Cost of furnishing an office in Brazil

Cynthia Fujikawa Nes

Co-Founder
The Brazil Business

Updated

13 December 2016

Part of setting up a physical presence in Brazil includes planning the budget for furnishing and equipping a workspace to accommodate your employees.

Foreigners moving to Brazil to set up new offices and get their business running have a long journey. Not only to get personal documents sorted, but they will also face some bureaucracy to get their business registered, and finally to be able to rent office space.

Even though furnishing an office seems to be a relatively small cost compared to the overall investment made on an international expansion, companies are often surprised to see the total costs involved in purchasing furniture when invoices begin to pile up.

Most of the offices are rented with no furniture and in some instances the rooms will need a coat of paint or some small repairs to get up to standard. It is also possible to rent office furniture, but this service is often only available in larger cities. Another factor that prevents most companies renting furniture are the prices practiced and minimum quantities required, which make rentals a less beneficial option for most companies.

For smaller companies it is also an alternative to rent workstations in furnished office environments like a coworking space.

Prices of office furniture in Brazil

One would think that a short trip to IKEA would supply all their needs to furnish an office, and all they would need is a spare weekend to go through the instructions and assemble all the furniture. Well, they cannot be more wrong. IKEA is not present in Brazil, and the major popular chains like Casas Bahia, Magazine Luiza, Marabraz, or small neighbourhood furniture stores sell furniture with less than attractive designs for most foreigners. If your offices are located away from larger cities, online stores like Mobly, Oppa, or webshops from larger chains like Etna and TokStok will be better options to get that desk or chair with a more edgy design.

As with anywhere else in the world, there are huge price differences between stores, but generally speaking, here are a few estimates of what you should expect to spend when buying basic furniture in Brazil:

Price of basic office equipment and electronics

Having desks and chairs is a good start, but the office will need desktops, a coffee maker, and other IT equipment to fully function. The easiest and cheapest way to buy your IT equipment and electronics is online, as you will most likely get the best deals. We suggest checking prices on the manufacturer's website or at larger chains like Americanas, Submarino, Fast Shop, Magazine Luiza, Ricardo Eletro, Balão da Informática or Extra. Here are the average prices for basic items that you will probably need to equip your office:

Price of stationary

Even though we pretty much live in a digital and paperless world, we still rely on some very basic stationary for the office. Stationary is easy to find and quite cheap, but here are some basic estimates for your reference.