Short answer
Brazil's public record of manufacturers is the CNPJ register of the Receita Federal, which lists every establishment of every registered company with its tax ID. Testigo holds 202,964 active manufacturing establishments from the 2026-09-14 edition, with three federal sanction lists attached by tax ID.
Key facts
- Registry
- CNPJ (Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica), open data files
- Publisher
- Receita Federal, the federal revenue service
- Edition read
2026-09-14, from a public mirror- One row is
- One establishment of a company: a head office or a branch
- Active manufacturing establishments of legal entities
- 580,085
- On Testigo
- 202,964. Loaded so far: Small, medium and large companies. Micro companies are not loaded yet.
- Tax ID in the file
- Yes, CNPJ, on every row
- Licence
- Listed on dados.gov.br as Creative Commons Attribution, with no version number
The CNPJ register: what it is and who publishes it
Every legal entity in Brazil has a CNPJ, the national tax registration. The Receita Federal publishes the whole register as open data each month. The edition read holds 73,366,147 establishments of all kinds.
Manufacturing is the set whose main activity code, in the CNAE classification, falls in divisions 10 to 33. That is 5,536,755 establishments in all statuses, of which 2,130,368 are active.
Most active rows are individual entrepreneurs, where the registered name is a person's name and the phone and email are usually the person's own. Testigo dropped those 1,550,283 rows, along with entities domiciled abroad. What remains is 580,085 active establishments of legal entities.
The official file host reset every connection from Testigo's network. The files were read from a public mirror that copies them each month. They have not yet been compared with the official copies. As a spot check, 30 records were compared with a public CNPJ lookup service on 2026-10-05 and 30 matched on every field.
Which fields exist, and which do not
CNPJ register, active manufacturing establishments of legal entities
| Field | In the register | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Tax ID | Yes, every row | The full CNPJ of the establishment. |
| Legal name | Yes, every row | The razão social of the company. |
| Trade name | 63.4% of rows | The nome fantasia, where the company declared one. |
| Activity | Yes, every row | The main CNAE code, seven digits. Its first two digits are the same divisions as the international classification. |
| Size | Yes, a class | porte: micro company, small company, or everything else. Medium and large are not split. |
| Address and postal code | Yes | The address of the establishment, with its municipality and state. |
| Phone | 93.1% of rows | Placeholders of all zeros are removed. |
| 84.2% of rows | Often the mailbox of an outside accountant. | |
| Start date | Yes | The date activity began. The record shows the year. |
| Head office or branch | Yes | matriz or filial. |
| Coordinates | No | The field does not exist. Testigo shows an approximate position from the municipality. |
| Website | No | The field does not exist. Testigo may find one at the domain of the email. |
| Headcount | No | The register has no number of workers. |
What "active" means in Brazil
Each establishment has a registration status. Testigo loads only those marked ATIVA. The other statuses in the file are null, suspended, unfit and closed.
Active is a tax status. It means the registration is in force. It does not prove that the plant is producing today.
Of the active rows, 377,121 are micro companies, 120,359 are small companies and 82,605 are in the class for everything larger. Testigo has loaded the last two groups so far.
The tax ID: CNPJ
A CNPJ has 14 digits in three parts: a base number for the company, an order number for the establishment, and check digits. Every establishment of one company shares the base number.
That is why a Brazilian record on Testigo can say how many establishments of the same company are on record, and link to them. It is also why the sanction lists below can be tied to a company without guessing: they carry the CNPJ.
The official lists
| List | Publisher | Edition | Companies held | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEIS | CGU, the federal comptroller | 2026-10-02 | 9,633 | The company was declared unfit or suspended by a public body. Each sanction has a type, a start date and an end date. |
| CNEP | CGU | 2026-10-02 | 1,016 | The company was punished under the anti-corruption law. |
| Cadastro de Empregadores | MTE, the labour ministry | 2026-09-28 | 184 | The employer is on the register of those found to have used labour in conditions like slavery. |
The comptroller's portal states that its data may be used freely. No licence statement was found for the labour ministry's list.
A sanction entry is what the publisher wrote on the edition date. Sanctions end. Read the dates on the publisher's current list before you act.
How to search Brazil on Testigo
- Search in your own languageType a product, a process or a material in the Brazil search. Portuguese activity descriptions are matched through the dictionary, so English words work.
- Narrow by state and size classFilter by state, sector and size. The size classes are the register's own, so the largest class mixes medium and large companies.
- Open the recordWith a free account you see the CNPJ, the address, the phone and email, entries on the three lists, and how many establishments of the company are on record.
- Or browse by activityThe Brazil directory has 408 pages, one per manufacturing activity.
What is not checked
- The plant's exact position. The register has no coordinates, so the position shown is the centre of the municipality.
- Whether the phone and email still reach the company. Testigo checks only that the email domain accepts mail.
- Certificates, capacity, quality and financial health. The register does not hold them.
- Partners and legal representatives. Testigo did not load those files.
- Micro companies and individual entrepreneurs. They are not on Testigo.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Brazilian CNPJ register public?
Yes. The Receita Federal publishes the whole register as open data every month, and the national open data portal lists it under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. It includes the tax ID, names, activity code, size class, address, phone and email of every establishment. It has no coordinates, website or headcount.
How do I read a CNPJ number?
A CNPJ has 14 digits. The first part is a base number that identifies the company. The next part is an order number for the establishment, which tells a head office from a branch. The last part is check digits. Two establishments with the same base number belong to the same company.
What does CEIS mean on a Brazilian company record?
CEIS is a federal register of companies declared unfit or suspended by a public body, published by the comptroller general, CGU. An entry on a record means the company's tax ID was on the list in the edition shown. Each sanction has a start and an end date, so read the current list.
Why does Testigo show fewer Brazilian manufacturers than the register holds?
Because most active manufacturing registrations in Brazil are individual entrepreneurs and micro companies. Testigo drops individuals, whose data is personal, and has so far loaded small, medium and large companies. The count in the source and the count loaded are both on the coverage page, with the rule.
Sources
- Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica (CNPJ), dados abertosReceita Federal · edition 2026-09-14
- CNPJ file layoutReceita Federal · edition read 2026-10-03
- CEIS and CNEP downloadsCGU, Portal da Transparência · edition 2026-10-02
- Cadastro de EmpregadoresMinistério do Trabalho e Emprego · edition 2026-09-28