifteen bodies. That page dates from 11 July 2022 and does not include ANATEL, which the market commonly treats as the consenting agency for telecom equipment. Check anuência against your own NCM code in Siscomex rather than against any agency list, and do it before signing a contract.

Full detail: import licensing, anuentes and LPCO.

Who sells it once it clears

Four routes: a commercial representative who introduces orders and never takes title, a distributor who buys and resells on its own account, your own Brazilian entity, or a marketplace. The choice is a tax and contract question before it is a logistics one.

Two points decide most of it. Whoever imports pays the whole substitution chain's ICMS up front, so the identity of the importer moves the shelf price. And terminating a commercial representative carries a statutory minimum indemnity of one twelfth of every commission ever paid across the whole life of the representation, under Lei 4.886/1965. A distributor that takes title carries no equivalent.

Full detail: distribution channels in Brazil.

The EU-Mercosur question

If you are exporting from the European Union, the trade agreement has applied provisionally since 1 May 2026 and changes the import duty on part of the tariff schedule. It changes nothing else on this page.

It does not touch accreditation, the choice of import structure, licensing, or any product registration. And the duty change itself is smaller in practice than the headline suggests: for several codes the preferential rate available in 2026 is higher than the duty Brazil already applies.

Full detail: exporting to Brazil under EU-Mercosur.

How we work on this

We are based in Rio de Janeiro and work on the Brazilian side of the process: classification, the registrations, the import structure, and the local partners who hold them. Send us the NCM code and the destination state, and we will tell you where a product stands before you commit to a contract.

Sources

• Accreditation: Instrução Normativa RFB nº 1.984 of 27 October 2020, with modality criteria and requirements from Receita Federal pages on gov.br, checked 7 September 2026. The amending IN RFB nº 2.292/2025 is known to us through a legal database rather than the official normative text, which did not render.
• Import licensing: Portaria SECEX nº 249 of 4 July 2023, consolidated text, articles 3, 11, 12, 15, 26, 29 to 34 and 43. The list of fifteen consenting agencies comes from the gov.br invest and export portal, page published 11 July 2022.
• Duty, IPI, PIS and COFINS by NCM code: Portal Único Siscomex tax treatment simulator, query date 7 September 2026. IPI percentages are derived from the amounts charged, not read from TIPI. COFINS carries the temporary surcharge set by Lei 14.973/2024 at 0.6% for 2026. The portal states that displayed values are indicative and the binding rate is determined when the declaration is registered.
• ICMS: RICMS/SP, Decreto 45.490/2000, articles 52 and 55; Lei 10.253/2023 and Lei 2.657/1996 for Rio de Janeiro, with the 2% poverty fund contribution under Lei Complementar 210/2023. Only São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were verified.
• Registration regimes: RDC 843/2024 and IN 281/2024 for food, RDC 907/2024 for cosmetics, Lei 8.918/1994, Lei 9.972/2000 and Decreto 9.013/2017 for MAPA scope. Detail and source status on the linked pages.
• AFRMM at 8% of long haul sea freight: Ministério de Portos e Aeroportos, gov.br. Siscomex fee: Portaria ME 4.131/2021 and IN RFB 2.024/2021, reached through secondary sources.
• INMETRO conformity assessment: Lei 9.933/1999 and Portaria Inmetro nº 258 of 6 August 2020. Distribution: Lei 4.886/1965 and LC 87/1996. Detail and source status on the linked pages.
• EU-Mercosur provisional application: Decreto nº 12.953/2026 of 28 April 2026.

Figures on this page were verified on 7 September 2026. Brazilian rates and administrative rules change several times a year. Check the date before relying on any of them.