Brazil's minerals council can meet in ten days. Its first tax credit lands in 2030.

On September 4 this desk put two questions to Brasilia. Would Lula sanction both of Brazil’s open AI files without vetoes, and would the last-minute Senate wording on “low emission” power survive. Both answers landed this week, one day apart. The minerals law came through without a single veto. The “low emission” wording survived too, except that nobody has said what it means and the question went to a regulation carrying no date. Together the two sanctions describe a government that switched on its discretion immediately and postponed most of what it owes in return.

What’s happening

• Lula sanctioned the Regime Especial de Tributacao para Servicos de Datacenter, Redata, on Tuesday September 15 at a Planalto ceremony attended by seven ministers. It suspends federal taxes on the purchase, domestic or imported, of information technology and communications equipment destined for data centers, covering Imposto de Importacao, IPI, PIS/Pasep and Cofins [Poder360, September 15, 2026].
• The Receita Federal projection made in February puts forgone revenue at R$5.2 billion in 2026, R$1 billion in 2027 and R$1.05 billion in 2028, which is R$7.25 billion across three years (desk arithmetic on the published schedule). Those figures already sit inside the PLOA 2026 projections [Poder360, September 15, 2026].
• The rule saying what may power those data centers was not decided. The original text restricted the benefit to supply that is 100 percent renewable. A change made in the Senate hours before the vote added sources “considered low emission,” which opens the door to natural gas. Fazenda’s technical team told reporters after the ceremony that the question goes to a separate interministerial portaria, and gave no deadline [Poder360, September 15, 2026].
• One day later, on Wednesday September 16, Lula sanctioned the Politica Nacional de Minerais Criticos e Estrategicos without vetoes. It is Lei 15.506 of 2026, published in an edicao extra of the Diario Oficial da Uniao the same day [Agencia Senado, September 17, 2026; Agencia Estado via O Povo, September 16, 2026].
• At that ceremony he also signed the decree formalising CIMCE, the council attached to the Presidency of the Republic. Casa Civil minister Miriam Belchior said the government could hold the council’s first meeting in ten days [Agencia Estado via O Povo, September 16, 2026].
• The money runs on a different clock. The PFMCE credits are worth up to R$1 billion a year between 2030 and 2034, covering up to 20 percent of qualifying spend on beneficiation, mineral transformation and urban mining, and only for projects pre-approved by CIMCE [Agencia Senado, September 17, 2026; Gazeta do Povo, September 16, 2026].

Brazil angle

Put the two dates next to each other. On Belchior’s estimate the council can convene around September 26. The first real of PFMCE credit cannot be claimed before 2030, more than three years after sanction (desk arithmetic on the published window).

The council itself is fully drawn. Gazeta do Povo’s reading of the decree sets out three instances: a Pleno chaired by the Casa Civil minister with 13 ministers of state alongside state, municipal, business and academic seats on two-year mandates; an Executive Committee chaired by MDIC that analyses, classifies and prioritises submitted projects; and an Executive Secretariat inside MDIC that screens investments. Its remit covers approving and vetoing projects, setting guidelines, and following changes of corporate control of mineral assets. ANM keeps oversight and title granting [Gazeta do Povo, September 16, 2026].

What is not drawn is the threshold. Between them the statute and the decree say who decides and how they are organised, but neither says which transactions are large enough or sensitive enough to require a decision. That number stays unwritten while the body empowered to apply it starts meeting.

The obligations on companies run on a third clock. Firms in research, mining, beneficiation and mineral transformation must put a minimum of 0.2 percent of gross operating revenue into the Fundo Garantidor da Atividade Mineral as quota subscriptions, and a minimum of 0.3 percent of gross gain into research and development, rising to 0.5 percent once an initial six-year term expires [Agencia Estado via O Povo, September 16, 2026]. The FGAM carries up to R$2 billion of Uniao participation inside a fund estimated at R$5 billion once states, municipalities and private money are counted [Agencia Senado, September 17, 2026; Agencia Estado via O Povo, September 16, 2026]. The sources do not say when that six-year term starts, which is the thing to establish: unless the regulation sets it running in 2030, companies capitalise the fund well before its credits are available to them.

US angle

American capital took its Brazilian positions under a different rule. When AP and Reporter Brasil reviewed every ANM rare earth exploration application filed through June, 42 percent came from foreign-linked filers and the United States accounted for 347 of them [AP and Reporter Brasil, as reported by this desk, August 20, 2026]. In April, Washington locked a US$565 million deal with Serra Verde, Brazil’s only operating rare earth mine [South China Morning Post, April 15, 2026].

Those commitments were made when a change of control was a commercial matter. It is now something CIMCE follows. Leonardo Durans of the industry ministry framed the policy in April in terms that have aged into statute: “Our doors of Brazil to foreign investment are open, but our position has matured,” adding that “the commitment we will demand from everyone is domestic technological development and job creation” [South China Morning Post, April 15, 2026]. The demand is now law. The credit meant to make domestic processing pay does not open until 2030.

China angle

Beijing’s exposure runs through a different door. China has filed no ANM rare earth exploration applications at all [AP and Reporter Brasil, as reported by this desk, August 20, 2026], so the claim register was never the route in. Contracts, offtake and processing partnerships were, and those are precisely the operations CIMCE is now constituted to follow. For a counterparty whose Brazilian position is contractual rather than titular, an undefined threshold is not a lighter burden than a defined one. It is a wider one.

What it means

Brazil has built the gate and scheduled the road for later. That is a defensible sequence if the gate is what you are short of. It is a harder sell to the capital that has to walk through it, because the friction is dated this month and the incentive meant to offset it is dated 2030.

The desk indexes as of the September 12 update show TAI at 103.2, with materials at 102.2 and power at 106.2, SOV50 at 112.8 and the Southern Diversification Index at 101.1. SOV50 has come down hard from the 122.2 this desk cited for August 29, a fall of 9.4 points between those two readings (desk arithmetic on the two published values). Concentration risk is repricing lower while diversification, with SDX barely above its January base, is not arriving fast enough to replace it. A statute that adds a homologation step at the front of every foreign transaction is not the obvious way to close that gap, whatever it does for sovereignty.

What to watch

• The interministerial portaria defining “low emission” for Redata. Rogerio Ceron said the first regulatory decree was due within the week of September 15 and the portaria would follow “very soon,” without naming a date. Whether natural gas qualifies decides how much of Brazil’s data center buildout runs on thermal generation, with storage requirements or carbon credit purchases among the conditions under discussion if it does [Poder360, September 15, 2026].
• CIMCE’s first meeting, which on Belchior’s ten-day estimate falls in late September, and whether it publishes a threshold defining an operation of strategic relevance. Until that number exists, every foreign acquirer prices the widest reading of the statute.
• The first change of corporate control actually submitted to CIMCE, timed from filing to homologation. One American or Australian purchase of a Brazilian rare earth position, measured end to end, will tell the market more than the law text does.