Dropshipping into Brazil: Customs, Importer of Record and the Real Costs in 2026
Brazil is the seventh-largest e-commerce market in the world and the largest in Latin America by a factor of three. For US sellers, it has also been one of the most hostile jurisdictions to ship into — a 60% import duty on consumer goods, 17–20% ICMS state VAT, and a customs apparatus historically prone to multi-month delays. The Remessa Conforme programme launched in August 2023 was supposed to fix this. By 2026, it has — partially.
What Remessa Conforme actually changed
Remessa Conforme ('Compliant Shipments') is a voluntary certification programme for foreign e-commerce platforms shipping low-value consignments into Brazil. Certified platforms benefit from: (1) duty exemption on shipments up to USD 50 (later reversed — see below), (2) automated customs clearance via the COMEX platform, (3) ICMS collected at the point of sale and remitted by the platform. Non-certified shipments revert to the legacy regime — 60% duty, manual clearance, ~21-day average customs hold.
The 2024 reversal — and why it matters
In June 2024, the Brazilian government reinstated import duty on consignments under USD 50 (the 'Lei das Blusas' / 'Blouse Law'): now 20% duty on consignments USD 0–50, and the original 60% on USD 50.01–3,000. ICMS still applies on top. The effective landed cost of a USD 30 t-shirt shipped from the US to a São Paulo consumer in 2026 is roughly USD 30 + (20% × USD 30) + (17% × USD 36) = USD 42.12, before freight.
Importer of Record (IOR) options
A foreign seller cannot directly be the importer of record in Brazil for commercial shipments. Three structures exist:
Why marketplace selling is often the right answer
Mercado Livre, Shopee Brasil, and Amazon Brasil are all Remessa Conforme-certified facilitators. Selling through them shifts the duty and ICMS collection, customs declaration, and consumer-side delivery liability to the platform. Take-rates are 12–18% — comparable to US marketplace fees but with the customs problem solved for you. For most US sellers with revenue under USD 2M/year into Brazil, this is the correct first move.
The currency question
BRL has moved 25–35% against the USD in several recent 12-month windows. Selling at fixed BRL list prices on Mercado Livre while incurring USD costs in the US is a gross-margin lottery. Either (a) reprice weekly using an FX trigger, (b) use a forward FX hedge for sticky BRL receivables of 60+ days duration, or (c) hold a BRL operating account through a Brazilian subsidiary and only convert to USD net of local costs.
Customs seizure — the patterns that get goods stuck
Returns and reverse logistics
Brazilian consumer law (Código de Defesa do Consumidor) grants a 7-day right of withdrawal on distance sales, regardless of the seller's policy. Returning a parcel from São Paulo to Miami is operationally painful — Correios handles it slowly, and private couriers charge USD 25–40 per consignment. The cleanest model is a domestic returns address: a 3PL near Guarulhos that accepts returns, refurbishes where possible, and either restocks for Brazilian resale or disposes locally. Round-tripping low-value goods to the US almost never makes economic sense.