How to bid abroad · Latin America and the Caribbean
Bidding in Brazil as a foreign company
No agreement says so. National law decides.
Whether a company established in the EU may bid in Brazil is decided by one instrument, and this page names it rather than describing it.
No instrument gives an EU company an automatic right. Whether a foreign firm may bid in Brazil, on its own or through a local partner or a registered branch, is decided by national law and often by the tender documents themselves, which can require local registration, a local agent, or a share of local content. Being a fellow WTO member changes nothing here: the procurement agreement is separate and opt-in, and Brazil has not opted in. That is not the end of it: procurement financed by the development banks and the UN agencies runs on the funder's rules rather than the country's, and it is the route that does not depend on this answer.
Instrument: No reciprocal agreement on public procurement.
How to register as a supplier in Brazil
Any supplier that wants to sell to Brazil's federal government: the government's supplier guide says that to start you need a gov.br account and a SICAF registration. Source: gov.br
Create a gov.br account, the digital identity used for every federal online service, Compras.gov.br included.
Source: gov.brRegister in SICAF (the credenciamento), free of charge, through the Compras.gov.br app or directly in SICAF.
Source: gov.brA foreign company that does not operate in Brazil registers in SICAF through the federal procurement portal and is identified by its Trader Identification Number (TIN) instead of a CNPJ.
Source: gov.brAt the first level, the credenciamento, it proves that it has a legal representative in Brazil with express powers to receive summons and answer for the company.
Source: gov.brDocuments can be uploaded in a free translation; when the contract or price registration record is signed, they are replaced by sworn translations, apostilled or consularised.
Source: gov.brSign in to Compras.gov.br as a supplier (Fornecedor) with the gov.br account: opportunities are published there, on the web or in the app, and that is where you take part.
Source: gov.br
Worth knowing
- Once registered in SICAF, a supplier is registered with every federal body that uses SIASG. Source: gov.br
- Exceptionally, when the administration needs a foreign company that has difficulty registering, a government user may register it. Source: gov.br
Checked on against the official sources linked above. Procedures change, and each tender's own documents decide.
A right to bid is not a notice
The instrument above settles whether you may bid. It says nothing about whether you will ever see the tender. 31 sources publish public procurement in Brazil, and 13 of them are read here every day, which leaves 18 mapped and not yet read. A company that registers on the national portal and stops there is watching one address out of 31.
The route that does not run through national law
Procurement financed by a development bank or a UN agency is bought under that institution's own rules, and those turn on membership of the institution rather than on where the contract is performed. It is the reason a European supplier can win work in Brazil while no agreement obliges Brazil to let it bid for the state's own contracts. The registry also counts 2 donor-funded project units publishing in Brazil directly, which is often the buyer that matters in health, infrastructure and energy. All 9 channels below are read here every day. Eligibility is the funder's to set and the funder's to withdraw: each keeps its own rules and its own list of excluded firms, and none of that is decided by this page.
Tell us the markets, we send the map
Name the countries you are weighing up. You get back where public tenders are published in each one, how much of that we read every day, and what an EU company needs before it may bid there. An email, not a call.
Frequently asked questions
01Can a foreign company bid for public contracts in Brazil?
No instrument gives an EU company an automatic right. Whether a foreign firm may bid in Brazil, on its own or through a local partner or a registered branch, is decided by national law and often by the tender documents themselves, which can require local registration, a local agent, or a share of local content. Being a fellow WTO member changes nothing here: the procurement agreement is separate and opt-in, and Brazil has not opted in. That is not the end of it: procurement financed by the development banks and the UN agencies runs on the funder's rules rather than the country's, and it is the route that does not depend on this answer.
02Where would a company register to bid in Brazil?
PNCP, Portal Nacional de Contratações Públicas (https://pncp.gov.br), the national public procurement portal that Brazilian law made the single publication point; Diário Oficial da União (https://www.in.gov.br/acesso-a-informacao/licitacoes-e-contratos), the federal official gazette's procurement notices. Those are the national channels. Beyond them, 31 sources in total publish public tenders in Brazil, of which 13 are read by a dedicated connector on this site, so registering on the national portal alone leaves 18 publishing places unwatched.
03How do I register as a supplier in Brazil?
Any supplier that wants to sell to Brazil's federal government: the government's supplier guide says that to start you need a gov.br account and a SICAF registration. 1. Create a gov.br account, the digital identity used for every federal online service, Compras.gov.br included. 2. Register in SICAF (the credenciamento), free of charge, through the Compras.gov.br app or directly in SICAF. 3. A foreign company that does not operate in Brazil registers in SICAF through the federal procurement portal and is identified by its Trader Identification Number (TIN) instead of a CNPJ. 4. At the first level, the credenciamento, it proves that it has a legal representative in Brazil with express powers to receive summons and answer for the company. 5. Documents can be uploaded in a free translation; when the contract or price registration record is signed, they are replaced by sworn translations, apostilled or consularised. 6. Sign in to Compras.gov.br as a supplier (Fornecedor) with the gov.br account: opportunities are published there, on the web or in the app, and that is where you take part. Checked on 11 Oct 2026 against the official sources linked above. Procedures change, and each tender's own documents decide.
04How can a European company win public contracts in Brazil if no agreement applies?
Through procurement financed by a development bank or a UN agency, which is bought under the funder's own rules rather than the host country's. Eligibility there turns on membership of the funder and on the funder's own exclusion lists, not on any agreement between Brazil and the EU. The nine channels are UNGM (https://www.ungm.org), World Bank (https://projects.worldbank.org), UNDP (https://procurement-notices.undp.org), AfDB (https://www.afdb.org), ADB (https://www.adb.org), EBRD ECEPP (https://ecepp.ebrd.com), IsDB (https://www.isdb.org), IDB (https://www.iadb.org), AIIB (https://www.aiib.org), all read daily by this site. 2 donor-funded project units also publish in Brazil directly. For the country's own contracts, national law and the tender documents decide, and a local partner or a registered branch is often what makes a bid admissible.
05Does being a WTO member let an EU company bid in Brazil?
No. WTO membership carries no procurement obligations. The Agreement on Government Procurement is a separate, opt-in agreement with its own list of parties, and Brazil is not on it.
What this does and does not say
It names the instrument that governs access and where the notices are published. It is not legal advice and it is not the tender documents, which are the only thing that binds a particular procedure: a buyer can require local registration, a local agent, a share of local content or a certificate no agreement overrides. Trade agreements also work through annexes, so the right they grant reaches the buyers and the thresholds those annexes list and stops there. Where this page says no instrument exists, that is not the same as saying a foreign firm cannot bid; it means nothing obliges the country to let it, and the tender documents decide. The source counts come from this site's platform registry, which maps 1,470 sources across 126 countries.