Comex Stat: How to Access and Interpret Brazil’s Foreign Trade Data

Comex Stat is Brazil’s free online platform for accessing official merchandise trade statistics. Provided by the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services (MDIC), it allows users to search export and import data without registering, with monthly records dating back to 1997. For market intelligence professionals, it provides a starting point for tracking products, identifying destinations and assessing how Brazilian overseas sales have evolved. (MDIC source)

But turning a query into useful intelligence takes more than selecting a product and downloading a spreadsheet. Export value can rise without any increase in the quantity sold. A country may account for a larger share of Brazil’s exports even if its overall demand has not grown.

What matters is the question guiding the research—and how the indicators are interpreted. This guide explains how to search Comex Stat by product, country and period, understand the results and recognize when a commercial decision calls for more detailed information.

What Can You Research in Comex Stat?

In the General Data (Dados Gerais) module, users can combine information on products, countries, Brazilian states, transportation modes and Federal Revenue Service units (URFs). Products can be searched using Mercosur Common Nomenclature (NCM) codes or broader classification groups.

These filters and breakdowns help answer questions that exporters routinely face:

• Which countries buy the most of a particular product from Brazil?

• Are sales increasing in both value and quantity?

• Are exports concentrated in a small number of destinations?

• In which months do shipments typically increase?

• Which markets have gained a larger share of Brazilian exports?

Before opening the platform, it helps to turn a commercial objective into a specific question. “I want to find export markets” is broad. “Which destinations increased their purchases of my product over the past three years?” provides a clear basis for a search.

How to Search Comex Stat by Product, Country and Period

Open Comex Stat and select the General Data (Dados Gerais) module.

1. Choose the trade flow and period

Select exports or imports and enter the years and months to be analyzed. To track monthly changes, select the option to break the results down by month.

The selected months apply to all years included in the search. For example, selecting 2024 through 2025 and January through June allows you to compare the first six months of each year.

To assess growth, compare equivalent periods. Comparing nine months of one year with the full 12 months of the previous year can produce misleading conclusions.

2. Select the product

Add an NCM filter and select the code corresponding to the product. Check its description: a broad commercial name may cover goods with different characteristics.

If your analysis covers several codes, record which ones you included. You will need that list to reproduce the search and explain the scope of the results.

3. Choose countries and result breakdowns

The Filters (Filtros) fields narrow the search; the Breakdown (Detalhamento) fields determine how the results are displayed.

To examine a specific destination, apply a country filter. To find out which countries buy the product, leave countries unrestricted and add country to the breakdown.

4. Select indicators and export the results

Select FOB value and net weight in kilograms. To view statistical quantity, include NCM in the breakdown. Run the query and export the results to Excel or CSV. You can also generate a link that preserves the selected parameters.

When saving the spreadsheet, record the extraction date, period, codes and filters. This makes it easier to update the analysis and for other team members to check the findings.

How to Interpret FOB Value, Weight and Statistical Quantity

Each indicator answers a different question. Looking at them together helps distinguish growth in dollar-denominated sales from an increase in the quantity traded.

MDIC notes that reported dollar values are not adjusted for price inflation. The unit used for statistical quantity must also be checked for each NCM code.

One useful calculation is:

Average value per kilogram = Total FOB value ÷ Total net weight

This result helps track changes in the average value of the exported mix. It should not be treated as a market quotation or the price a company can necessarily negotiate: the composition of sales may change across products, destinations and periods.

When calculating an average across multiple shipments, divide the total value by the total weight. Taking a simple average of each line’s value per kilogram can distort the result, as it gives equal weight to shipments of different sizes.

Practical Example: Identifying Destinations Worth Further Analysis

Consider a company evaluating whether to expand its presence in an overseas market. The first step is to examine how Brazilian exports of its product have evolved.

The query could be set up as follows:

After identifying the relevant destinations, repeat the search with a monthly breakdown to assess how regularly sales take place.

To illustrate how to interpret the results, consider the hypothetical figures below for one of those markets. These figures were not retrieved from Comex Stat.

In this scenario, export value increased while weight remained unchanged. It would therefore be incorrect to conclude that the physical volume sold had grown by 20%.

The results suggest taking a closer look at the average value and the composition of sales. The next step would be to determine whether the trend persisted throughout the year, which products drove it and how it compared with other destinations.

The conclusion also needs to be carefully framed: the query shows that country’s purchases from Brazil, not its imports from every international supplier. An increase in Brazilian exports alone does not prove that the overall market is expanding.

What Checks Help Avoid Misinterpretation?

Compare equivalent data sets

Before comparing two spreadsheets, check the product, period, country, mode of transport and unit of measurement.

If one query includes all modes of transport and another covers maritime shipments only, the totals represent different sets of transactions. The same applies when comparing an entire product group with a single NCM code.

Check the geographic definition

For exports in the General Data module, the state (UF) refers to the state where the product was produced. Municipal-level queries, by contrast, use the exporting company’s registered tax address. A company’s commercial headquarters and its production facility may be in different states, resulting in different geographic distributions.

Define whether the question concerns where the goods were produced or where the company is registered before choosing a module.

Account for revisions and reference dates

Data may be revised to reflect corrections to customs declarations. In addition, the date used for statistical reporting may differ from the date recorded in an operational system or another database.

When figures do not match, check the extraction date and methodology before assuming that one of the sources is wrong.

Check product-code continuity over time

In historical analyses, verify that product codes and their descriptions remain comparable across the period. Changes to classification systems may require adjustments to the set of goods being analyzed.

MDIC publishes code and classification tables alongside its open datasets, supporting the organization and verification of queries.

Commercial Questions: What Data Do You Need?

A useful query begins by matching the business question with the level of information available.

Comex Stat does not publish company-level trade statistics or lists of commercial partners. Its role is to provide public access to official trade data and their available breakdowns.

How to Take the Analysis Further with DataLiner

After identifying a relevant destination in Comex Stat, a sales team may need to understand which companies participate in that trade flow and how their shipments are distributed.

Within its data coverage, Datamar’s DataLiner enables more detailed research by company, port, ocean carrier and shipment. Its features include market-share reports, shipment-record searches and company profiles, helping users investigate trade flows and potential commercial partners.

One practical approach is to use the official platform to shortlist markets worth examining and then use DataLiner to investigate the companies and operations covered for those markets. Before combining the findings, check the geographic coverage, transportation modes, period and metrics used.

This gives the research a logical next step: an observed trend becomes a commercial hypothesis that can be investigated in greater detail.

Request a DataLiner demo to explore the data available for a deeper analysis of your market.