Brazil does not treat community radio as a small commercial station with a nicer slogan. It is a separate service, created by Law 9.612 of 19 February 1998: FM sound broadcasting, low power, restricted coverage, granted only to a non-profit community foundation or association based in the place it serves. The statute caps power at 25 watts ERP and the antenna at 30 meters. Decree 2.615 of 3 June 1998 measures that coverage as a radius of up to 1,000 meters from the transmitting antenna.
I think the expensive mistake is to fire up a transmitter and treat the paperwork as step two. Brazil’s Ministry of Communications, on a page updated 15 May 2026, describes the opposite order: you enter a public call for applications (edital), clear a document check, face a selection if anyone else applied, wait for a ministerial order, then Congress, then a station license. Only then does the FM go on. If you only want an internet stream, you are looking at a different service. This is not legal advice. Read the ministry and talk to counsel before you file.
American LPFM readers will recognize the power class and miss the politics. In Brazil, a broadcast grant still goes through Congress. That is not a blog flourish. It is the process the ministry publishes.
Who the law lets in
Only a community foundation or association, non-profit, legally formed, with its seat in the community. Directors must be Brazilian-born or naturalized for more than ten years, and they must live in the area they serve (article 7). A private individual cannot hold the grant. A company written for profit cannot either. The gov.br service card also wants open membership for people who live there, equal voice and vote, rotating directors, and a body that is not a satellite of government or of another organization.
One grant per entity (article 10). Anyone already running another broadcasting service or pay-TV stays out, and a director of one grant does not sit on the board of another. The ministry will also refuse a filing if the proposed antenna sits less than 4 km from another authorized community station, or if the applicant had a clandestine-broadcasting case in the five years before the tender date.
That is a spectrum rule and a control rule. On paper, Brazilian community radio is a neighbourhood station, not a hidden branch of a larger house.
The real path: plan, tender, Congress, Anatel
There is no standing queue where you file and wait your turn. The ministry publishes a National Grant Plan (PNO-RADCOM) listing the municipalities in upcoming tenders. A town with no authorized community station can go on the list. So can a town where someone has filed a statement of interest, with CNPJ (the Brazilian company ID), municipality and antenna coordinates.
When a tender drops, the clock is the one in that document. The ministry’s list includes an application with the statutory declarations, bylaws and minutes recorded at a registry office, proof of nationality and majority for every director, statements of community support, and a receipt for the filing fee. On the gov.br card, a driving license and a tax ID are not accepted as proof of nationality. A birth or marriage certificate, identity card, military certificate, naturalisation older than ten years, professional card, work booklet or passport are.
If only one applicant qualifies, that applicant can receive the grant. If more than one qualifies, the law tells the ministry to push them to join forces. If they will not, representativeness wins, counted through community support. A tie goes to a drawing of lots (article 9).
Then come the remaining papers, the winner’s proclamation, the authorisation order in the official gazette, and the external phase: the Presidency and Congress. If Congress approves, it issues a legislative decree for ten years, counted from publication. The ministry and gov.br both use the same waiting rule: after 90 days with no congressional vote, a provisional operating authorisation is issued until Congress acts. That still is not a transmitter. The ministry is blunt: the station may operate only after the station operating license, processed with Anatel, the telecoms regulator that assigns the channel.
Can you turn on FM the day the ministerial order is published? Not according to the ministry page.
What you may put on the air
The grant lasts ten years and may be renewed for another ten (article 6, as amended by Law 10.597/2002). On air, the regulation asks for at least eight hours a day, consecutive or not (decree article 28). Networking among community stations is barred except in war, disaster, epidemic and the mandatory transmissions of the branches of government. Leasing the station or a daypart is barred (law article 19).
Commercial advertising, of any kind, is an offense in the regulation (decree article 40, XV). What the statute allows is sponsorship as cultural support, and only from a business located in the community (article 18). If you treat that as a normal spot break sold to the next town, you are reading the law backwards.
The authorized entity must set up a Community Council of at least five people, representing local organizations (trade, charitable, religious, residents’ groups), to watch whether the programming meets article 4. Educational, artistic, cultural and informational purposes come first. Proselytism is forbidden in the statute. Any resident of the community may speak, at the right point in the schedule, by asking the station.
Renewal: the 2025 statute and the 2026 ministry page
Read the article, not the FAQ. Law 15.182 of 30 July 2025 (official gazette 31 July) rewrote article 6-A: if you want renewal, you must apply to the Executive before the grant expires, with the documents the regulation lists. Paragraph 3 then says, in dry Portuguese, that missing that timing does not by itself block renewal. The agency must notify the station and ask it to file.
The ministry page, updated 15 May 2026, still describes the older window: apply between twelve and two months before expiry, or lose the grant. The same site hosts a spreadsheet of grants due in 2026. I am not opening a spreadsheet to invent a headcount. I am pointing at the clock. If your grant is on that list, the statute states the right and the ministry runs the queue. Read both.
A community station that filed after expiry is not, under the 2025 law, automatically dead. It is also not renewed. It is waiting on a notice, a file and a decision. Treat that as operational risk, not as a reason to wait.
If your radio is a stream, RadCom is not your process. If your plan is 25 watts of FM inside a one-kilometer radius, the tender is the first step, not the transmitter. The second is the statute, not a WhatsApp rumour.