Brazilian Federal Revenue Service Normative Instruction No. 2,292/2025 was presented as an instrument for modernizing foreign trade, with advances in digitalization, compliance, and streamlining procedures. However, the amendment that redefines the representative as a "natural or legal person" shifts the debate to a sensitive point: the limits of their role in customs clearance and the customs broker's function.
A customs broker is not merely an intermediary. They are a qualified professional whose role is crucial to the success of operations. They ensure the correct interpretation of legislation, tariff classification, compliance with administrative requirements, and the technical management of customs clearance before customs authorities.
In practice, their role separates a regular operation from a significant liability. Errors in customs clearance can result in goods being held, fines, forfeiture, and other penalties. The customs broker, therefore, not only adds efficiency but also mitigates risks and ensures compliance.
This prominence is not accidental. The profession is regulated by higher-level norms, which structured customs representation as a technical activity of a highly personal nature, carried out by a qualified individual. At this point, the innovation introduced by RFB Instruction No. 2,292/2025 raises legal questions. By admitting the participation of legal entities as representatives, the sub-legal norm seems to encroach upon a matter already governed by the Customs Regulations, which links the exercise of the function to the customs broker.
Public administration is subject to the principle of strict legality. Normative instructions have a regulatory function and cannot innovate in the legal order or create situations not foreseen by law or decree.
By broadening the concept of representation, the regulation challenges this limit. It is a matter of preserving the coherence of the regulatory system and the legal certainty of operations. Modernizing foreign trade is necessary, but it cannot do without qualified technical expertise.
In this scenario, the customs broker remains a central figure, ensuring that operations occur within legal parameters. In foreign trade, efficiency without technique is risk. And it is precisely this technique that the customs broker provides.
Dr. Andrea Aquino
President of the Maritime, Port, Airport and Customs Law Commission of the OAB/CE (Brazilian Bar Association, Ceará chapter).
