Import collectibles and publishing
from Europe to Brazil

Start with language, because it is the one advantage no local distributor can undercut. Spanish-language editions printed in Spain and Portuguese editions printed in Portugal are frequently the versions your customers actually want, and they arrive in Latin American markets late, in small allocations or never. Publishers like Norma Editorial, Planeta Cómic and Devir, and the Franco-Belgian houses behind the bande dessinée catalogue, sit at the centre of that. Add Taschen for art and photography books, whose formats and editions are a European proposition first.

The second axis is the hobby trade. Games Workshop's Warhammer ranges, Asmodee's board game catalogue, LEGO's European assortment, Panini's collections, model kits from Italeri and Revell, EU pressings on vinyl and European print runs of trading cards all carry regional exclusives and edition differences that make a specialist shop's window look different from everyone else's.

Third, the backlist: European stock persists on titles and references that are out of print or unavailable in your market, which is often where the margin is for a specialist retailer. Commercial terms are between you and each publisher or distributor — trade accounts, minimum orders and territorial agreements are theirs to set. What we do is receive from all of them into one address and send you one shipment.

Everything in Brazil follows from which regime your goods travel under. A parcel forwarded to an individual is treated as a remessa: a flat 60% federal import tax on the customs value — product plus freight plus insurance — with state ICMS of 17–20% on top, calculated inclusive.

The reduced or zero bands people read about in the news belong to Remessa Conforme and apply only to platforms certified with the Receita Federal, never to a forwarded parcel; the measure underpinning them was also set to lapse around September 2026 unless converted, so do not build a model on it.

A company importing for resale is in a different world. Formal import requires RADAR/Siscomex habilitation and, in practice, a despachante aduaneiro; the tax stack is import tax plus IPI, PIS/COFINS and ICMS, several of which may generate credits depending on your tax regime.

That is why the first conversation we have with a Brazilian buyer is about regime and habilitation rather than freight rates — and why, for genuinely low volumes where formal import is not yet worth it, we say so plainly instead of pretending the 60% does not exist.

Two operational realities shape this category. The first is weight: paper is dense, and a pallet of books or a case of hardbacks costs far more to move than its volume suggests. That pushes you towards larger, less frequent consignments and towards sea freight where your replenishment cycle can absorb the transit — which is a planning decision, not something we can fix with a better rate.

The second is condition. Collectibles are sold on condition, so a corner crushed in transit is a markdown or a return. We repack for protection where the original packaging is not up to an international leg, and we will photograph condition on arrival if you ask, so that a claim starts from evidence rather than memory.

There is also one tax rule genuinely worth knowing, because it changes the arithmetic more than anything on this page: in Brazil, books, newspapers and periodicals — and the paper used to print them — enjoy constitutional tax immunity.

That does not automatically make every shipment free of every charge, and it does not extend to games, miniatures or toys, but for a bookshop importing printed matter into Brazil it is a materially different calculation from importing collectible figures. Confirm the treatment of your specific goods with your despachante; it is the first thing we would check in your position.