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A certificate of origin proves that your goods were produced in Brazil under the rules of a trade agreement. With it, your buyer abroad pays a reduced or zero tariff. Without it, they pay the full rate, even when the product is entirely Brazilian and the agreement is in force.
The arithmetic is simple and often forgotten when the price is built. Two suppliers sell the same product to the same Argentine buyer. One presents proof of origin, the other does not. The gap shows up at the customer's customs clearance, and it decides the next order.
The tariff your customer pays to clear the goods changes. A trade agreement does not cut Brazilian tax on the way out: it cuts the import duty in the destination country, and that discount applies only if the product is recognised as originating in Brazil. Proof of origin is the key to the benefit.
Brazil negotiates most of its agreements through Mercosul and within ALADI, the Latin American Integration Association, which houses the Economic Complementation Agreements (Acordos de Complementação Econômica, or ACE) with Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia and Colombia, among others. Each has its own product list, phase out schedule and origin regime.
The commercial effect is direct. If your buyer saves on duty, there is room to negotiate price, payment terms or volume. If they cannot use the preference because of a paperwork failure, the saving becomes their cost, and the blame usually lands back on the exporter. Worth measuring alongside the total landed cost, because destination duty is part of the price your customer actually sees.
Rules of origin are the criteria that define whether a product counts as originating in a country for the purposes of a trade agreement. They exist to stop goods from outside the agreement claiming the preference simply by passing through one of the signatory countries.
Under the ALADI General Origin Regime, consolidated in Resolution 252 of 1999 and brought into Brazilian law by Decree 3,325 of 30 December 1999, there are three general criteria:
Source: ALADI, General Origin Regime, Resolution 252. Some products carry a specific origin requirement, and it prevails over the general criterion. This is where most doubts sit for manufacturers using imported inputs: the origin of the finished product depends on how much of the foreign input was transformed, and how.
Only private entities previously authorised by Secex, Brazil's foreign trade secretariat, and listed in the annex to Portaria Secex 249 of 4 July 2023. Authorisation is not open to anyone: requirements include minimum net worth of BRL 1 million, minimum annual revenue of BRL 500,000, at least five years since incorporation and an approved IT system.
Since Portaria Secex 523 of 15 July 2026, those entities may operate across the whole country, regardless of where the producer or exporter is based. In practice, you are no longer tied to the entity in your own city to get the document.
Then come the formal rules, which sink shipments every month. Under the ALADI General Origin Regime, the document is valid for 180 days from the date of certification, cannot be issued before the commercial invoice date, and must be issued on that same date or within the following 60 days. The description of the goods has to match the invoice.
When a third country operator issues the invoice, the producer or exporter must flag this in the observations field, naming who will invoice the operation at destination. If the invoice number does not yet exist at issuance, the field is left blank and the importer files a sworn statement with customs. Since all of it hangs on the invoice, the commercial invoice guide is required reading before the first shipment.
It depends on the destination, and the exporter does not get to choose. Article 50 of Portaria Secex 249 sets the accepted format per agreement. The table below sums up what applies to the destinations Brazilian exporters use most, in the text consolidated to July 2026.
Agreement | Destination | Certificate format |
ACE 14 and ACE 18 | Argentina | Digital only (COD) |
ACE 02 and ACE 18 | Uruguay | Digital only (COD) |
ACE 72 | Colombia | Digital only (COD) |
ACE 18 and ACE 74 | Paraguay | Digital (COD) or paper |
ACE 36 | Bolivia | Digital (COD) or paper |
ACE 35 | Chile | Electronic (COE) or paper |
Mercosul and India preferential agreement | India | Electronic (COE) or paper |
Interim Trade Agreement | European Union | Electronic (COE) or paper |
COD is the Certificado de Origem Digital, the digital certificate in the standard defined at ALADI, and COE is its electronic counterpart. In exceptional cases, the issuing entity must tell Secex what prevented the digital issue before falling back to paper. Source: Secex, Portaria 249/2023, consolidated to Portaria Secex 523 of 15 July 2026.
The Brazilian producer or exporter issues a Declaração de Origem, a statement of origin, on the commercial invoice itself, with no issuing entity involved. It replaces the certificate of origin in agreements where self certification is provided for and in force, and it became available for trade agreements on 1 March 2025. Source: MDIC, Portaria Secex 373/2024.
The statement must carry the minimum information the agreement requires and be signed by someone with a statutory or employment link to the company, or by a representative with specific powers to attest origin. Since April 2026 the signature may be handwritten or electronic, and the company identifier is its CNPJ, the Brazilian corporate taxpayer number.
That freedom comes with the exporter carrying the whole risk. Records supporting the statement must be kept for five years from issuance, in three blocks: the sale, shipment and payment of the exported product; the purchase, receipt and payment of every material used in production; and the production of the product in the form exported.
Getting it wrong costs the instrument itself. Portaria Secex 249 provides for disqualification of up to one year for failing to observe the formalities or for wrongly attesting that a non originating product was originating, and five years for fraudulent conduct or repeat offences. In those cases the exporter goes back to depending on an issuing entity.
The choice between self certifying and hiring an entity is yours. If you export occasionally, with a simple product and obvious origin, the statement on the invoice solves it and costs less. If you manufacture with heavy imported content, paying an entity to check the classification is cheap insurance against a five year ban.
It opened tariff preferences into the European market with an origin model Brazilian exporters are not used to. The Interim Trade Agreement between Mercosul and the European Union was signed in Asunción, Paraguay, on 17 January 2026, and entered into force on 1 May 2026. Source: Portal Único de Comércio Exterior, Brazil's single window for foreign trade.
Origin under that agreement is proved by a statement made by the exporter, in the wording set out in the text. During the transition period defined in the agreement, entities authorised by Secex may also issue a certificate of origin, which gives breathing room to companies that have not yet built the internal controls to self certify. That option entered Portaria Secex 249 through Portaria Secex 490 of 29 April 2026.
More is coming. The agreement between Mercosul and EFTA, which brings together Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, was signed on 16 September 2025 and is set to enter into force on 1 October 2026 in Iceland and 1 November 2026 in Norway, with Switzerland and Liechtenstein pending domestic ratification. Source: MDIC, September 2026.
Outside Latin America and Europe the logic is the same, with rules of its own. Anyone selling into the North American market needs to follow the changes under way, and the summary sits in the article on the 2026 USMCA review.
A form detail, nearly always. Customs at destination does not debate the merits of your production: it compares documents. When they do not match, the preference falls away and your customer pays the full tariff, sometimes with a penalty.
The reasons that come up most:
None of these has anything to do with the quality of your product. All of them are process. Before closing the first sale into a new destination, confirm at the single window, siscomex.gov.br, whether your product has a preference under that agreement and which proof of origin the destination accepts. The full operational path sits in the guide to exporting from Brazil.
No. It is required only when you want to use the tariff preference of a trade agreement in the destination country. The export happens without it, but the importer will pay the full duty and the benefit negotiated in the agreement will not apply to your goods.
In agreements governed by the ALADI General Origin Regime, the certificate is valid for 180 days from the date of certification by the issuing entity. It also cannot be issued before the commercial invoice, and must be issued on the same date or within the following 60 days.
An entity authorised by Secex issues the certificate and shares responsibility with the exporter for the accuracy of the data. The statement of origin is issued by the producer or exporter on the commercial invoice, at their sole risk and responsibility, in agreements that allow self certification.
No. It applies only where self certification is provided for and in force. The general Brazilian rule sits in Portaria Secex 249, as amended by Portaria Secex 373/2024, and each agreement defines the wording and the minimum data of the statement.
It can, if the transformation carried out in Brazil is sufficient under the agreement's rule. By the ALADI general criterion, that happens when the foreign input changes tariff heading, or when the CIF value of that input does not exceed 50% of the FOB export value of the finished product, unless a specific requirement applies.
An exporter who self certifies must keep the records for five years from the date the statement was issued, covering the sale and payment of the exported product, the purchase of materials used and the production documentation. Brazil's international negotiations department may request those records and carry out a site visit.
Correct proof of origin is half the job. The other half is the cargo arriving with the right paperwork, on the date you promised, and clearing customs at destination without turning into a case file.
If your company exports under more than one agreement and needs an international courier handling both transport and customs clearance, open a DHL Express business account and treat the document and the shipment as one process.
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