Environmental Licensing in Brazil

According to Brazilian law, environmental licensing is required nationwide for activities and projects that may generate a significant environmental impact. The main regulations and standards governing environmental licensing in Brazil are:

• National Environmental Policy - Law No. 6938/1981.

• CONAMA Resolution No. 237/1997 – which presents the basic procedures for Environmental Licensing.

• New Environmental Licensing Law – Law No. 15.190/2025 – recently published to try to standardize the basic procedures for issuing Environmental Licenses, mainly regarding the deadlines and validity of the licenses.

Environmental licensing is divided into 3 formal and sequential stages, which may be combined or simplified in some specific cases, as determined by law and established by some regulatory and supervisory bodies. It consists of: Preliminary License (LP), Installation License (LI), and Operating License (LO). Below, we will present specific characteristics of each of the 3 stages of Environmental Licensing.

Prior License (LP)

The Preliminary License aims to certify the environmental viability of the project, analyzing aspects such as location, the design of the project or activity, and the main environmental constraints associated with the activity to be developed. It is required before any work begins, that is, before starting construction of the project.

At this stage of the process, environmental authorities formally require certain documents to support the licensing process. Examples include the entrepreneur's institutional documentation, a detailed description of the project and the activity to be performed, and environmental studies established in the Terms of Reference (TOR).

An environmental study that falls under the umbrella of the TOR is the Environmental Impact Study and the Environmental Impact Report (EIA/RIMA), requested when the activity to be developed by the entrepreneur is potentially a cause of environmental degradation. Regarding the EIA/RIMA, it must be produced by a qualified and usually multidisciplinary technical team, as it involves characteristics that permeate the different environmental areas of the sector where the project will be established later.

The new Environmental Licensing Law reiterated the validity periods previously established for the Preliminary License (LP). The minimum validity is 3 years and the maximum is 6 years, meaning this is the time interval during which the LP is valid for the entrepreneur to carry out the next stages of the Environmental Licensing process, such as the preparation of plans, programs, and projects aimed at environmental control to be executed by the undertaking.

We emphasize that these periods may be adjusted in accordance with certain requirements and through authorization from the environmental authority. Furthermore, we point out that the LP does not authorize works or operation; that is, it only demonstrates that the basic requirements for the environmental licensing process have been met and that the entrepreneur is able to proceed with the process, carrying out the other activities for the issuance of the other environmental licenses.

Installation License (LI)

ApAfter the issuance of the Preliminary License (LP), the entrepreneur is able to proceed with the Environmental Licensing process. The subsequent step is the Installation License, which aims to authorize the installation and construction of the project in accordance with what was presented during the LP. At this stage, all environmental conditions referred to in the Terms of Reference (TR) must be met for the issuance of the Installation License (LI). Some basic requirements for the issuance of the LI that must be met by the entrepreneur are:

• Detailed Executive Projects, which must include all documentation relating to the construction and installation of the project.

• Environmental Plans, such as emission, waste and effluent controls, must be produced in accordance with the type of activity performed by the project.

• Proof that the Conditional Measures, determined in the LP, have been met in accordance with the request of the environmental authority.

• If there is a request (from the environmental agency) for complementary environmental studies, these must also be submitted for the issuance of the LI.

EIn accordance with the new Environmental Licensing Law, the validity periods for the Installation License are 3 to 6 years; that is, the entrepreneur must ensure the installation of the project falls within this validity period of the Installation License.

Operating License (LO)

DiLet's say that the final stage of Environmental Licensing is the issuance of the Operating License. This document aims to authorize the entrepreneur to begin activities at the project. To do so, the entrepreneur must prove that the work (infrastructure) was conceived in accordance with the criteria established in the Installation License and that all conditions have been met. Furthermore, they must attest that all environmental control measures are structured and have been implemented in accordance with the guidelines established in the Installation License and the Terms of Reference. In addition, the implementation of monitoring, control, and impact and risk mitigation protocols must have occurred completely and within the standards established by the environmental authority.

Regarding the legal requirements for issuing the Operating License, which may vary depending on the environmental authority (but which is not desirable according to the New Environmental Licensing Law), we have:

• Presentation of Environmental Monitoring Reports after the construction of the project.

• Presentation of documents relating to environmental conditions and their respective proof of compliance.

• Presentation of Environmental Management Plans associated with the operation of the project, supplemented by documents that attest to the operability of these environmental control systems.

SeAccording to the new Environmental Licensing Law, the deadlines for the Operating License (LO) vary according to the type of activity carried out by the enterprise, being a minimum of 5 years and a maximum of 10 years. It should be noted that the LO is a document that must be renewed whenever its term expires, thus revalidating the Operating License.

Final Considerations

The new Environmental Licensing Law assumed as its premise to nationally standardize the Environmental Licensing procedure, establishing minimum guidelines to be met by municipal, state, and federal environmental authorities. There was also a delegation of responsibility, a process that is still being aligned among the entities of the federation. Through it, the intention is to delegate responsibility to qualified municipal bodies so that they can carry out activities under state jurisdiction, such as issuing Environmental Licenses. This is not yet a reality in all Brazilian municipalities, nor is it an absolute truth; therefore, we recommend analyzing within each reader's municipality to understand whether this applies to their reality or not.

Additionally, the validity periods presented throughout the text refer to the maximum periods in which licenses can be used by entrepreneurs; after these periods, the licenses must be renewed or reviewed by the environmental agencies. The new Environmental Licensing Law also established maximum deadlines for the analysis of environmental licensing processes, which can vary from 3 to 10 months depending on the type of activity performed by the entrepreneur. Obviously, this deadline is not fixed and may vary according to the demands of environmental authorities; however, the objective is to bring predictability and legal certainty to the entrepreneur regarding the completion of the process within a reasonable timeframe, aligning environmental law with the constitutional (Article 5 of the 1988 Federal Constitution) and civil procedural (Article 4 of the 2015 Code of Civil Procedure) premise of a reasonable duration of proceedings.