Brazil Connectivity for Foreign Companies

The CNPJ wall

Almost every foreign company that tries to buy connectivity in Brazil hits the same sentence: the carrier needs a CNPJ. It is the tax registration number every Brazilian legal entity holds, and carrier billing, tax and compliance processes are built around the assumption that the customer has one. Without it, most commercial teams cannot proceed even when they want to.

Incorporating is routine but slow, and it involves decisions about structure and tax that nobody wants to rush in order to order a circuit. So the project stops before a single technical question has been asked.

How we take it off the critical path

We contract with the carriers locally on your behalf. The circuit is ordered, installed and live while incorporation proceeds in parallel — and once your entity exists, the contracts can transfer to it. In practice this is usually worth several months.

Worth agreeing up front: that the contracts are transferable and on what terms, who holds the carrier relationship in the interim, whether the IP addressing is yours or ours, and what happens if you decide not to incorporate after all.

The sequence that wastes months, and the one that does not

The expensive order is: incorporate, then talk to carriers, then discover at feasibility that the address you already leased needs civil works. Each step waits on the previous one and the project inherits the sum of the delays.

Check feasibility at the candidate addresses first. It costs nothing, takes hours, and occasionally changes which building you pick.
Order the last mile early. It is the longest pole in the tent, always.
Run incorporation in parallel, not in sequence.
Decide transit versus DIA based on whether you will have your own ASN. If you need transit, start the ASN and IP block request at NIC.br early too.

What else surprises people

Coverage maps are drawn at city level. Last mile is decided at street level, and two buildings on one avenue can be months apart.
São Paulo is not like everywhere else. It concentrates the carrier density, the exchange capacity and the carrier-neutral data centre market. Price and lead time change substantially outside it.
Peering matters more here. A large share of Brazilian traffic is exchanged at IX.br rather than bought as transit, which changes what you should commit to.
Redundancy has to be verified physically. Two carriers frequently share the same duct.

Paying us

We accept payment in USD and EUR, so the currency conversation does not become another reason the project stalls.

Questions we get asked

Can a foreign company order circuits in Brazil before incorporating?

Yes. The barrier is not engineering, it is the CNPJ requirement most carriers impose. JCM Carrier contracts on your behalf, so circuits can be ordered and delivered before your Brazilian entity exists.

What is a CNPJ and why does it block connectivity projects?

It is the Brazilian tax registration for companies. Most carriers here will not open a commercial relationship without one, which turns a technical project into a legal one before a single circuit is ordered.

Can the contract move to our Brazilian entity once it is open?

Yes. The contract can transfer to your entity once it exists, so contracting through us is a way to take the CNPJ off the critical path rather than a permanent arrangement.

In what currency can we pay?

We accept payment in USD and EUR.

How long does a quote take?

Normally within two business hours. Send the addresses with street and number and you get price, lead time and SLA for each one.