Tobacco — Brazil
What travelers need to know about tobacco in Brazil. What is legal at home can be a serious crime here — each rule links to its official source.
Tobacco in Brazil: prohibited — what is legal at home can be a serious crime here.
Smoking is banned in every enclosed shared space in Brazil, public or private, and since the 2011 amendment there is no legal indoor smoking room anywhere in the country. Article 2 of Law 9.294/1996 names government offices, hospitals and health posts, classrooms, libraries, shared workplaces and theatre and cinema halls, and §2 extends the ban to aircraft and all collective transport with no "after one hour of travel" exception. A "recinto coletivo" is defined as any enclosed place with public access meant for several people to use at the same time. The ban is written for cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, pipes "or any other smoking product, whether or not derived from tobacco", so hookah and herbal shisha are covered too.
Law 9.294/1996 sets no fine aimed at the individual smoker: the sanctions in art. 9 (R$5,000 to R$100,000, scaled to the offender's means) are defined by §3 as applying to whoever is responsible, directly or indirectly, for an advertising piece or the media carrying it. Under art. 9 §4 it is the municipal health-surveillance authority that applies sanctions, in the form of art. 12 of Law 6,437/1977, which is the route used against a venue that allows smoking; aviation infractions go to the civil-aviation regulator and transport infractions to the transport regulator.
§ Presidencia da Republica (Casa Civil) - Lei n. 9.294, de 15 de julho de 1996, texto compilado: art. 2 caput e §§1-3 (redacao da Lei n. 12.546/2011), §2 (redacao da MP n. 2.190-34/2001), art. 9 (redacao da Lei n. 10.167/2000) e art. 12. Documento autonumerado, lido ate o art. 12 final em 2026-10-03.Verified Oct 3, 2026