Importing food supplements into Brazil

The short answer

Food supplements, NCM 2106.90.30, run on ANVISA's food regulatory track, not the medicine track, and not the cosmetics track. That classification sets everything downstream: which formulation ingredients are allowed, at what maximum doses, and what the label is legally required and forbidden to say. Federally, the tax stack is lighter than cosmetics: no IPI, and PIS/COFINS at the general 11.75% rather than the 20.00% single-stage regime chapter 33 carries.

The ANVISA track

RDC 843/2024 and IN 281/2024, in force from 1 September 2024, govern the food regulatory track and revoked RDC 27/2010 (RDC 843/2024 articles 40 IV and 41). Three tracks exist under article 3: Registro (Anexo I), Notificação (Anexo II), and Comunicação de Início de Fabricação ou Importação (Anexo III). Categories in Registro carry a transition period running to 1 September 2026 (article 30); other categories run shorter transitions, roughly 18 to 31 months from the 22 February 2024 publication date, reached through a secondary legal summary rather than the RDC text directly.

The specific article of RDC 843/2024 that places supplements generally into Notificação was not identified in the research behind this page; treat Notificação as the working assumption and confirm it for your specific formulation before filing. Supplements containing probiotics or enzymes are a confirmed exception: RDC 843/2024 article 33 VI moves them from what used to be a Registro requirement into Notificação, with no separate dispensa list any longer. A new probiotic strain or enzyme not on the IN 28/2018 positive list needs its own safety and efficacy petition first, under RDC 843/2024 articles 37-38, which runs a longer cycle than filing an already-listed formulation.

The positive lists

RDC 243/2018 defines a food supplement as a product that supplements the diet of healthy people with nutrients, bioactive substances, enzymes or probiotics, requires the mandatory statement "Este produto não é um medicamento," and prohibits any therapeutic claim. IN 28/2018 sets the positive lists: Anexo I for nutrients, minerals, vitamins, amino acids, bioactive substances, enzymes and probiotics; Anexo II for children aged 0-3; Anexos III and IV for minimum and maximum doses by age group; Anexo V for permitted claims; Anexo VI for complementary labelling. IN 28/2018 is amended piecemeal, without a single official consolidated text; recent amendments found while preparing this page include IN 373/2025, IN 418/2025, IN 431/2026, IN 438/2026 (curcumin), IN 450/2026 and IN 470/2026 of 16 September 2026, each adding to Anexo I.

The botanical entries on Anexo I are narrow: specific standardised extracts with a named marker compound and CAS number, covering green coffee, turmeric, garlic, cranberry, cinnamon, mint, olive, maritime pine, fenugreek, guaraná, açaí, jabuticaba, moro orange and grape seed. Common herbal ingredients such as ginseng, echinacea, milk thistle, rhodiola and eleutherococcus are not on this list. A botanical outside Anexo I follows the medicinal track instead, which needs an importer AFE for medicines and the foreign plant's CBPF, a materially heavier requirement. Two narrower routes exist for specific herbal products: IN Anvisa 412 of 17 December 2025 (in force 60 days later, February 2026) replaced an older 43-item traditional-species list with five species, and products already registered under the old list do not need to re-register; separately, RDC 1004/2025 allows a simplified route through EMA HMPC well-established or traditional-use monographs (articles 22 and 25), and article 29 covers notification of traditional herbal products from the Formulário de Fitoterápicos da Farmacopeia Brasileira.

An ingredient absent from every positive list needs the separate Autorização de Uso de Novos Alimentos e Novos Ingredientes under RDC 839/2023 before it can be used at all, whether the formulation itself is filed under RDC 243/2018 and IN 28/2018.

Company authorisation

AFE, the ANVISA company authorisation, is not on the list of mandatory requirements for a food supplement importer specifically; this follows indirectly from Lei 6.360/1976 article 1's scope, which does not list food among the categories it covers, rather than from an explicit exemption stated for supplements. Confirm your specific case rather than assuming either answer.

Federal taxes

Verified 23 September 2026, MDIC Anexos file and TIPI ADE RFB 1/2026.

NCM	Product	II applied	IPI	PIS+COFINS
2106.90.30	Food supplements	14.4% (TEC 16%)	0%	11.75%

No 0.6 percentage-point COFINS-Importação surcharge applies, since 2106.90.30 is not on the closed list in Lei 10.865/2004 article 8 §21. A separate Anexo IV desabastecimento list carries roughly 25 zero-duty ex-tarifário lines with quotas, mostly for infant formulas and specialised nutrition under related 2106.90.90 codes; whether any of those lines overlap this specific NCM was not confirmed while preparing this page.

ICMS

No special ICMS regime applies to supplements: cesta básica does not cover them, and the reduced generic-medicine rate some states apply (12% in São Paulo and Minas Gerais) does not apply either, since supplements sit on the food track, not the medicine track. The state's general import rate applies. São Paulo charges 18% on import (Lei 17.293/2020; RICMS/SP article 52 I); a reduction to an effective 12% under RICMS/SP Anexo II article 39 XIV, extended by Decreto 69.292/2025 to 31 December 2026, applies only to internal sales by a manufacturer or wholesaler, not to the import itself. Rio de Janeiro charges 18% on import (16% under Lei 2.657/1996 article 14 IV, plus 2% FECP under LC RJ 210/2023); 22% is Rio's internal sales rate, not its import rate. Other states run their general modal rates; see ICMS by state. RioComex, Rio de Janeiro's reduced regime, is open to this NCM code.

Landed cost, worked

Taxes only, no AFRMM, Siscomex fee or TUM, matching the landed cost estimator's ratio mode.

Product	State	Landed cost
Food supplement 2106.90.30	São Paulo, 18%	1.54 × CIF
Food supplement 2106.90.30	Rio de Janeiro, 18%	1.54 × CIF

Labelling

Beyond the general food labelling rules described on ANVISA registration, a supplement carries the mandatory statement that it is not a medicine, and the source docs behind this page disagree on the exact wording: one gives "Este produto não é um medicamento" (traced to RDC 243/2018), another gives "Não contém valor terapêutico," unconfirmed. Use the RDC 243/2018 wording; the specific labelling annexes in IN 28/2018 (Anexos III-VI, dose limits, permitted claims and complementary labelling) were not analysed at the product level while preparing this page.

Sources

• ANVISA food track: RDC 843/2024, official English PDF, gov.br/anvisa; article 33 VI for probiotics and enzymes.
• Positive lists: RDC 243/2018; IN 28/2018, Anexo I read in the AnvisaLegis consolidated version, 23 September 2026, with recent amendments through IN 470/2026.
• Status of RDC 243/2018 and IN 28/2018 as of the CP 1325/2025 public consultation, opened 17 April 2025; the consultation's outcome was not confirmed while preparing this page.
• New-ingredient authorisation: RDC 839/2023.
• Herbal product routes: IN Anvisa 412/2025; RDC 1004/2025, articles 22, 25, 29.
• Federal taxes: MDIC Anexos I-X file (Res. Gecex 272/2021), TIPI ADE RFB 1/2026, Lei 10.865/2004 article 8 §21, all verified 23 September 2026.
• ICMS: São Paulo, Lei 17.293/2020 and RICMS/SP article 52 I, with the internal-sale reduction under Decreto 69.292/2025. Rio de Janeiro, Lei 2.657/1996 article 14 IV and LC RJ 210/2023.

Rates verified 23 September 2026. Ingredient positive lists and labelling annexes are amended often; check the current AnvisaLegis consolidated text before filing.