Brazilian Exporter Due Diligence: What Actually Matters

Separate seller, producer and exporter of record.

Create a role sheet with a legal name and identifier for the contractual seller, producer, proposed exporter, consignee and beneficiary. Ask who will issue the commercial invoice and who will appear in the export declaration. A trading company can perform an export role for goods made elsewhere; the difference is not itself adverse.

Compare this sheet with the draft contract and any proposed logistics instructions. If a foreign seller says that a Brazilian exporter will handle the shipment, ask what arrangement connects them and who can confirm it. Do not investigate every broker at equal depth while leaving the exporter-to-seller relationship unexplained.

Match the records to the entity that will perform.

Check the Brazilian company’s CNPJ, legal name, establishment and recorded status independently. Examine relevant corporate instruments for signing authority. Keep operating claims separate from registered activities: a CNAE description is not evidence of today’s volume, inventory or capability to serve a particular destination.

Check the identity format as well as the value. The Federal Revenue Service introduced alphanumeric CNPJ identifiers for new registrations from July 2026; existing identifiers remain valid. Do not reject a newly registered entity merely because a legacy spreadsheet expects digits only. Equally, a syntactically plausible identifier is not a verified company: consult the official record.

Turn “authorized to export” into a specific query.

Ask the customs or regulatory specialist to identify the product classification, attributes, destination and proposed operation. Siscomex’s administrative-treatment resources organize export requirements, including NCM classification references and applicable LPCO models. LPCO refers to licenses, permits, certificates and other documents; do not assume every product requires the same model.

Export-system participation, a facility’s regulatory status and permission for a specific product-destination combination are different checks. For animal products, MAPA’s SIF resources provide establishment and country-specific eligibility routes. Record the exact list, identifier and consultation date. Neither a past clearance nor a generic “export license” claim answers all current regulatory questions.

Use trade history for context, not as a stock ledger.

Public foreign-trade statistics can help assess the context of a commodity, route or market. MDIC’s Comex Stat resources are a starting point for that analysis. They are not a substitute for authenticated records connecting this seller to this buyer’s goods. Do not infer a company-level shipment from an aggregate national or regional total.

A prior invoice, export declaration or bill of lading supplied by the company should be checked for issuer, parties, date and relevance, with appropriate permission. Some transaction-level information is restricted. A redacted or inaccessible record creates a defined limitation; it is not permission to claim that the export history has been independently authenticated.

Check which shipment event the evidence supports.

Build the chronology around actual events rather than document titles. A booking can precede goods arriving at a terminal. A customs declaration, carrier record and sanitary certificate each describe a different aspect of the shipment. Have the relevant professional interpret the document’s legal or operational effect before you rely on it for another purpose.

Report a shipment-specific conclusion.

A useful conclusion can say that the exporter’s identity is corroborated, a product-specific regulatory check is current, and the seller-to-exporter link still requires confirmation. It should not say “exporter approved” without defining what was tested. Identify who can resolve the remaining question and whether it affects the proposed release of funds or an instrument.

Keep the current buyer, seller, goods and timetable attached to the finding. If any changes, reassess the dependent checks. This is particularly important when a genuine exporter’s documents are reused as support for another party’s proposal: the original record may be authentic while its relevance to the new transaction is unproven.