Government estimates savings of R$40 billion with simplification of imports

The federal government estimates that changes to the import system could generate savings of R$40 billion per year for companies. From October 1st, it is planned to migrate operations from Siscomex, a Brazilian foreign trade registration system in operation since 1993, to the Single Foreign Trade Portal.

The Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (Mdic) calculates that the gain in competitiveness and the reduction of bureaucracy will add US$ 130 billion to the Brazilian economy by 2040. Migration will occur until the end of 2025.

Opened in 2014, the single portal reduces document requirements, simultaneously executes processes that were executed in sequence and allows the issuance of flex licenses (in which several commercial operations are authorized by volume of cargo or for fixed periods), informed the Brazil Agency.

With the platform, instead of filling out several documents, the company will fill out the Single Import Declaration (Duimp). In the case of exports, migration to the portal with unified declaration began in 2017 and ended in 2018, reducing the average time for releasing goods from 13 to 4.8 days.

As for imports, the Duimp pilot project began in 2018 and was applied in the testing phase. Since then, the average release time for goods arriving in the country has fallen from 17 to 9 days.

Mdic’s Secretary of Foreign Trade, Tatiana Prazeres, stated that the total migration of imports to the single portal will result in a greater reduction in the release period from 9 to 5 daysin the average period of purchasing goods from abroad. The new system will benefit around 50 thousand importers in the country.

“The cost of stopped cargo per day is equivalent to 0.8% of its value. Based on imports of US$242 billion last year and the reduction of operations by four days [de nove para cinco dias]we calculate a gain of around R$40 billion for foreign trade companies [em torno de US$ 8 bilhões]”, said the secretary.

Rules for migrating the import system

The total migration of the import system was divided into three phases:

• From October to December 2024: Duimp will be mandatory for maritime imports;
• From January to July 2025: Duimp will be mandatory for cargo arriving by plane;
• From July to December 2025: Duimp will be mandatory for imports across land borders and via the Manaus Free Trade Zone.

According to Mdic, the Single Foreign Trade Portal reduced the number of documents issued per year from 871 thousand to 135 thousand. The single declaration requires the completion of 38 fields versus 98 fields in the declaration via Siscomex.

“Siscomex became important in the 1990s, when it replaced paper with digital documents. The Single Portal is an evolution that reduces the number of documents, digitizes the service and allows joint inspection [da carga] of Revenue with other bodies”, said the special secretary of the Federal Revenue, Robinson Barreirinhas.