Industrial machinery
exported to Brazil

Arrival cost in Brazil commonly reaches 1.5 to 1.6 times CIF, and that figure, rather than the duty rate, is what a budget has to be built around. Import Duty, IPI, PIS, COFINS and state ICMS at 17 to 22 per cent compound against one another, ICMS being calculated into its own base, with AFRMM at 8 per cent on the ocean freight and the Siscomex fee above that. All of it turns on each line's NCM classification, so a local broker should run the codes before a number is committed. 2026 is also a dual-VAT test year under Constitutional Amendment 132/2023 and Complementary Law 214/2025, a further reason to date any landed figure given.

Ex-tarifário removes the duty and opens the line

Where a capital good has no equivalent Brazilian production, GECEX/CAMEX can take Import Duty down to zero through ex-tarifário. A buyer preparing the petition will ask for a written declaration of technical characteristics, which is reasonable to supply. The trade-off deserves saying out loud: the concession attaches to the NCM, not the applicant, so once granted the same zero rate is open to every other importer of a competing machine under that code.

Sixty hertz is a different machine

The grid runs at 60 Hz. Low voltage is split by region between 127 V and 220 V, industry sits on 220/380 V and 440 V three-phase, and plugs are Type N to NBR 14136. Put a 50 Hz motor on 60 Hz and it turns about a fifth faster: fan and pump duty points shift, cold-store compressor capacity and oil return change, and bearing and gearbox life changes with them. Establish the destination state's nominal low voltage and order a 60 Hz build, not a 50 Hz machine with a frequency note.

Certification follows components; labour law follows the workplace

INMETRO works by product family, and complete industrial machines are not one of the listed families. The exposure is in what sits inside them: centrifugal pumps, serially produced pressure vessels, flexible cable, and three-phase induction motors from 0.12 to 370 kW, which have to meet the minimum efficiency of Portaria Interministerial 1/2017 even when fitted within an imported machine. Any radio module brings ANATEL homologation with it. The certificate is registered against the Brazilian importer's CNPJ and not the exporter's, so it is not a document that can be held on a buyer's behalf. NR-12 is separate again: a Ministry of Labour obligation about operating the machine lawfully, which does not halt the box at the frontier but makes the machine unlawful to run without guarding built to the required safety category, a risk assessment, a Portuguese manual and, usually, a Brazilian engineer's report. CE marking is expressly not accepted as equivalent to NR-12.

Licensing, discharge and public contracts

New machinery generally needs no licence, and those that issue come through LPCO in the Portal Único Siscomex, which replaced the former LI module, while the DI is giving way to the DUIMP across 2026. Used machinery is treated differently: non-automatic licensing, and Portaria SECEX 249/2023 requires equivalent national production to be examined. Santos carries the bulk of the traffic, and Paranaguá, Itapoá, Navegantes, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Itaguaí, Suape and Manaus serve their own regions. Tendering is governed by Lei 14.133/2021, which replaced Law 8.666/1993; opportunities are published on the Portal Nacional de Contratações Públicas at pncp.gov.br, with Compras.gov.br the federal operating platform. Documentation is in Portuguese. Spares and after-sales service lie outside what we sell, and cover for warranty, installation or training exists only as the supply contract provides.