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How to Ship from China to Brazil: Santos, RADAR & ICMS
The licence has a ceiling. Brazil authorises importers through RADAR, the federal revenue registration that lets a company operate in the foreign trade system. It is issued in tiers, and each tier carries a maximum import value per six-month period — roughly USD 50,000 for the express tier, around USD 150,000 for the limited tier, and unlimited for the top tier. Import above your ceiling and the authorisation is suspended. Nothing else on this lane behaves like that, and it is the first thing to check about a Brazilian buyer, or about yourself.
The second thing is that Brazil does not have one import tax, it has seven, and they stack. Import duty goes on the CIF value; federal excise goes on the CIF value plus the duty; two social contributions and a freight charge go on top; and then ICMS, the state tax, is calculated on a base that already includes all of them, using a gross-up method that makes the effective rate higher than the headline one. The combined burden routinely lands between forty and a hundred percent of the CIF value.
The third thing is that the declaration changed, and the change is in your favour if you use it. The DUIMP replaced the old import declaration and became fully mandatory in March 2026, and alongside it came on-water clearance: sea shipments can now be assessed and released before the vessel berths, even without authorised economic operator status. That is days off the port dwell time, and days at Santos are expensive.
If you read one section: confirm the RADAR tier and its remaining ceiling before you agree a schedule; register the product in the Siscomex catalogue before filing; and model the landed cost with ICMS grossed up, because a Brazilian quote built on the headline rates will be wrong by a lot.
How your cargo moves: China to Brazil
Eight steps from your supplier's door to yours. The last four are the ones shaped by local rules.
- Pickup from your supplierWe collect the goods anywhere in China and bring them to our consolidation point.
- Export clearanceChina customs declaration filed and released before the goods move to the port.
- Loading and departureContainer loaded, sealed and handed to the carrier at the Chinese port.
- Main carriageOcean, air or rail movement booked on the route agreed for your cargo.
- Arrival at the gatewayDischarge at the port or airport of entry, recorded on the carrier's manifest.
- Import clearanceCustoms declaration filed locally, with duty and tax assessed on the declared value.
- Customs releaseGoods released into free circulation once duty and tax are settled.
- Final deliveryOnward movement to your delivery address, warehouse or nominated depot.
Duty rates, VAT rates and clearance times move, and the figure that applies to your goods is the one set for your commodity code on the day of clearance. We check the current position against your code before your goods sail and confirm it to you in writing — ask for that check when you request a quote.
RADAR: the licence that is also a credit limit
RADAR — the Registro e Rastreamento da Atuação dos Intervenientes Aduaneiros — is the authorisation issued by the federal revenue service that lets a company operate in Siscomex. Without it, a CNPJ cannot process a single import or export operation.
| Tier | Import ceiling per six months | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
| Expresso | Commonly quoted at around USD 50,000 | Simplified documentation. The sensible starting point for a company testing the market. |
| Limitado | Commonly quoted at around USD 150,000 | Proof of financial capacity required. |
| Ilimitado | No limit | Full demonstration of financial capacity. |
The prerequisites are an active CNPJ, a valid digital certificate, and no outstanding federal tax liabilities. Processing is commonly quoted at ten to thirty business days depending on the tier. The refusal reasons are worth knowing because they are all boring: an irregular CNPJ status, insufficient financial capacity for the tier applied for, incomplete documentation, or partners with restrictions on their own taxpayer numbers.
What the ceiling means in practice. The ceiling is a value imported per semester, not per shipment. A company on the express tier that lands three containers in one half-year has used its allowance, and the next declaration does not go through. Plan the import calendar against the tier you hold, and apply to move up a tier well before you need to rather than after you have hit the limit.
DUIMP, and what changed in March 2026
The Declaração Única de Importação replaced the older DI declaration, and the transition completed in March 2026: from that point the DUIMP is the filing, and the old system is not the fallback. It sits inside the single foreign trade portal rather than in the legacy modules.
What it consolidated
The declaration now carries the commercial data, the tax calculation, and the consenting agency approvals in one filing, rather than in parallel submissions to separate bodies. The product data has to exist in the catalogue first, and the description has to match what the agencies hold.
What came with it
On-water clearance. Sea shipments clearing on a DUIMP can be assessed and have their clearance channel assigned before the vessel berths and discharges, even where the importer is not an authorised economic operator. The reported exception is the São Paulo state customs units, which wait for the sea DI system to be fully retired.
The point of on-water clearance is not speed for its own sake: it is storage. A container that has already been assessed while it is still on the water does not sit at Santos waiting for a channel assignment, and the difference is measured in days of terminal charges.
One warning that comes with the new system. The DUIMP carries price comparison and risk models that cross-check the declared value, the trade term, the freight and the insurance against each other. A declared value that does not make sense against those produces an automatic alert, and the alert can look backwards at historical orders as well as at the current one.
The product catalogue, and why it has to be filled in first
Brazil requires importers to pre-register product attributes in the Siscomex product catalogue, linked to their CNPJ, before a declaration can be filed. This is a genuinely unusual step and it belongs at the start of the process rather than the middle.
Register the product
The importer enters the product into the catalogue against the CNPJ, with the attributes the system asks for. A product that has never been registered cannot be declared, however complete the rest of the paperwork is.
Match the description to the agencies
Where a consenting agency such as ANVISA holds a record for the product, the description in the catalogue has to agree with it. Under the guidance issued for 2026 declarations, inconsistencies between the catalogue description and the agency record are a cause of registration failure in the declaration itself.
Then file the declaration
With the catalogue entry in place and the NCM code fixed, the DUIMP can be registered and the taxes calculated.
The NCM code is the whole classification. Brazil uses the Mercosul common nomenclature, an eight-digit code built on the Harmonized System, and it determines the duty rate, whether a licence is needed, and which consenting agency sees the declaration. A nomenclature update took effect for 2026 declarations, so a code that was right last year may have changed. Fix the code with the broker before you price anything.
Santos, Paranaguá, Itajaí and the rest
Brazil is a continental country with a long coast, and the port decision is mostly about which region you are serving and which services actually call there.
| Port | Region served | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Santos | São Paulo and the south-east, the national market | The largest port and the main gateway for Chinese container traffic. Also the most congested, with berthing waits reported in the peak import months of roughly June to October. |
| Paranaguá | Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul | Serves the south with lower terminal handling charges than Santos, and takes machinery, furniture and auto parts. A natural choice when the delivery point is in the south. |
| Itajaí-Navegantes | Santa Catarina and the south | Strong on textiles, footwear and consumer goods, and frequently used as a relief port when Santos is busy. |
| Rio de Janeiro | Rio and the surrounding region | Serves the state's industrial and commercial market. Many services reach it by transhipment. |
| Rio Grande, Suape, Pecém, Salvador, Vitória | Their own regions | Regional gateways. Suape and Pecém serve the north-east; Rio Grande the far south. Worth choosing when the delivery point is genuinely close. |
| Manaus | The free trade zone | A special case: the free zone has its own tax treatment, and cargo routed there follows different rules from cargo routed to São Paulo. |
The inland leg from Santos to São Paulo is short by Brazilian standards, which is part of why Santos carries the volume it does. For deliveries further afield, a regional port that is closer can beat a larger port that is not, once the road haul is priced.
How long into Brazil by vessel and aircraft
Routings from China to Brazil run south through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope into the South Atlantic. It is a long voyage, and whether the service is direct or transhipped makes a difference of a week or more.
| Origin | Destination | Mode | Transit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shanghai / Ningbo | Santos | FCL, direct | 33–40 days |
| Shenzhen / Yantian | Santos | FCL, direct | 30–38 days |
| Any major port | Paranaguá, Itajaí, Rio de Janeiro | FCL | Add 3–7 days over Santos |
| Qingdao / Tianjin | Santos | FCL, often transhipped | 36–45 days |
| Any major port | Brazil | LCL | Add a week for consolidation and deconsolidation; 40–50 days is normal |
| China | São Paulo (GRU) or Rio (GIG) | Air freight | 4–6 days airport to airport |
| China | Brazil | Express courier | 3–5 days door to door |
Then add clearance and inland delivery. A realistic door-to-door planning figure is seven to nine weeks by sea and a week to a fortnight by air. Peak season — the run-up to Christmas, and Black Friday — adds to both.
Seven taxes, and the one calculated from the inside
This is the section to read twice. The list is long, each charge has its own base, and the last one is calculated on a base that includes the others.
| Element | Charged on | Illustrative figure (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Goods value (FOB) | What you paid the supplier | 17,000 |
| International freight and insurance | Added to reach the CIF value | 3,000 |
| Customs value (CIF) | Goods plus freight and insurance | 20,000 |
| 1. Import duty (II) at 12% | CIF value | 2,400 |
| 2. Federal excise (IPI) at 10% | CIF plus import duty | 2,240 |
| 3. PIS-Import at 2.1% | Customs value | 420 |
| 4. COFINS-Import at 9.65% | Customs value | 1,930 |
| 5. AFRMM at 25% of ocean freight | Sea freight only | 700 |
| 6. Siscomex fee | Fixed per declaration, plus per additional item | 35 |
| Subtotal before ICMS | 27,725 | |
| 7. ICMS at 18%, calculated por dentro | Base grossed up: 27,725 ÷ (1 − 0.18) = 33,811 | 6,086 |
| Total taxes and charges | 13,811 |
That is roughly sixty-nine percent on top of the CIF value, on a product at a middling duty rate. Move the duty rate to the top of the Mercosul tariff and the total goes past a hundred percent. This is why Brazil is the country in this series where the tax model matters more than the freight quote, and why a supplier's "we can ship it cheap" is not a meaningful statement.
The gross-up is the part people miss. ICMS at eighteen percent is not eighteen percent of 27,725 — it is eighteen percent of a base that has ICMS inside it, which is 27,725 divided by 0.82. The arithmetic is one line and the error is worth several points of margin. Model it per NCM code and per destination state, because the rate changes at the state line.
| Tax | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Import duty (II) | 0–35% | On the CIF value, by NCM code, under the Mercosul common external tariff with Brazil's exception list. Many information technology goods are at zero under ITA commitments. |
| Federal excise (IPI) | Varies widely by product | On the CIF value plus the duty. |
| PIS-Import | About 2.1% | On the customs value. |
| COFINS-Import | About 9.65% | On the customs value. |
| AFRMM | About 25% of ocean freight | Sea shipments only, at a lower rate for intra-Mercosul movements. This is the reason a freight saving is worth less in Brazil than elsewhere: you are taxed on the freight. |
| Siscomex fee | Fixed, plus per additional item | Administrative, small, and easy to forget in a model. |
| ICMS | About 17–20% by state | Calculated por dentro. São Paulo around 18%, Rio de Janeiro around 20%, Minas Gerais around 19%, and each of the 26 states and the federal district sets its own. |
Tax reform is running underneath all of this. Brazil is replacing five taxes with a dual value-added tax — a federal CBS and a state and municipal IBS — on a long transition. For 2026 the two appear at very low rates for reporting only, with full offset against the existing taxes, so they should not add to the landed cost this year. Collection starts in 2027 and the rates and offsets change from there. Any landed-cost model built in 2026 needs revisiting.
Incoterms on a Brazil booking, and who can be the importer
Only a Brazilian entity with a CNPJ and a RADAR authorisation can be the importer of record. That is a hard boundary, and it shapes what Incoterms can and cannot do here.
| Term | Who is the importer | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| FOB / CFR / CIF | Your Brazilian entity, or your Brazilian buyer | The normal shape. The importer holds the RADAR, files the DUIMP and pays the taxes. Note that CIF folds freight and insurance into the customs value on which every Brazilian tax is calculated, and the AFRMM is charged on the freight on top — so the freight number is taxed twice over. |
| EXW | Same | Most control, most work, and the largest exposure to the inland and export leg in China. |
| DAP / DDP | Usually the seller's nominated Brazilian importer | Treat with care. A seller offering DDP into Brazil is normally using a local importer, and the CNPJ and RADAR on the declaration are theirs. The liability follows those, which means the practical control does too. If your name is on the goods and someone else's is on the filing, know exactly what you do not control. |
The AFRMM point deserves its own sentence: Brazil taxes the ocean freight. A cheap freight quote does not just save money, it reduces the base of a twenty-five percent charge — which makes freight negotiation slightly more valuable here than anywhere else in this series.
Portal Único, and the declaration filed on it
The single foreign trade portal is where the declaration lives, and the licensed customs broker is the party who files it. For a commercial import a broker is not optional.
- RADAR authorisation within its ceiling, and an active CNPJ.
- Product registration in the Siscomex catalogue, done before filing.
- The NCM code, fixed and correct for the 2026 nomenclature.
- Commercial invoice, packing list and bill of lading or air waybill, consistent with each other.
- Consenting agency approvals where the product needs them.
- An import licence for the categories that require one — most goods do not, but a significant range does, and non-automatic licences involve substantive review measured in weeks to months.
- The DUIMP itself, filed by the broker.
Every declaration is parameterised into one of four channels: green for immediate release, yellow for document review, red for document review plus physical examination, and grey for document review, physical examination and a specific customs value analysis. The assignment is automated and cannot be negotiated. Frequent red or grey assignments point at a compliance problem rather than bad luck.
Following a shipment from Shenzhen to a warehouse in São Paulo
A worked example. A São Paulo importer buys a container of small household appliances from a factory in Shenzhen.
Registration, and the ceiling
The importer holds an active CNPJ and a RADAR authorisation, and checks the remaining ceiling for the semester before committing to the order. The broker fixes the eight-digit NCM code against the current nomenclature.
Product registration and agency approval
Appliances need INMETRO certification. The importer registers the product in the Siscomex catalogue with a description that matches the agency record, and the certification is in place before the goods are built.
Production, and the exchange contract
The factory produces the goods and issues the commercial invoice and packing list. Payment runs through an exchange contract with an authorised bank, which is how the currency side of a Brazilian import is documented.
Booking and loading
The forwarder books from Yantian to Santos, collects the cargo, completes export clearance and loads the container. The vessel sails, roughly a month.
Clearance while the ship is still at sea
The broker files the DUIMP while the vessel is on the water. The declaration is parameterised, the taxes are calculated, and because the shipment is a sea shipment on a DUIMP, the assessment happens before the vessel berths. The container is not waiting for a channel when it lands.
Arrival, payment and delivery
The container is discharged at Santos. Taxes are paid, any examination is completed, release follows, and the container moves the short inland leg to the warehouse in São Paulo.
The step that decides whether this is a two-week clearance or a six-week one is the fifth. On-water clearance is available; it is not automatic, and it depends on the declaration being filed and being right before the vessel arrives.
The NCM code, and the Mercosul tariff behind it
Brazil applies the Mercosul common external tariff, with a permitted national exception list on top. There is no free trade agreement between Brazil and China, so Chinese-origin goods are assessed at the general rates — Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay get preferences that Chinese goods do not.
| Band | Typical rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Capital goods and some information technology | 0% and low single digits | Many IT goods sit at zero under Brazil's information technology agreement commitments. |
| Most manufactured goods | Around 10–18% | The band most general cargo lands in. |
| Sensitive and finished consumer goods | Up to 35% | Where the exception list bites. On these the total tax burden goes past a hundred percent of CIF once everything else is stacked. |
Two other mechanisms are worth knowing. A drawback regime allows duty relief where imported inputs are used in goods that are then exported, which matters to manufacturers rather than to traders. And the Manaus free trade zone has its own treatment, which is the reason cargo routed there does not follow the same arithmetic as cargo routed to São Paulo.
ANVISA, INMETRO, ANATEL and the consenting agencies
Brazilian declarations route through consenting agencies, and their approvals sit inside the filing rather than alongside it. A product can need more than one.
| Agency | Covers | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ANVISA | Health products, food, cosmetics, medicines, medical devices | Registration and, for many categories, approval before import. Sanitary products without it are among the commonly cited prohibited or restricted imports. |
| INMETRO | Regulated electrical and electronic equipment, appliances, measuring instruments | Certification before import. Brazil runs on 220 V at 60 Hz in most of the country, and the plug standard is its own, so a product built for another market is a problem regardless of the certificate. |
| ANATEL | Telecommunications and radio equipment | Anything that transmits — Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular. A Wi-Fi router can need ANATEL and INMETRO. |
| MAPA | Agricultural and animal products | Registration and phytosanitary documentation. |
| Other | Restricted categories | An import licence, automatic or non-automatic, where the category requires one. Used clothing and used tyres are commonly cited as prohibited. |
Get these identified at the point of choosing the product. They belong to the product and the registrant, they cannot be obtained after the goods have sailed, and because the agency record has to match the catalogue description, an approval obtained against the wrong description will not carry the declaration.
Paying the supplier, and the exchange contract
The Brazilian side of paying a Chinese supplier runs through an authorised bank and an exchange contract, which documents the currency side of the transaction and closes the exchange once the goods and the money have moved. It is a formality with a paper trail rather than a restriction, and it is one of the simpler parts of a Brazilian import.
The part that does constrain behaviour is the RADAR ceiling rather than the payment route. Because the ceiling is a value per semester, the timing of payments and shipments matters: a company that has used its allowance cannot simply declare another import, and the queue it creates is a commercial problem rather than a banking one.
The invoice, and the value the system cross-checks
The DUIMP carries risk models that compare the declared value against the trade term, the freight and the insurance, and against the system's own data. Under-declaration is not a negotiation here.
- The value has to be the true transaction value, and it has to reconcile to the invoice, the packing list and the bill of lading.
- The trade term has to be consistent with the value and with who is paying the freight, because the system checks whether a CIF value actually had freight included.
- The description has to match the catalogue entry and the agency record.
- The freight and insurance should be shown separately, because the customs value is CIF and the AFRMM is calculated on the freight.
- Records are retained for five years, and a value query can reach backwards into historical orders.
An automatic alert holds the container and invites a look at earlier shipments. On a lane where a week of storage costs real money, the incentive to declare correctly is not moral, it is arithmetic.
Ordering online, and the fifty dollar line
Brazil runs a separate regime for low-value imports rather than a simple duty-free threshold, and the numbers have been moving.
Parcels up to about USD 50 bought through a platform registered under the Remessa Conforme programme are reported to attract no federal import tax. Above that and up to about USD 3,000 the federal rate is reported at sixty percent, with a deduction of tens of dollars per parcel. State ICMS applies either way, and buyers that are not individuals, or platforms that are not certified, are reported to face the higher rate without the deduction. The figures come from a provisional measure and a ministry ordinance, and the conversion into standing law has been in progress.
The practical reading is the same as everywhere else in this series: this is a route for samples and personal purchases, not for stock. A business importing to resell goes through RADAR, DUIMP and the full stack, whatever the invoice says — and Brazil has no general threshold below which a commercial import escapes.
Business stock, and personal shipments into Brazil
| Situation | What applies | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Business stock bought from a Chinese supplier | RADAR within ceiling, catalogue registration, DUIMP, the full tax stack | The complete process in this guide. This is the normal path, and the only one available to a company importing to resell. |
| Household removals and personal effects | A separate treatment for used household goods, assessed differently | Still a declaration, still an inventory, and still capable of sitting in storage if the paperwork is wrong. |
| Samples and documents | Express channel | Fast, and the reason to keep samples genuinely small — the low-value regime is not a commercial route. |
| Goods for the Manaus free trade zone | Its own tax treatment | Different arithmetic from a São Paulo import. Worth a conversation with the broker before you route anything there. |
| Restricted and prohibited goods | Licence, or not importable at all | Used clothing and used tyres are commonly cited as prohibited; pharmaceuticals without ANVISA approval likewise. Check the category before ordering. |
The China forwarder and the Brazilian customs broker
On this lane the two halves have to be sequenced tightly, because the clearance can now happen while the vessel is still at sea — which means the broker needs the documents earlier than they used to.
The forwarder in China
Books the vessel, collects and consolidates the goods, handles export clearance, and — critically — gets the document set to the broker early enough for the declaration to be filed before the vessel berths rather than after.
The broker in Brazil
Checks the RADAR ceiling, fixes the NCM code, registers the product in the catalogue, secures the agency approvals, files the DUIMP, calculates the seven taxes with ICMS grossed up, and manages the clearance channel and release. Records then sit for five years.
The question to settle between them: when does the broker need the documents in order to file on the water. If the answer is "when the vessel arrives," you are paying for storage that the new system was designed to avoid.
Checking a forwarder on a Brazil booking
- Do you ask about the RADAR tier and ceiling? A forwarder working this lane raises it unprompted, because a suspended authorisation stops the cargo.
- Do you know on-water clearance exists and how to use it? Since March 2026 it is the single biggest lever on port dwell time.
- Can you get the documents to the broker before the vessel berths? That is the practical test.
- Which port does the service call, direct or transhipped? The difference is a week or more.
- Do you know the freight is taxed? The AFRMM is twenty-five percent of the ocean freight, so the freight number is not a neutral input.
- Is the ICMS grossed up in your landed-cost model? If the answer is "what is ICMS," the model is wrong.
- Have you handled a grey channel? Someone who has will be emphatic about declared values.
Three shipments into Brazil, and the reason for each
A container of household appliances, Yantian to Santos
FCL direct, because the volume justifies it and the inland leg to São Paulo is short. INMETRO certification before production, product registered in the catalogue, and the DUIMP filed on the water so the container is not waiting for a channel at Santos.
Spare parts for a line that has stopped, Shanghai to São Paulo
Air freight, four to six days. Worth it because the parts are worth more than the freight by a wide margin, and because the tax stack applies to the CIF value — so a smaller, faster shipment carries a smaller absolute tax bill as well as a smaller delay.
A first order from a new supplier, Ningbo to Paranaguá
LCL, because the volume does not justify a container and the importer is on the express RADAR tier with a ceiling that has to be respected. Paranaguá because the delivery point is in the south and the terminal charges are lower than at Santos.
Carnival, Christmas and the Santos peak
| Period | What changes | What to do |
| Carnival | A working week effectively lost, and the days around it are slow. | Do not plan a first clearance across Carnival. The date moves each year, so check it against the shipping schedule. |
| Peak import season, roughly June to October | Santos congestion, berthing waits, and higher freight rates. | Book earlier than feels necessary and put a buffer in. Congestion at Santos is the most predictable delay on the lane. |
| Black Friday and Christmas | Retail stocking drives both volume and rate. | Plan the import calendar around the RADAR semester ceiling as well as around the season. |
| Chinese New Year | Chinese factories close and export volumes spike beforehand. | Finish production before the holiday or accept a gap of several weeks. |
| Public holidays | National and state holidays close customs and the ports. | Check both the federal and the state list, because ICMS and the state administration follow the state one. |
What Goodhope handles on the Brazil lane
We work the China end, and on this lane the China end is mostly about getting the documents out early enough for the clearance to happen on the water.
- Documents to the broker before the vessel berths. We treat the document set as part of the loading, not as something that follows it.
- Honest routing. Direct or transhipped, and which port the service actually calls, stated at quotation.
- Freight shown separately on the invoice, because the AFRMM is charged on it and the customs value is built from it.
- Factory collection and consolidation across China, with loading photographs before sealing.
- FCL and LCL from Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao and Tianjin to Santos, Paranaguá, Itajaí, Rio de Janeiro and the regional ports, plus air freight to São Paulo and Rio.
- Cargo insurance, inspection and dangerous goods handling where the shipment needs them.
We do not hold your RADAR, register your product in the catalogue, or file your DUIMP — those belong to your Brazilian entity and your broker. What we do is make sure the Chinese half arrives complete, consistent and early enough for the new clearance regime to work in your favour.
Why importers use Goodhope on this lane
Six things that are different about working with us on China to Brazil shipments.
Ask for a Brazil quote with the RADAR step named
Send us the product, the NCM code if you have it, the supplier's city, the weight and volume, and the delivery state in Brazil. We will come back with the mode, the port the service calls, the transit range, and a written note on what your broker needs before the vessel berths.
Get a Quote Contact UsFrequently asked questions
What is RADAR and why does it have a ceiling?
RADAR is the federal revenue authorisation to operate in the Brazilian foreign trade system, and no company can import or export without it. It is issued in tiers, and each tier carries a maximum import value per six-month period — commonly quoted at around USD 50,000 for the express tier, around USD 150,000 for the limited tier, and unlimited for the top tier, which requires full demonstration of financial capacity. Operating above the ceiling triggers suspension. It takes roughly ten to thirty business days to obtain, and it is the first thing to check about a Brazilian buyer.
What is a DUIMP and what changed in 2026?
The Declaração Única de Importação is the single import declaration that replaced the older DI, and it became fully mandatory in March 2026. Everything runs through it rather than through the old system. Alongside it came a genuinely useful change: sea shipments clearing on a DUIMP can now be assessed and released before the vessel berths and discharges, even where the importer is not an authorised economic operator, which cuts port dwell time and the storage that goes with it. The São Paulo state customs units are reported to be excepted until the sea DI system is fully retired.
How many taxes are there on a Brazilian import?
Seven charges are commonly counted. Import duty from zero to thirty-five percent on the CIF value; federal excise on the CIF value plus duty; the PIS contribution at about 2.1 percent; the COFINS contribution at about 9.65 percent; the AFRMM, a charge of about twenty-five percent of the declared ocean freight on sea shipments; a fixed Siscomex administrative fee per declaration plus a small amount per additional item; and ICMS, the state tax, at roughly seventeen to twenty percent. The combined burden commonly lands somewhere between forty and a hundred percent of the CIF value depending on the product and the destination state.
What does it mean that ICMS is calculated from the inside?
ICMS is calculated on a base that already includes the other taxes, and the tax itself is then part of that base — the por dentro method. The practical consequence is that the effective rate is higher than the headline rate: an eighteen percent ICMS is not eighteen percent of the CIF value, it is eighteen percent of a number that has been grossed up. To convert, divide the running total of everything else by one minus the ICMS rate. On a mid-range consumer product this step alone adds several percentage points to the landed cost, and it is the single most common error in a Brazilian landed-cost model.
Which Brazilian port should I ship to?
Santos is the largest and handles the greatest share of container traffic from China, and it is also the most exposed to congestion, particularly in the peak import months. Paranaguá serves the south with lower terminal handling charges and is the natural gateway for Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Itajaí-Navegantes is strong on textiles, footwear and consumer goods and is frequently used as a relief port when Santos is busy. Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande, Suape and Pecém serve their own regions, and Manaus serves the free trade zone. Ask which port the service actually calls before fixing the destination.
How long does shipping from China to Brazil take?
Full container loads from the main Chinese ports to Santos typically run about thirty-three to forty days port to port, with some direct services faster and transhipped routings considerably longer. Paranaguá, Itajaí and Rio de Janeiro run a few days more, and northern Chinese ports longer again. Less than container load adds consolidation and deconsolidation, commonly another week. Air freight to São Paulo or Rio runs about four to six days airport to airport, and express three to five days door to door. Add clearance and inland delivery, and plan on seven to nine weeks door to door by sea.
Do I need approvals from ANVISA, INMETRO or ANATEL?
It depends on the product, and a product can need more than one. ANVISA covers health products, food, cosmetics, medicines and medical devices. INMETRO covers regulated electrical and electronic equipment, appliances and measuring instruments, and it requires certification before import. ANATEL covers anything that transmits radio, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular. MAPA covers agricultural and animal products. These are consenting agencies in the declaration, which means their approval sits in the filing itself, and a mismatch between your product description and their record can cause the declaration to be rejected.
Can a foreign company be the importer of record in Brazil?
No. The importer of record has to be a Brazilian entity with an active CNPJ and a RADAR authorisation, and the taxes are assessed against that entity. A foreign business sells to a Brazilian importer or appoints one. This is also why door-to-door terms that promise the seller handles everything should be treated with care: a seller offering DDP into Brazil is usually using a local importer, and you should know whose CNPJ and whose RADAR the declaration sits on, because the liability follows them and the practical control follows them.
Is there a duty-free threshold for small parcels from China?
Brazil has a separate regime for low-value imports rather than a simple threshold. Parcels up to about USD 50 bought through a platform registered under the Remessa Conforme programme are reported to attract no federal import tax, while above that and up to about USD 3,000 the federal rate is reported at sixty percent with a deduction of tens of dollars per parcel. State ICMS applies in either case. The figures come from a provisional measure and a ministry ordinance and the position has been moving, so verify before relying on it, and never plan a commercial import around it.
What documents does Brazilian customs require?
A commercial invoice, a packing list, a bill of lading or air waybill, the DUIMP declaration filed through the foreign trade portal, and any product-specific approvals from the consenting agencies. The importer needs an active CNPJ, a RADAR authorisation within its ceiling, and registration of the product in the Siscomex product catalogue before the declaration is filed. A licensed customs broker is required for commercial imports. Records have to be retained for five years.