Event Summary
Brazil’s Provisional Measure (MP) 1318/2025, issued on 18 September 2025, created the ReData special tax regime to attract large-scale data center investment. As of February 2026, the measure is still awaiting the required congressional review, particularly the installation of the Joint Congressional Committee (Chamber of Deputies and Senate. This procedural delay keeps the policy in place while limiting substantive scrutiny and amendments. According to the current legislative timeline, the deliberation window has been extended and is open until 25 February 2026, under an accelerated procedure. The legislative process has moved under an accelerated (“urgency”) procedure creating a narrowing timeframe in which Congress may approve, amend, or allow the measure to lapse, increasing the risk that major fiscal and sustainability decisions advance without adequate democratic oversight. Civil society engagement and monitoring therefore remain time-sensitive in the coming weeks.
Brazil’s push to position itself as a “green digital hub” has accelerated through fiscal incentives for large-scale data centers, despite mounting concerns about resource use and democratic oversight. While government narratives emphasize innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability, civil society organizations and researchers have flagged risks that data center expansion can intensify water consumption, energy demand, and e-waste generation, with limited local benefits and weak transparency from major operators. Specific territorial disputes have emerged, including in drought-prone areas (e.g., Ceará) and in environmentally fragile or disaster-affected regions (e.g., Rio Grande do Sul after the 2024 floods), where communities report inadequate information and participation. Although a formal online consultation channel exists, affected Indigenous and local communities argue that participation has been late and constrained, with no prior free, informed consultation before project planning and regulatory design advanced.
The combination of a fast legislative timetable and high-stakes resource impacts makes this a critical enabling-environment issue. In the coming weeks it will be needed that more civil society actors make their voice heard via the consultation platform to reflect especially the perspectives of those who will bear the local costs of this initiative: riverine (ribeirinha) communities and other traditional populations.