Licitação (Brazil Public Procurement)
Licitação is the Portuguese term for the formal competitive procedure a Brazilian public body must run before contracting goods, services or works. Since 30 December 2023 there is only one general statute: Lei 14.133/2021, which on that date revoked Lei 8.666/1993, the pregão law (Lei 10.520/2002) and the RDC provisions of Lei 12.462/2011. The rules apply at federal, state and municipal level alike, and every act the law requires must be published on the Portal Nacional de Contratações Públicas (PNCP).
One law, and the date the old one died
Lei 14.133/2021 was published on 1 April 2021 but ran alongside the old regime for a transition period. Art. 193, II, as amended by Medida Provisória 1.167/2023 and Lei Complementar 198/2023, fixed the end of that period at 30 December 2023. On that date Lei 8.666/1993, Lei 10.520/2002 and arts. 1 to 47-A of Lei 12.462/2011 (the RDC) were revoked.
The practical rule is the publication date. A body could ground a procedure in the old statutes only if the edital or the direct-contracting authorisation was published by 29 December 2023 and the choice was stated expressly; combining the two regimes was forbidden. Contracts and atas de registro de preços formed that way remain governed by the old rules for their entire life (art. 191). So a supplier in 2026 will still be performing old-law contracts, but every new tender is a Lei 14.133 tender.
The law has itself been amended since: Lei 14.770/2023 widened adhesion to price-registration agreements, and Lei 15.266/2025 added the Sistema de Compras Expressas and reworked the unified supplier register. The monetary figures in the law are updated annually; the values in force since 1 January 2026 were set by Decreto 12.807/2025.
Who is bound
The law is the general national rule for the direct administration, autarquias and fundações of the Union, the states, the Federal District and the municipalities, and for the administrative contracting of the legislative and judicial branches. State-owned enterprises and mixed-capital companies procure under their own statute, Lei 13.303/2016.
How a licitação runs
Art. 17 sets a fixed sequence: preparatory phase, publication of the edital, submission of proposals and bids, judgment, qualification (habilitação), appeals, and homologation. Note the order: qualification documents are examined after the proposals have been judged, so in a normal procedure only the provisional winner's paperwork is opened. The reverse order is possible, but only when the edital says so and the decision is reasoned (art. 17, para. 1).
Procedures are held electronically by default; an in-person session must be justified and recorded on audio and video (art. 17, paras. 2 and 5). Minimum periods between publication and the deadline are set by art. 55: 8 working days for goods judged on menor preço or maior desconto, 10 for common services and common engineering works, 25 for special services and special engineering works, and 35 or 60 working days for the more complex regimes and criteria.
The routes available
There are five modalities (art. 28): pregão, concorrência, concurso, leilão and diálogo competitivo. The old value-banded modalities, convite and tomada de preços, no longer exist.
Outside them sit direct contracting by dispensa (art. 75) and inexigibilidade (art. 74). Value still matters here: for 2026 the dispensa ceilings are R$ 130,984.20 for works and engineering services and R$ 65,492.11 for other goods and services (Decreto 12.807/2025). Art. 78 adds auxiliary procedures that are often mistaken for modalities: credenciamento, pré-qualificação, the procedimento de manifestação de interesse, the sistema de registro de preços and the registro cadastral.
Where opportunities appear
The PNCP is the official site for centralised, obligatory publication (art. 174). The full edital and annexes go there (art. 54), an extract is also published in the official gazette and in a newspaper, and a contract has no effect until it is published on the PNCP (art. 94). Federal bodies transact on Compras.gov.br; states and larger municipalities use their own systems, all of which are required to feed the PNCP.
Coverage is still uneven at the bottom of the pyramid. Municipalities with up to 20,000 inhabitants were given six years from publication of the law, that is until April 2027, to comply with the electronic-form and official-site publication requirements, and may meanwhile publish in the official gazette and keep physical copies available (art. 176).
Foreign suppliers
The law forbids differential commercial, legal, labour or social-security treatment between Brazilian and foreign companies (art. 9, II). Attestations from foreign entities are accepted with a translation into Portuguese (art. 67, para. 4). In international tenders foreign bidders may be allowed to quote in foreign currency, in which case Brazilian bidders may do so too (art. 52). Nationality only enters at the end: if bidders remain tied after the objective tie-breakers, preference runs successively to local firms, then Brazilian firms, then firms investing in domestic research and development (art. 60, para. 1). Micro and small enterprises keep the benefits of arts. 42 to 49 of Lei Complementar 123/2006, subject to value caps (art. 4).