What our Brazil company report includes
Our Brazil reports are researched directly from sources including the Receita Federal Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica (CNPJ) system, the relevant state Junta Comercial, court records (Justiça Estadual and Justiça Federal), the Diário Oficial gazette, and CVM filings for listed companies; fees may apply for certain records. Depth of any given section reflects what the subject company has filed and what is publicly retrievable at the time of the search. Findings are translated from Portuguese and presented in plain English.
Identity & registration
- ✓ CNPJ federal identifier (14-digit)
- ✓ NIRE (state commercial registry number)
- ✓ Inscrição Estadual (state tax registration)
- ✓ Legal form (Ltda., S.A., EIRELI, MEI, sole proprietor)
- ✓ CNPJ status (active / suspended / cancelled / inapt)
People & ownership
- ✓ Directors and administrators (administradores)
- ✓ Quotaholders / shareholders (sócios)
- ✓ Capital social (subscribed and paid-in)
- ✓ Group / parent (where disclosed)
- ✓ Recent contractual amendments (alterações contratuais)
Financial & trading
- ✓ Published accounts (S.A. and larger Ltda.)
- ✓ Business activities & CNAE classification
- ✓ Tax regime (Simples Nacional / Lucro Presumido / Lucro Real) (case-specific)
- ✓ Import/export RADAR habilitation status (case-specific)
- ✓ Risk indicator and calculated credit limit
Risk & public records
- ✓ Protests at cartório (protestos de título)
- ✓ Civil and commercial lawsuits
- ✓ Recuperação judicial & falência (judicial reorganisation & bankruptcy) proceedings
- ✓ Federal & state tax debt (CADIN / dívida ativa) (case-specific)
Note on Brazilian data: only sociedades anônimas (S.A.) and larger limited companies (Ltda.) are required to publish financial statements. Most Ltdas, the dominant form for private trading companies, are not. Where accounts are not published, our agents can ask the company directly for financial information, which it may consent to provide or may decline. Court records are split across 27 state systems plus federal courts, and the protest register (cartórios de protesto) is one of the strongest practical indicators of payment problems.
Why verify a Brazilian company?
Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America and one of the world's leading exporters of agricultural commodities, iron ore, oil, beef and aircraft, with a substantial domestic industrial base. The Receita Federal CNPJ system assigns a unique 14-digit federal identifier to every legal entity, and the 27 state Juntas Comerciais maintain commercial filings, including the social contract (contrato social) that sets out share capital, ownership and authorised representatives. CNPJ data is reliable for structural verification; the social contract gives the legal substance.
Financial transparency is uneven. Sociedades anônimas (S.A.), publicly held or closed, are required to publish their financial statements in the Diário Oficial, and listed companies file detailed reports with the CVM securities regulator. The much more common limited liability form (sociedade limitada or "Ltda.") generally is not required to publish accounts unless the company exceeds certain size thresholds. For most private trading counterparties in Brazil, financial information is not publicly available; where it is needed, our agents can request it from the company directly, which the company may consent to share or may decline, alongside the strong public signals available on payment performance.
Those payment-performance signals are unusually rich in Brazil. The protest register (cartórios de protesto) records unpaid commercial titles when a creditor formally protests non-payment, and is a leading indicator of cash-flow difficulty that often appears well before formal insolvency. The recuperação judicial regime, Brazil's equivalent of US Chapter 11, gives a structured path for distressed companies and is publicly recorded. CADIN and dívida ativa databases capture federal and state tax debt. Each of these adds context that a registry search alone would miss.
Risk patterns we can identify in Brazil reports include CNPJ status of "suspended" or "inapt", which means the company has lost its right to operate but may still be trading; protests at cartório indicating unpaid commercial bills; recuperação judicial filings; large active lawsuits in state or federal court; tax debt on the federal CADIN register; and sócios who are administradores or quotaholders in other companies with significant adverse records. Each is straightforward to identify, and material to a credit decision.