The Federal Government instituted the Electronic Transport Document (DT-e), a single digital document applicable to all freight operations in Brazil, under a unified national system. It seeks to streamline domestic transportation activities through the integration of transport modalities and alignment of federal, state, and local requirements.
The Federal Government sanctioned Law n.º 14.206/2021, instituting the Electronic Transport Document (DT-e, in the Portuguese acronym), a single freight digital document responsible for the registration, characterization, and oversight of all freight operations in Brazil – in respect to the domestic transport network, including highway, rail, waterway, air, and pipeline transportation. A DT-e must be generated (by freight operators) and issued (within the DT-e operating system) before the commercial transport operation is carried out.
The DT-e and its operating system seek to streamline domestic transportation activities, by unifying authorization requirements across the national, state, and local levels of government, integrating transport modalities under a single framework and facilitating logistics development and technology incorporation (article 3). In turn, the DT-e is expected to mitigate regulatory burdens, tax avoidance, and transportation inefficiency, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure.
As provided in article 26, the Federal Government will enact the dispositions for DT-e implementation, concerning the form and schedule of the transition from the current state of transport operations to the single and digital one under the DT-e system. State and municipal governments may establish agreements with the Federal Government on DT-e implementation, providing an additional transition period of up to 12 months (article 4).
The pending Federal Government act on DT-e implementation will provide the conditions for DT-e generation by private freight operators (article 10). It will also provide the DT-e operating system, which may be operated by the Federal Government or a concessionary company (article 11). Additionally, Chapter “IV” of the new law established the infractions and penalties related to the DT-e, which will also be subject to further regulation.
