Brazilian Underwear Market: OEM Opportunities and Import Requirements
Brazil represents one of the largest underwear markets globally, with unique consumer preferences and import requirements. For OEM manufacturers serving Brazilian buyers, understanding the market is essential. Here’s what underwear OEM suppliers need to know about the Brazilian market.
Market Overview
Key Insight: Brazil represents one of the largest underwear markets globally with unique OEM requirements: Portuguese-language labeling mandatory, INMETRO certification for certain product categories, 35% common external tariff (Mercosur) on Chinese textiles, and consumer preference for relaxed-fit cuts in heavier fabrics (190-200GSM). DDP places the delivery obligation on the seller, but it does not make a foreign supplier the importer of record: the declaration still runs through a Brazilian CNPJ with RADAR authorisation, so a first order is cleared by the buyer or by a Brazilian importer acting for it. LATAM OEM →
Brazil is one of the world’s largest underwear markets, and domestic production is strong but concentrated in basic styles, which leaves the premium, branded and fashion-forward segments to imports. Treat any market-size figure as an order of magnitude and check it against the importer’s own sell-through before it enters a range plan. Brazilian consumers favor bold colors, innovative fabrics, and body-positive marketing.
Cultural Preferences
Thong and Brazilian-cut styles are the reference silhouette in the women’s range. Men prefer fitted trunks and boxer briefs. Bikini and beachwear crossover is significant. Visit our Latin America dedicated page or contact Unitex for Brazil-specific OEM.
Which NCM code does an underwear shipment clear under?
Brazilian duty is levied on the NCM code, an eight-digit extension of the six-digit HS heading, and the code follows the garment rather than the order. Men’s knitted cotton briefs, men’s knitted cotton pyjamas and women’s knitted cotton briefs are three different lines, and a shipment invoiced under the wrong one is reclassified by the importer’s broker at the declaration stage — after the container has sailed.
| NCM | Garment | Common External Tariff |
|---|---|---|
| 6107.11.00 | Men’s or boys’ underpants and briefs, knitted, of cotton | 35% |
| 6107.12.00 | Men’s or boys’ underpants and briefs, knitted, of man-made fibres | 35% |
| 6107.21.00 | Men’s or boys’ nightshirts and pyjamas, knitted, of cotton | 35% |
| 6108.21.00 | Women’s or girls’ briefs and panties, knitted, of cotton | 35% |
| 6108.31.00 | Women’s or girls’ nightdresses and pyjamas, knitted, of cotton | 35% |
Garment lines in chapters 61 and 62 sit at the 35% ceiling of the Mercosur Common External Tariff, which is also the top of Brazil’s 0–35% tariff band. That 35% is the beginning of the landed cost rather than the end of it: three further charges stack on the CIF value, and one of them is calculated inside its own base.
A custom OEM programme for Brazil begins with the NCM line, because every later document — invoice, certificate of origin, label — inherits the code the buyer has already declared. Get the classification agreed in writing before the proforma, and the rest of the paperwork follows it.
Who is allowed to import, and what does that change for the supplier?
Importing to resell is a company operation, not a scaled-up personal purchase. The importer of record needs a CNPJ with a compatible business activity and RADAR authorisation in Siscomex; the import declaration is filed through Portal Único, and some goods additionally need a prior import licence. None of this changes what the supplier ships, but it settles who answers for compliance — the importing CNPJ, not the Chinese factory.
What the supplier has to deliver is a document set that survives that filing: a commercial invoice carrying the NCM code on every line together with the Incoterm, a packing list with carton dimensions and weights, the bill of lading, and — where the buyer wants Mercosur tariff treatment — a certificate of origin. An invoice that describes the goods as “underwear” with no NCM is the most common cause of a hold on a first shipment, and it is a paperwork problem rather than a production one, which is why it is worth fixing at the proforma stage.
What must the Portuguese label carry?
Brazilian consumer law puts the information duty on the party that sells in Brazil, so the label has to be in Portuguese, readable at the point of sale, and clear about who answers for the product. In practice a compliant underwear label carries fibre composition with percentages, care instructions, the size, the country of origin, and the importer’s name and CNPJ. Sizes are sold as PP, P, M, G, GG and EXG rather than XS–XL, and the care instructions are written out rather than left to symbols alone.
The consequence for an OEM programme is procedural: label artwork cannot be signed off at sample stage without the importer’s CNPJ, so the file sits with the buyer rather than with the supplier. It is also the one item that cannot be repaired on arrival — garments labelled only in English are relabelled at a cost per unit while storage time runs against the buyer.
Which products need INMETRO certification?
Children’s clothing in Brazil sits under compulsory conformity assessment, and the scope follows the wearer’s age rather than the product family: garments for children from 0 to 14 years require certification, with laboratory testing covering dyes and colour fastness, cords and drawstrings, and flammability for sleepwear. Adult underwear does not fall under that compulsory regime.
Two points decide whether a kids’ line is viable at all. Certification runs in months and cannot be regularised after shipment: cargo without a certificate is turned away rather than fined, so the certificate is scheduled before production starts, not before the vessel loads. And the technical regulation is revised by Portaria, so the current edition should be confirmed with the importer’s accredited certification body rather than taken from any supplier’s summary — including this one.
| Product | Certification | Label | Timing risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult men’s and women’s underwear | Not under compulsory certification | Portuguese label: fibre %, care, size, origin, importer CNPJ | Label artwork only |
| Kids’ underwear, 0–14 years | INMETRO compulsory certification, lab testing included | As above, plus the certification mark where it applies | Certification must precede production |
| Kids’ sleepwear, 0–14 years | INMETRO, with flammability testing in scope | As above | Longest lead item in the collection calendar |
ANVISA, the health regulator, is routinely listed beside INMETRO in exporter checklists, yet it has no registration route for ordinary underwear: a cotton brief is not a regulated health product, and no ANVISA filing is expected for it. The distinction starts to matter only when a garment carries a functional claim — compression, antibacterial, medicinal — because the claim, not the fabric, can move the article into a different regulatory category, and that is a decision no supplier can take on the buyer’s behalf. Keep the label and the catalogue copy descriptive and the question does not arise; put a therapeutic claim on the same brief and the shipment needs a route nobody planned for, which is why the wording is settled with the importer before the artwork is released.
How is the landed cost actually built?
Four charges stack on the CIF value, and each has its own base. Reading them as one percentage is how a landed-cost model goes wrong by a third.
| Charge | Base | Rate or rule |
|---|---|---|
| II — import duty | CIF value (goods + freight + insurance) | 35% for garments in chapters 61–62 from outside Mercosur |
| IPI — federal excise | CIF plus duty | Set per NCM in the TIPI table; generally 0% for apparel |
| PIS/COFINS-Importação | CIF value | About 11.75% combined for most goods |
| ICMS — state tax | Calculated “por dentro”, on a base that includes the tax itself | Set by the state where the goods clear, at that state’s internal rate (typically 17–20%); 7% and 12% are interstate rates and do not apply to the clearance itself |
| AFRMM — merchant marine levy | Ocean freight | 8% |
Two consequences follow for the supplier conversation. Because duty is charged on CIF, freight and insurance are inside the duty base, so a lower freight quote lowers the duty as well. And because ICMS depends on where the goods clear, the same FOB price lands at two different costs in two states — which is why a landed-cost figure quoted without a port of entry is only an illustration.
How should sizing and grading be handled?
Brazilian sizing cannot be produced by relabelling international sizes. The run is PP–P–M–G–GG–EXG, and the grading is not a linear translation: in several blocks a Brazilian M sits closer to a European L, and the difference concentrates at the hip and the seat rather than at the waist. Two practices remove most of the risk — build the size chart from garment measurements in centimetres rather than from label letters, and check fit at both ends of the run, smallest and largest, because that is where a transferred grade shows first.
Where the buyer already sells into another Latin American market, resist reusing that block unchanged. A pattern built for Brazil and one built for Spain can share a fabric and a construction and still need separate charts, and a range transferred without re-grading returns as a size complaint rather than as a quality complaint.
What fabric and construction sells in Brazil?
Brazilian underwear leans heavier and softer than the European norm. Cotton-rich single jersey at 190–200 g/m² reads as quality in the hand, a relaxed fit is preferred to a compressive one, and prints are a product decision rather than a decorative one: reactive prints and bold colour carry both women’s and men’s ranges, while the men’s side concentrates on fitted trunks and boxer briefs. Stretch is specified by recovery rather than by percentage alone — ask what the fabric does after repeated extension, not what number sits on the invoice.
For a first range the safer sequence is two or three core constructions in the market’s weight band, one print story, and a size run built on measured charts. That is a smaller programme than a European launch, and it matches how Brazilian buyers test a new supplier before committing a season.
How should a first container be sequenced?
Five gates, in this order, none of which can be moved later:
1. Sample approval against measured charts, at both ends of the size run.
2. If the line carries children’s sizes, certification started with the importer’s accredited body — before production, not before shipping.
3. Fabric tests: composition, shrinkage to ISO 6330 and ISO 5077, colour fastness, and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 for the exact fabric.
4. Inspection to ISO 2859-1 AQL before the cartons are sealed.
5. Documents: invoice with NCM on every line, packing list, bill of lading, certificate of origin, and the importer’s declaration.
Two references help while that sequence is being planned: production timing for the whole chain sits in the lead-time planner, and the destination comparison for the wider region is on the Latin America supplier page. Size grading conventions are set out in the size conversion chart, and what a partner factory’s BSCI audit and OEKO-TEX certificate do and do not cover is on the certification summary.
Related: capabilities →
Unitex is based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, and develops these programmes with audited partner factories across the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster of south-east China.
· Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner