## CNPJ lookup: how to read a Brazilian company's tax ID

URL: https://testigomexico.com/guides/cnpj-lookup-brazil
Updated: 2026-10-07

A CNPJ is the 14-digit tax ID of a Brazilian legal entity: eight digits for the company, four for the establishment and two check digits. Receita Federal publishes the whole register as open data, 73,366,147 establishments in the 2026-09-14 edition, so any CNPJ can be read against it.

Key facts:
- Publisher: Receita Federal
- Edition read: 2026-09-14
- Establishments in the register: 73,366,147
- In manufacturing, status ATIVA: 2,130,368
- Loaded by Testigo: 580,085
- Licence: Listed on dados.gov.br as Creative Commons Attribution

### How the number is built

| Part | Digits | What it identifies |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Base number | 8 | The company. Every establishment of one company shares it. |
| Order number | 4 | The establishment. The head office is the matriz, a branch is a filial. |
| Check digits | 2 | Computed from the other twelve. A wrong digit means a typing error. |

Of the establishments Testigo loads, 530,654 are a head office and 49,431 a branch.

### What the register shows for a CNPJ

- The legal name and, on 63.4% of manufacturing rows, a trade name.
- The registration status and its date. ATIVA is active. The other statuses are null, suspended, unfit and closed.
- The main activity as a CNAE code, and secondary activities.
- The address, a phone on 93.1% of rows and an email on 84.2%.
- The company's size class, porte, which is set by revenue: micro, small, or other.

The phone figure is inflated by placeholder numbers, and the email is often an accountant's mailbox. The register has no coordinates, no website and no staff count.

### How to look one up

1. By CNPJ: Enter the number in Testigo's tax ID check, or search the register's open data. Check that the legal name and the status match what the supplier told you.
2. By name or product: Search Brazil on Testigo by company name or by what the plant makes. Each record shows the CNPJ, the status and the edition read.
3. By activity: The Brazil directory lists manufacturers by CNAE code and by industry, with the count for each.
4. Against the sanction registers: Read the CNPJ against CEIS and CNEP.

### Which rows Testigo loads

The register lists 5,536,755 manufacturing establishments of every status. 2,130,368 are ATIVA. Testigo leaves out 1,550,283 rows that belong to a sole proprietor, whose registered name is a person's name, and loads 580,085 establishments of legal entities.

The files were read from a public mirror of the register. They have not yet been compared with the official copies.

### Questions

**What does ATIVA mean on a CNPJ?**
ATIVA is the registration status of an establishment that is active before the tax authority. It is a legal status, not proof that a plant is producing. The other statuses in the register are null, suspended, unfit and closed. Testigo loads manufacturing establishments whose status is ATIVA and shows the status on the record.

**Is the CNPJ public information?**
Yes. Receita Federal publishes the CNPJ register as open data, and it is listed on dados.gov.br under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. The register holds legal entities. For a sole proprietor the registered name is a person's name, so Testigo does not load those rows.

**Does the CNPJ register show how many people a company employs?**
No. The register has no staff figure. It publishes a size class by revenue, called porte, with three values: micro company, small company and other. Testigo shows that class in words and never turns it into a number of staff. Ask the supplier for its headcount.

Sources:
- Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica (CNPJ), dados abertos, Receita Federal, edition 2026-09-14: https://dados.gov.br/dados/conjuntos-dados/cadastro-nacional-da-pessoa-juridica---cnpj
- CNPJ: layout of the open data files, Receita Federal, edition as read for the 2026-09-14 edition: https://www.gov.br/receitafederal/dados/cnpj-metadados.pdf


Cite as: Testigo, "CNPJ lookup: how to read a Brazilian company's tax ID", https://testigomexico.com/guides/cnpj-lookup-brazil, data file 2026-10-12.

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This is the Markdown version of https://testigomexico.com/guides/cnpj-lookup-brazil. Testigo: Testigo is supplier intelligence for people who source from Latin America: a search over manufacturers taken from the official public registry of each country. Each record shows its source, its date and what was not checked.