The RADAR, short term for Registro e Rastreamento da Atuação dos Intervenientes Aduaneiros, is a license created by the Brazilian Federal Revenue agency that grants to Companies holding it access to the SISCOMEX, a integrated system necessary for the practice of foreign commerce in Brazil.
Obtaining it is one of the most important steps a company which wishes to work with overseas trade in Brazil must learn in order to successfully conduct its business. Having the correct understanding and information about RADAR and SISCOMEX allows the user to speed up import and export operations, which are heavily supervised by the Federal Revenue Agency fiscal auditors who constantly look for frauds. Having your imported/exported goods stuck at Brazilian fiscal posts is one of the worse outcomes you can expect, since the procedures to release them can take from weeks to months of litigation.
To register in RADAR the company needs to have all the standard company documents up to date, specially the ones related to its location permits.
There are cases however where there is no need to register your company before the Federal Revenue system, and the Brazilian legislation (Normative Instruction SRF nº 611/08) allows a simple import/export declaration to be issued in order to perform the operation. These exceptions however include only specific cases, and a company in which its main business activity is through international trade will have to adhere to RADAR and SICOMEX.
* There are also exceptions for a foreign person without a company, in which is possible to import and export with much less regulation on determined cases where goods for personal use or collection are involved. Please contact us for more information.
There are 3 types of RADAR licenses a company can get: express, limited and unlimited. These modalities differ mainly on the type and sector the company is involved, as well as the amount that is being traded on operation on a six month period (Up to US$ 50.000,00; up to US$ 150.000,00 and more than U$ 150.000,00). The limits that define the modality a company will be included are heavily influenced by its fiscal regime and revenue, which are also supervised by the Federal Revenue Agency.
If you would like to know more about the import and export trade system in Brazil please contact us on the form below, we would be glad to help. If you also need guidance and assistance on company regulations please read our articles here and here, as well as investment visa procedures.
Read more here: Opening companies in Brazil