In July, Santander announced an offer at a 15% premium for the 10% of Santander Brasil it does not yet control, in one of the markets that contribute most to the group’s profit. Between April and May, Iberdrola completed its acquisition of Neoenergia, renewed three distribution concessions for 30 years and doubled its grid investment to BRL 50 billion through 2030. In May, Acciona won its fourth sanitation tender in the country. Aena paid more than three times the reserve price for the Galeão airport concession.
Santander, Iberdrola and Acciona have been in Brazil for decades; Aena has operated there since 2019 and already manages eighteen airports. All four expanded their commitments in the country in 2026, each in its own way: acquiring minority stakes, renewing contracts and winning auctions. For a mid-sized Spanish company considering the Brazilian market, these moves offer a concrete view of how it is evolving.
What they saw
Explaining the concession renewals, Iberdrola’s chairman spoke of “legal and contractual certainty” and “a stable and predictable regulatory environment”. He was referring to the electricity sector and to those contracts. Coming from someone who had just announced a nine-billion-euro investment, the remark matters, because it points to three changes that are happening at the same time.
Brazil has been a country of clocks running separately: trade at one pace, tax at another, private investment at a third. In 2027, all three show the same time. The three frameworks have been approved; a new government may speed up or slow down their implementation, but none returns to the starting point after the October elections.
The first clock is trade. The agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, negotiated over a quarter of a century, has applied provisionally since 1 May 2026. The European Parliament has asked the Court of Justice for an opinion on the two instruments that make it up; meanwhile, the interim trade agreement, which does not require national ratifications, is already in operation, and the full association agreement awaits the member states. Tariff reduction has begun, product by product, with rules of origin and self-certification in use. There is a second, less discussed element. Since January, Brazil and the European Union have mutually recognised the adequacy of their data protection regimes, and transfers of personal data between them no longer require the specific clauses and authorisations that previously legitimised each transfer. For a software or services company, or simply one with clients on both continents, a fixed entry cost disappears. In April, Spain and Brazil held their first bilateral summit in Barcelona, with fifteen agreements signed and the second summit already set for 2028, in Brazil.
The second clock is tax. Brazil is reforming its consumption tax system, and the change has a timetable: it began in 2026 and ends in 2033. Until then, every company operates under two regimes at once. Companies already in the country must also adapt what they built for the old system, state incentives included. A company arriving now and building from scratch designs its structure with the transition in view; one entering through an acquisition inherits the old structure and has to price it. In choosing where to set up, logistics and market access gain weight, because the competition for incentives between states is coming to an end.
The third clock is the state as seller. The Brazilian government is tendering long-term contracts at a pace unmatched in recent years: sanitation for hundreds of municipalities under the new legal framework, transmission lines, airports, highways. The transmission auction is scheduled for 30 October 2026, and the auction for Brasília airport, together with ten regional airports, for 17 December 2026; the railway and port portfolio has moved to a still indicative 2027 calendar.
Most are 25- to 35-year contracts with regulated revenues. Each one awarded is locked in for decades, and the local partner involved is already committed to whoever arrived first. That cost may surface later, in the due diligence of a partner who has already signed with someone else, or in the premium paid for a distributor who, a year earlier, would have been an ally.
What remains the same
Brazil is still a country of long timelines, complex administrative procedures and decisions that require physical presence. Gross government debt exceeds 80% of GDP, and there is uncertainty about where the exchange rate and interest rates will be in 2030. The rules of the game now have defined dates: the tax system has a published timetable to 2033, the trade agreement has a final text, the data regime has a review date. Macroeconomic uncertainty is managed through financial structure; regulatory uncertainty through contracts and corporate structure, and that second task is much simpler when one knows which rule will apply each year. That is what Iberdrola meant by “predictable”.
Other companies, of different sizes, have reached the same conclusion on their own. Concentrol, a chemicals company from Girona, opened a subsidiary in São Paulo in early 2026 because its clients were already there. Salicru, from Barcelona, entered with a Brazilian partner that has almost thirty years in the market. Factorenergia set up a company with a local group to arrive before the electricity market opens to low-voltage consumers from 2027. Gestamp opened its eighth plant in the country in June. Each found the partner, the client or the contract that made entering now viable.
The window
The three clocks will keep moving: the trade agreement will consolidate, the tax transition will run its course, thirty-year contracts will continue to be signed. Because the three intersect, entering Brazil has become a single decision, at once fiscal, commercial and corporate. Whoever splits it into parts, and hands each to someone who sees only their own, may discover the cost of the mismatch after signing. The opportunities on the table today will not wait; those who arrive later will find others, on other terms.
Fabio Buccioli is a lawyer in São Paulo and founding partner of Buccioli & Partners. For more than thirty years he has advised European companies entering Brazil.