RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The new Company Map report from the Ministry of Economy released on Thursday, September 30, shows that Brazil has once again set a record in the number of companies opened in a quadrimester, reaching the mark of 1.4 million new businesses.
The surplus of companies in operation in the country from May through August 2021 reached 936,229. This balance is the difference between all businesses opened (1,420,782) and closed (484,553) in the period. The total number of active companies in Brazil stands at 18,440,986.
According to the report, this last four-month period is in line with the trend observed in past periods, in which the number of companies opened surpassed the 1 million mark. The sharp growth recorded from May through August 2021 represents an increase of 1.9% in relation to the previous four-month period and 26.5% compared to the same period in 2020.
The Company Map also points out that the North region is one of the highlights in the opening of companies in Brazil in the period, with 4 states among the top 5 in the ranking measuring the percentage growth of businesses opened.
Acre was the state posting the highest percentage growth in the period, with an increase of 26.6% compared to the first months of 2021 and 41.7% when compared to the second quarter of 2020. Next in the ranking are the states of Amapá, Rondônia, Alagoas, and Roraima.
It is worth noting that in these 5 states entrepreneurs count on the electronic signature of GOV.BR to facilitate the process of opening their business, thereby simplifying and streamlining it. According to Special Secretary for Debureaucratization, Management and Digital Governance of the Ministry of Economy Caio Mario Paes de Andrade, the digital transformation of public services promoted by the federal government plays a key role in improving the business environment in Brazil.
“The federal government has coordinated efforts to ensure that all stages of the process of opening a business have automatic responses for users. This prevents unnecessary travel by entrepreneurs and provides more agile procedures. The use of the GOV.BR signature in the commercial registries, for instance, has reduced both costs and the time it takes for users to have their businesses formalized. The records in new company registrations reinforce even more Brazilians’ choice for entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses,” the Secretary says.
Retail trade of clothing and accessories was the economic activity that accounted for the highest flow of new businesses, with 82,943 new companies opened – there was an increase of 11% compared to the first months of 2021 and 20.7% compared to the 2nd quarter of 2020. Other outstanding sectors were sales promotion (67,888 openings), hairdressing, manicure and pedicure (46,137), and masonry work (45,957).
REDUCED OPENING TIME
Brazil’s business environment also posted a positive performance with respect to the time it takes to open a company. The average time recorded in the second quadrimester of 2021 was 2 days and 16 hours. This is 13 hours less than the time recorded in the first four months of the year. If compared to the same period in 2020, there was a 5-hour reduction.
According to the Company Map, the state of Goiás stands out with the shortest time to open a business in the period: 1 day and 2 hours, representing a 16-hour drop (38.1%) compared to the first quarter this year. Moreover, Goiânia achieved the position of the fastest in opening businesses among the state capitals in the past 4 months, with an average time of 18 hours. Completing the list of the fastest capitals are the cities of Maceió (AL), Curitiba (PR), Brasília (DF), and Natal (RN), all with times of less than 2 days.
In terms of capital cities, Salvador’s progress is also noteworthy. The opening of companies in the capital of Bahia, which used to take 31 days, is now done in 2 days and 19 hours. As a result, the city has advanced in the national ranking of business opening time among the country’s capitals. The achievement is the result of integrating the capital into the state’s Commercial Registry, so that all procedures required to open a business are performed in the Registry website, without the need for more data collection in other websites.
“The average time to open a company in Brazil has shown a downward trend in recent months, reflecting the progress of federal, state and municipal agencies towards a more agile and simplified business opening process,” says the director of the National Department of Business Registration and Integration (DREI) André Santa Cruz.
Secretary of Digital Governance Luis Felipe Monteiro reinforces that the 2020-2022 Digital Governance Strategy has set the goal of reducing the average time it takes to open a company in Brazil to 1 day. He points out that GOV.BR has been instrumental in pursuing this reduction. “GOV.BR is a shared platform that solves problems common to all Public Administration. The platform offers tools and mechanisms to provide digital public services with quality and agility, thereby improving the business environment in Brazil and encouraging entrepreneurship,” he says.
SIMPLIFYING THE OPENING OF NEW BUSINESSES
The growth of new businesses in the country also reflects important federal government initiatives improving the process of registering and legalizing companies. Among the measures that simplify entrepreneurs’ lives are the automatic registration of companies, the Economic Freedom Law (Law 13.874/2019), the exemption of doing business permits for low-risk activities, and the recently published Law 14.195, which seeks to further simplify the opening and operation of companies in the country.
Accountant Wesley Dias from Goiânia says he has been feeling the positive impact of these initiatives that improve the business environment in Brazil on a daily basis. In the business opening area for over 30 years in the state of Goiás, he says that the simplification of procedures, whether through technology or new legislation, has greatly simplified the work routine and encouraged those who seek to start a business.
“When RedeSim – a network of computerized systems for the registration and legalization of companies and businesses, both at the federal, state and municipal levels – was introduced, I was very reluctant. But today I am convinced that the system greatly optimizes things and simplifies our work. I know there is room for improvement, but I see many advances, and the electronic signature is one of them,” he says.
COMPANY MAP
The Company Map tool was launched in 2020 by the federal government to simplify the decisions of entrepreneurs, public and private managers, and also to help researchers and analysts study productive activity.
Any citizen, anywhere in the country, has free access to the interactive Map and the Report through the gov.br portal [gov.br/mapadeempresas]. Through the tools, developed by the Special Secretariat for Debureaucratization, Management and Digital Governance of the Ministry of the Economy, in partnership with Serpro, it is possible to verify data on the opening of companies by region, state or municipality, by type of activity and time of opening, easily found and compared with past periods.