Brazil's DUIMP Cutover: One Date per Cargo Type and Agency

Brazil is not switching off its legacy import declaration, the DI, on a single day. The DI shutdown schedule that Secex and Receita Federal publish on the Portal Único gives each type of operation its own date, and the version dated 26 August 2026 is already the twenty-sixth. Go by the transport mode and the table date alone when you file the import license, the LI, and the DI registration comes back rejected with DUIMP flagged as mandatory, by which time the cargo is already at the bonded terminal.

DI shutdown schedule: what is left in September 2026

For most containerized cargo the transition is over. The last ocean and air general-cargo operations left the DI on 22 and 27 April 2026, both standard-taxation imports and those under a special legal basis, and with them went the licensing agencies Anvisa (health), MAPA (agriculture), CNEN (nuclear), Inmetro (technical standards) and ANP (fuels) for all products. Since those dates, a standard container import through Santos or an air shipment through Viracopos, licensed or not, goes through DUIMP (Brazil’s new single import declaration) and LPCO (the Portal Único licensing module).

What remains on the DI, according to the current version of the schedule, is a short list:

Ocean bulk cargo: shutdown on 11 October 2026. This latest version pushed the date back, so anyone moving bulk through Paranaguá or Rio Grande gained a few weeks.
Duty-free shop imports by air and air cargo on non-scheduled flights: switched off on 31 August 2026.
Road and rail: can still go through LI and DI until 1 December 2026, when everything left switches off at once.
Importers with a limited Siscomex registration (radar limitado), the Manaus Free Trade Zone and free trade areas, public bodies paying through the federal SIAFI system, Suframa licensing, ocean cargo transferred to a bonded airport terminal (Mantra) and some drawback cases: still go through LI and DI, also until 1 December 2026.

That last group is in the “impossibility” column of the full spreadsheet, the operations the Portal Único still cannot receive as a DUIMP. If your cargo is in one of them, the date for the mode is irrelevant and the column decides.

Why doesn’t an approved LI guarantee the DI registration?

The rule that catches most people is buried in the special situations on the schedule page. Nothing shuts the LI down. The DI is what gets switched off. Register the LI after the shutdown date for that operation and the system rejects the DI registration and flags DUIMP as mandatory, even though the licensing agency has already approved the LI.

The reverse also holds:

An LI registered with administrative control before the shutdown date can still be linked to a DI after that date. The DI follows the registration date of the approved LI it is linked to.
An approved LI that needs replacing can get a substitute LI after the DI shutdown.

So the LI registration date decides, which moves the check much earlier in the file. It belongs before the LI is typed, weeks before the vessel berths. The page says plainly that following the schedule is the importer’s responsibility, but the customs broker types the LI and will be the one explaining why the cargo sat at the terminal burning free time. We have already shown what a container waiting for a correction costs.

Two agencies on the same cargo: which date applies?

Goods with a single licensing agency follow the date in the table. With two or more, the date that counts is the one for the last agency to switch off for that operation. Tax treatments work the same way: the DI only shuts down once the last treatment does.

Then there is the state rule. The table looks at the state of the importer, the buyer and the customs unit handling clearance, and if any one of them is still on, the operation can go through the DI. Individuals importing are covered too, through LPCO and the Product Catalogue.

The check is therefore shipment by shipment. Before the LI goes in, the customs broker needs four answers for that cargo:

Which agencies the tariff code (NCM in Brazil) requires, and whether each one has already been switched off in the table.
Which legal basis or tax treatment the operation uses, and whether it has already shut down. Operations with more than one treatment follow the last one.
Whether any situation in the impossibility column applies: limited registration of the importer, buyer or ordering party, the Manaus Free Trade Zone, transfer to a bonded airport terminal, drawback in the listed modalities.
The date the LI will be registered, compared with the operation’s shutdown date.

Secex put a flowchart for this daily check on the schedule page. It says, cargo by cargo, whether DUIMP is mandatory, DI is mandatory or DUIMP is optional. Trust it over any summary, this one included: the page warns that dates get revised whenever blocking errors turn up, and the bulk postponement shows it happens.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DUIMP already mandatory for all imports into Brazil?

No. Ocean and air general cargo, with or without licensing from Anvisa, MAPA, Inmetro, ANP and CNEN, has been DUIMP-only since April 2026. Ocean bulk leaves the DI on 11 October 2026, and the remaining operations, such as road, rail and limited-registration importers, on 1 December 2026.

Can an LI approved before the shutdown still be used on a DI?

Yes. An LI registered with administrative control before the shutdown date can be linked to a DI even after that date, because the DI follows the registration date of the approved LI. An LI registered after the date, even if approved, blocks the DI and requires a DUIMP.

What is a licensing agency (órgão anuente) in Brazilian imports?

It is a government body that must authorize the entry of certain products before customs clearance, such as Anvisa, MAPA, Inmetro, ANP, the Army and Ibama. In the legacy Siscomex the approval went on the LI. In the Portal Único it goes through the LPCO, linked to the DUIMP.

How Tier2 Cargo keeps DI and DUIMP in the same process

During the transition, the same operation runs shipments still going through LI and DI alongside shipments already going through LPCO and DUIMP. In Tier2 Cargo, customs clearance is a process type of its own, linked to the ocean or air shipment, with the customs broker as a partner and DUIMP, CE Mercante and CCT, Brazil’s customs cargo records, inside the flow. Operational milestones show what stage each cargo has reached, from registration to clearance, with the declaration number on the process beside them.

When the client asks why one cargo went through DI and the next through DUIMP, the answer is in the process rather than in the memory of whoever filed it. See how it works or talk to us.

The LI registration date is the one that decides, and the DI shutdown schedule to consult is always the latest version published. Open both before filing the next one.