Special customs regimes — what they are and which ones exist
Special customs regimes are differentiated treatments that allow the suspension, exemption or refund of the taxes levied on foreign trade, under customs control, instead of the full and definitive taxation of the common regime. They are governed by Book IV of the Customs Regulation (Decree 6.759/2009) and cover, among others, Transit (art. 315), Temporary Admission (art. 353), Drawback (art. 383), the Bonded Warehouse (art. 404), RECOF (art. 420) and REPETRO (art. 458). Their common trait is to temporarily relieve the operation of tax: the suspended tax obligations are constituted in a responsibility undertaking signed by the beneficiary (art. 352).
What they are and what they are for
Special customs regimes exist to temporarily relieve foreign-trade operations that do not fit the full taxation of the common regime. Instead of charging the taxes in full and definitively at clearance, the special regime keeps them suspended while the goods fulfill a specific purpose: passing through the territory (transit), being stored (bonded warehouse and depots), entering for a fixed term to return abroad (temporary admission) or being industrialized to export (drawback, RECOF, REPETRO).
The parent rule is the Customs Regulation — Decree 6.759/2009, whose Book IV lists and governs each regime; the original basis of several of them dates back to Decree-Law 37/1966, and temporary admission and export are regulated by RFB Normative Instruction 1.600/2015. The market speaks of around “17 modalities”, but that number is a didactic approximation, not a total fixed by the law: the count varies depending on how one classifies offshoots such as inward and outward processing, Repex, Reporto and EPZ.
Which are the main regimes
Book IV of the Customs Regulation sets the opening article of each regime. The main ones are Customs Transit (art. 315), Temporary Admission (art. 353) and the modality for economic use (art. 373), Drawback (art. 383), the Bonded Warehouse (art. 404), RECOF (art. 420), Temporary Export (art. 431), REPETRO (art. 458), the Duty-Free Shop (art. 476) and the depots — Special (art. 480), Bonded (art. 488), Certified Bonded (art. 493) and Free (art. 499).
The tax effect varies: most regimes suspend taxes, but drawback knows three modalities — suspension (art. 386), exemption (art. 393) and refund (art. 397) — and the Certified Bonded Depot produces the effect of deeming exported the goods. Do not confuse them with the special tax regimes (REPES, RECAP, PADIS, PATVD, of Laws 11.196/2005 and 11.484/2007): these are based on their own laws and require neither a responsibility undertaking nor a term of validity. REPETRO-Sped is a hybrid case, with both a customs and a tax facet.
Term, governance and the Tax Reform
Every special regime rests on a responsibility undertaking (art. 352 of the Customs Regulation): the suspended tax obligations are constituted until the conditions and the term are met. As a reference rule, the suspension on import is granted for up to one year, extendable up to a total of five years and, in exceptional and justified cases, for a longer period — but each regime has its own term in its own norm. Non-compliance with the term or diversion of purpose makes the suspended taxes chargeable and, in a serious infraction, may give rise to the forfeiture penalty, judged in two tiers by CEJUL (outside the CARF), with a 20-day appeal term, since Law 14.651/2023.
The Tax Reform (Complementary Law 214/2025) reaches the regimes as regards IBS and CBS: art. 84 suspends these taxes on import during customs transit, and temporary admission for economic use comes to have a proportional daily calculation (0.033% per day) for IBS/CBS, in parallel to the 1% per month of the federal taxes. The complete overview — the master table of every regime, the decision tree for which one applies, drawback, depots and the impact of the Reform — is in the guide Special customs regimes: the complete map.
Frequently asked questions about special customs regimes
What are special customs regimes?
Special customs regimes are differentiated treatments that allow the suspension, exemption or refund of the taxes levied on foreign trade, under customs control, instead of the full and definitive taxation of the common regime. They are governed by Book IV of the Customs Regulation (Decree 6.759/2009) and cover, among others, Transit (art. 315), Temporary Admission (art. 353), Drawback (art. 383), the Bonded Warehouse (art. 404), RECOF (art. 420) and REPETRO (art. 458). The suspended obligations are constituted in a responsibility undertaking signed by the beneficiary (art. 352).
Which are the special customs regimes?
The main special customs regimes of the Customs Regulation are Transit (art. 315), Temporary Admission (art. 353) and for economic use (art. 373), Drawback (art. 383), the Bonded Warehouse (art. 404), RECOF (art. 420), Temporary Export (art. 431), REPETRO (art. 458), the Duty-Free Shop (art. 476) and the depots — Special (art. 480), Bonded (art. 488), Certified Bonded (art. 493) and Free (art. 499). The market speaks of around “17 modalities”, but that number is a didactic approximation, not a total fixed by the law. They are not to be confused with the special tax regimes (REPES, RECAP, PADIS, PATVD), which are based on specific laws and require neither a responsibility undertaking nor a term.
What is the special customs depot regime?
It is the storage of goods with suspension of taxes, and it gathers four figures in the Customs Regulation: the Special Depot (art. 480), for parts and replacement pieces of foreign goods; the Bonded Depot (art. 488), for the repair material of vessels and aircraft; the Certified Bonded Depot (art. 493), which deems exported the national goods deposited and sold to a buyer abroad; and the Free Depot (art. 499), for the commercial flow of neighboring countries with third countries. They are not to be confused with the Bonded Warehouse (art. 404), which is the general figure of bonded storage with suspension.