The questions exporters actually ask.

Not necessarily — but you need import capacity one way or another. The real paths are your own Brazilian entity (a CNPJ) with a RADAR/Siscomex habilitação sized to your financial capacity, or importing through a Brazilian company — a trading company (conta e ordem or encomenda) or another importer. Each carries different control, tax, and liability consequences. There's no lightweight "importer of record" you simply appoint. Choosing the structure that fits your entry — rather than defaulting into one — is part of what the Entry Diagnostic settles.

Brazil doesn't have the lightweight, appointable importer-of-record that some countries do. The importer is a Brazilian legal person carrying real customs and tax liability. You can import through a third party's entity — an IoR/DDP service or a trading company — and that's a legitimate, fast path if your goal is to never touch Brazilian customs. The trade-off is structural: the shipment routes through their registration every time, and the arrangement is built to continue, not to be exited. If you want your own capability instead, that's a different structure. We help you choose deliberately.

A despachante files your import declaration and clears cargo through Siscomex — essential work, but execution-only, and it assumes the hard part is already solved: that your classification is right, your homologation is done, and you already hold import capacity. We sit above that. We own the classification, the homologation strategy, the import structure, and the go/no-go — and we engage and coordinate a despachante as part of execution. We're not a replacement for your broker; we're the owner your broker assumes you already have.

Those providers become the legal importer using their own Brazilian entity and quote you a landed cost — genuinely useful if your goal is to never build Brazilian capability. The trade-off is by design: every shipment routes through their entity, the registration and customs history sit in their name, and the model is built to continue indefinitely. Our mandate is time-boxed — deliver your first compliant shipment and a repeatable process your own team, broker, or entity can run without us. It's a different tool for a different goal.

Treat it as a floor, not a pass. Brazilian conformity runs on its own requirements — INMETRO certification schemes, NR-12 machinery safety, Anatel for anything RF-emitting. NR-12, for example, has its own annexes and typically requires Portuguese-language documentation and local engineering sign-off; a CE mark doesn't substitute for it. Exactly what applies depends on your specific equipment and its category — the readiness check gives you a directional read, and the Diagnostic confirms it against the current rules.

Possibly — Anatel's scope reaches further than obvious telecom gear. Anything that emits RF, including embedded wireless modules, radios, or certain sensors inside industrial or data-center equipment, can trigger homologation, and a foreign certification doesn't substitute. Homologation runs on accredited-lab testing and can take weeks per product family, and for much equipment the import license has to be approved before the goods leave origin. This is the kind of thing that's cheap to find out early and expensive to discover at the port.

Sometimes. Capital goods with no Brazilian equivalent can qualify for import-duty relief through an ex-tarifário application. It's decided case by case, a domestic manufacturer can contest it, and the bar for "no national equivalent" has been tightening — which is why it has to start early and can't be assumed into a budget. The Diagnostic tells you whether it's realistic for your goods before you build a plan around it.

Not yet — for anyone. The law (REDATA) is in force, but the decree that makes it usable and the list of qualifying equipment are still unpublished. If your shipment is timed for 2026, that is the honest answer today. When it is usable, it suspends federal taxes on qualifying equipment imported for a registered data-center project in Brazil; the registration belongs to the project, and a supplier under contract to it can be co-registered. Three of the four taxes it covers are capped at the end of 2026; only the import-duty relief runs the full term, and only for equipment with no Brazilian equivalent that is also on the government's list. Whether any of it reaches your shipment turns on classification and on your customer's registration, both decided before anything ships. Where it lands on your calendar is a Diagnostic question, not a REDATA one.

It depends on your equipment and what it triggers. Homologation alone adds real time on lab testing, and some licenses must clear before anything ships. We won't hand you a number we haven't measured. The readiness check and the Diagnostic exist to put a realistic timeline in front of you before you commit capital, so the clock starts when it should — not after your cargo is already at the port.

A staged, fixed-scope model — not an open-ended retainer. It starts free with the 2-minute readiness check, moves to a fixed-fee Entry Diagnostic (the definitive read and the go/no-go, in writing), and only then to an owned execution engagement scoped to your entry. You always know exactly what you're committing to at each step, and you can stop after any of them with something you keep. We share specific figures in the qualification conversation.

The opposite of stuck. You get your first compliant shipment through the door and the documents we ran it on, rewritten for your coordinator to run the next one: the dependency map (who needs what, in what order), the document checklist your broker signed off on, the go/no-go record, and the named contacts on the bench. It's accepted by you, not declared by us, and the final payment is tied to that acceptance. For questions smaller than a shipment, the playbook names who to call, starting with your broker.

Yes. Holding a booked shipment for a missing document is the most valuable thing we do, and the reason is written down before you hear it. A week at origin is cheaper than a month at the port, and a hold at origin is the only kind you get to choose.

No. We never act as your importer of record, we don't run permanent country operations, and we don't guarantee revenue or handle go-to-market. We own the entry execution and the go/no-go call, get your first shipment landed compliantly, hand off the process, and step out.

Engagements are contracted and invoiced through our US entity. For US-based clients that means a domestic counterparty and ordinary US vendor paperwork — a W-9 rather than a foreign-supplier file — which is usually the difference between a routine purchase order and a procurement exception. It changes nothing about delivery: the work is executed in Brazil, in Portuguese, with the same accountable owner throughout. Invoicing currency is set with the engagement. We're building out the European structure as the business grows; if the contracting entity changes for your engagement, you'll know before you sign anything.

Two hubs, one trade lane — Berlin at origin, and São Paulo on the ground, where entry is won or lost. The work happens in Portuguese, inside the Brazilian institutions, not managed remotely. Ivan Sanz, the founder, leads it and holds the go/no-go — one accountable person, start to finish.