Modalidade (Brazil Procurement Modality Types)
Modalidade is the type of procedure a Brazilian contracting authority uses to run a licitação. Lei 14.133/2021 leaves five: pregão, concorrência, concurso, leilão and diálogo competitivo (art. 28). Convite and tomada de preços, the value-banded modalities of Lei 8.666/1993, ceased to exist for new procedures on 30 December 2023, and the modality is now chosen by the nature of the object rather than by the estimated contract value.
The five modalities
Pregão is defined as the modality that is obligatory for the acquisition of common goods and services, judged on menor preço or maior desconto (art. 6, XLI). It is the workhorse of Brazilian procurement and, federally, is always run electronically.
Concorrência covers special goods and services and common and special engineering works and services. Its judgment criterion may be menor preço, melhor técnica ou conteúdo artístico, técnica e preço, maior retorno econômico or maior desconto (art. 6, XXXVIII). It is no longer defined by value.
Concurso selects a technical, scientific or artistic work and is judged on melhor técnica ou conteúdo artístico, with a prize or remuneration for the winner (art. 6, XXXIX; art. 30). Where the concurso is for a design, the winner assigns the economic rights in the project to the administration.
Leilão is for selling: immovable property, or movable goods that are unserviceable or legally seized, to whoever offers the highest bid (art. 6, XL). It requires no prior registration and has no qualification phase; the award is homologated once bidding and appeals close (art. 31).
Diálogo competitivo is restricted to contracts involving technological or technical innovation, needs that cannot be met without adapting available market solutions, or specifications that the administration cannot define with sufficient precision (art. 32). It runs in phases: at least 25 working days for expressions of interest, a recorded dialogue phase with pre-selected bidders, then a competitive phase with at least 60 working days for final proposals, conducted by a commission of at least three permanent public servants. Federally it is regulated by IN SEGES/MGI 512/2025, which enters into force on 30 November 2026, the date set by IN SEGES/MGI 129/2026.
What was abolished
Convite and tomada de preços disappeared with Lei 8.666/1993 on 30 December 2023, as did the RDC of Lei 12.462/2011. Creating other modalities, or combining the five, is expressly forbidden (art. 28, para. 2). If a document dated after that describes a tomada de preços, it is either an old-law procedure still running or a template that was never updated.
Choice is driven by the object
Concorrência and pregão follow the same common procedural rite (art. 29, referring to art. 17). The selection rule between them is qualitative: pregão is adopted whenever the object has performance and quality standards that can be objectively defined in the edital through usual market specifications. Pregão does not apply to specialised technical services of a predominantly intellectual nature, nor to works and engineering services, except the common engineering services identified in art. 6, XXI, (a).
Value has not vanished from the law, but it does a different job. It sets the ceilings for direct contracting by dispensa (art. 75; R$ 130,984.20 for works and engineering services and R$ 65,492.11 for other goods and services in 2026, under Decreto 12.807/2025), the threshold above which certain guarantees and qualification requirements apply, and the definition of large-scale works. It no longer selects the modality.
Criteria of judgment
Art. 33 lists six: menor preço, maior desconto, melhor técnica ou conteúdo artístico, técnica e preço, maior lance (for leilão) and maior retorno econômico. The pairing of modality and criterion is what actually shapes a bid. Federal regulation is issued criterion by criterion: IN SEGES/ME 73/2022 for menor preço and maior desconto in electronic form, IN SEGES/MGI 2/2023 for técnica e preço, IN SEGES/MGI 12/2023 for melhor técnica ou conteúdo artístico and IN SEGES/ME 96/2022 for maior retorno econômico.
The mode of dispute matters too: bidding may be open, closed or both, but a closed-only mode is prohibited where the criterion is menor preço or maior desconto, and an open mode is prohibited where the criterion is técnica e preço (art. 56).
What is not a modalidade
Dispensa and inexigibilidade are routes to direct contracting, not modalities. Art. 78 sets out auxiliary procedures which are frequently mislabelled as modalities: credenciamento, pré-qualificação, the procedimento de manifestação de interesse, the sistema de registro de preços and the registro cadastral. A registro de preços, in particular, is conducted through a pregão or a concorrência, or through direct contracting where regulation permits.
The newest addition follows the same logic. Lei 15.266/2025 inserted electronic commerce as a credenciamento hypothesis (art. 79, IV), operated through the Sistema de Compras Expressas (Sicx). It is not a sixth modality, and it is not yet usable: the MGI opened a public consultation on the draft decree in May 2026.
Reading the modality as a supplier
The modality tells you the shape of the contest before you read the rest of the edital. Pregão means a price contest with short deadlines, typically 8 to 10 working days. Concorrência means documentation and, often, technical scoring, with 25 to 60 working days. Diálogo competitivo means a long, staged engagement that begins with a pre-selection. Concurso buys an idea. Leilão means the state is selling.