Types of Warehouses in Brazil
There are different types of warehouses for different needs when importing or temporarily storing goods in Brazil. The main customs procedures are covered in this article, with special attention to those classified as “atypical regimes”.
As a general rule, duties must be paid every time cargo arrives, leaves or is stored in Brazilian territory. However, due to peculiar situations, some measures might suspend or cancel those duties.
It is possible to classify these measures into two different groups, each one of them refers to certain types of warehouses. They are the special customs regimes and the atypical customs regimes.
Atypical Customs Regimes
Procedures that fit in this category were created to attend to situations related specifically to certain products, areas or circumstances. The main atypical warehouses are:
- Warehouse for Goods in Transit For Other Countries, known as Depósito Franco
- Special Warehouse, known as Depósito Especial or DE
- Bonded Warehouse With The Purpose of Maintenance or Repairs of Vessels and Aircrafts, known as Depósito Afiançado or DAF
- Certified Bonded Warehouse, known as Depósito Certificado or DAC
Warehouse for Goods in Transit For Other Countries
This regime, also known as “Depósito Franco”, allows Brazil’s bordering countries to stock merchandise that will be commercialized to other nations. It must be located in a customs area. Different from other atypical regimes, it does not provide tax exemption.
Bolivia and Paraguay use this type of Brazilian Warehouse due to the lack of an exit to the sea in their territories, and, therefore, the lack of own ports. Cargo may only be verified if the merchandise is stocked for more than 90 days or if there is any kind of divergence in relation to its contents. Fiscalization bodies from Receita Federal are responsible for supervising the activities in this area.
Special Warehouse
Also known as “Depósito Especial” or DE, this warehouse allows the storage of materials and parts of foreign vehicles and machines — all without the payment of duties. Cargo can be stored for a period of five years, and can be re-exported, transferred to other warehouse regimes, dispatched for consumption or destroyed. The companies that can enroll in this kind of regime must be related to:
- Support to agricultural production
- Railways, airports, highways, ports and transportation
- Exploitation of mineral resources
- Generation or transmission of sound and image
- Health
- Electricity
- Scientific research
A software that can digitally control the arrival and dispatch of goods must be adopted by the company stocking products in a Special Warehouse. Receita Federal must be able to access this software.
The main benefits of this type of warehouse are the possibility of storage in a private area, not necessarily controlled by customs. Also, a bank warranty or customs insurance are not needed to adopt this regime.
Bonded Warehouse With The Purpose of Maintenance or Repairs of Vessels and Aircrafts
As the name suggests, this warehouse allows the storage of parts that are going to be used for the repairs of a vessel or aircraft. This vehicle must be associated to a company of foreign trade, and may also include materials related to on-board services.
Known as “Depósito Afiançado” or DAF in Brazil, this regime exempts the legal entity from the payment of taxes like IPI, Cofins, PIS or Pasep. This type of warehouse also requires a software to control the arrival and dispatch of goods to enable access from the Receita Federal, if needed.
Besides the duties exemption, the main benefits of this regime is the possibility to store cargo for a period of five years in a private area, not necessarily controlled by customs, and also being able to transfer the parts to other warehouses from the same company.
Certified Bonded Warehouse
In this regime, a company may export goods without physically transporting them right away. In other words, merchandise will be considered exported, even though it has not left the country yet. This is known as Depósito Certificado or DAC in Brazil.
There are a few requirements to adopt this type of warehouse, such as:
- The selling of the merchandise must be done through a DUB contract, which stands for Delivered Under Custom Bond. With this agreement, the seller must place the goods in a customs area that is chosen by the buyer.
- The whole operation must be registered in a RE, or Registro de Exportação, of the Federal Revenue’s system, SISCOMEX.
- Receita Federal must approve the placement of the merchandise in the designated spot.
- Merchandise must be checked and cleared for exportation.
After the placement of the cargo by the seller, a certificate of deposit, known as CDA, will be generated. With this, the exporter has finished all of the operations. The emission date issued in the CDA is, then, considered as the cargo’s shipment date.
From this moment on, it is the responsibility of the buyer:
- To pay for the warehouse expenses
- To provide the needed documents for the transfer of the cargo
- To hire transport means and insurance
- To ship the cargo
Special Customs Regimes
Named Regimes Aduaneiros Especiais, these types of warehouse were not necessarily created to attend to peculiar situations, but are also different from the traditional import and export regimes. Some examples are:
- RECOF - Allows for a specific industrial establishment to import, free of charge, goods that will be sold to the foreign market after industrialization.
- Drawback - Allows the suspension, exemption or refund of the taxes generated by the products used in the production process of exported goods.
- Bonded Warehouse - Allows for the storage of imported goods with tax exemptions and under fiscal control.
- Distribution Bonded Warehouse (DAD) - Allows for the storage of imported goods in a customs terminal with the suspension of duties until it is exported or dispatched for consumption.
- REPETRO - Directed to the import and export of goods destined to the research and exploration of oil and gas, providing tax exemption and other benefits.
- REPEX - Allows companies authorized by ANP, the National Oil Agency, to import crude oil and its products with tax exemption, aiming the further export in the same conditions.
- RECOM - Allows companies located abroad to import without the payment of tax inputs like chassis, vehicle bodies, accessories, components and parts destined to industrialization.
- Temporary Import and Export - Allows the transfer of goods that will be in the country only for a temporary period, without the payment of duties.
- Customs Transit - Allows the transport of cargo from one point to another with tax suspensions.
- Industrial Bonded Warehouse - Allows the import, with tax suspensions, of goods used in the industrialization process of merchandise directed to the foreign market.