Brazil Resolução Gecex nº 844/2025 — Tariff-Rate Quota and Import Duty Modification for 15 Products

Mechanism

Resolução Gecex nº 844/2025 is a periodic technical amendment to Resolução Gecex nº 272/2021, the instrument that adapted Brazil's Common Mercosur Nomenclature (NCM) and Common External Tariff (TEC) schedules to the 2022 Harmonized System revision (SH-2022). Gecex uses this recurring TRQ-maintenance mechanism (companion resolutions in the same series include Gecex nº 827/2025 and nº 686/2025) to grant or withdraw duty-free import quotas on narrow, supply-constrained input categories, typically at the request of downstream Brazilian manufacturers who cannot source adequate volumes domestically or from Mercosur partners.

The resolution has two directionally opposite effects bundled into one instrument:

• Annex I (11 products, new 0% TRQs): nutritional supplements (30 t/year), animal-feed

additives and chemical compounds (varying quantities), contact lenses (a combined 40.375 million units/year across two classifications), electrical cable connectors, and glass ampoules. These are import-cost reliefs for Brazilian downstream users (healthcare, animal nutrition, electronics assembly).

• Annexes II/III (4 products, quota withdrawal): a thermal-control polyethylene film

product is removed from the Annex IV duty-free list; a rubber sanitary/contraceptive product (NCM 4014.10.00) and an anhydrous sodium compound (NCM 2836.20.10, believed to be sodium carbonate) are removed from Annex V, alongside one further product. Removal reverts these lines to the standard Mercosur TEC duty, i.e. an effective tariff increase from 0%.

The Secretaria de Comércio Exterior (Secex) is directed to establish import-quota allocation criteria for the new TRQ lines. Global Trade Alert flags China, Malaysia and Russia as the principal affected trading partners given historical import origin patterns for the withdrawn-quota product lines.

Downstream implications

• Narrow relief for Brazilian buyers of nutritional supplements, animal-feed additives,

contact lenses, cable connectors and glass ampoules via new duty-free quotas.

• Modest cost increase for importers of the four withdrawn-quota products (thermal-control

film, rubber sanitary/contraceptive goods, anhydrous sodium compound), previously entering duty-free and now subject to standard TEC rates.

• Consistent with Brazil's routine (multiple-times-per-year) TRQ housekeeping cadence under

the Gecex 272/2021 framework — no signal of a broader protectionist or liberalising shift.

Open questions

• Exact NCM codes and TEC rates for the remaining ~9 of the 15 affected products were not

independently verified (LegisWeb summary and GTA state-act page both require registration for the full annex text); the two NCM codes cited (4014.10.00, 2836.20.10) are confirmed via the GTA state-act summary.

• Whether the quota-withdrawal products reflect a specific domestic-industry petition (as

with Gecex's anti-dumping series) or a routine Mercosur-nomenclature harmonisation cleanup.