Brazil's Law 15,325/2026: what changes for people who make a living from content — and what doesn't
Direct answer: Law 15,325, signed on January 6, 2026, officially recognizes multimedia as a profession — covering influencers, content creators, streamers, podcasters, and gaming professionals. It doesn't create a professional board, doesn't require a degree, and doesn't require registration with any agency. What it does is give the activity legal standing — and nothing more. The law doesn't address advertising, sponsored-content disclosure, or metrics. The duties to identify advertising content and to answer for misleading advertising still come from the Consumer Protection Code and the Civil Code, just as they did before it.
Correction published on 09/17/2026: an earlier version of this article said Law 15,325 reinforced the obligation to disclose sponsored content and liability for inflated metrics. That was wrong. We checked the official text of Law 15,325/2026: it has 6 articles, and the words "influencer," "consumer," "misleading advertising," "identify," and "metric" don't appear in it. The text below has been corrected.
The short version
- Signed into law on 01/06/2026; it's Brazil's first federal regulation of multimedia as a profession.
- It covers anyone who commercially exploits digital content production, whether habitually or professionally.
- It doesn't create a professional board, licensing exam, degree requirement, or prior registration.
- It doesn't address advertising, sponsored-content disclosure, or liability for metrics — those obligations come from Brazil's Consumer Protection Code and Civil Code, and they haven't changed with this law.
- For anyone who makes a living from sponsored content, this law's practical change is professional recognition, not a new rule of conduct.
What the law actually says
The law recognizes as a multimedia professional anyone who habitually or professionally engages in creating, producing, editing, or distributing content in multiple digital formats — including for advertising, informational, educational, or entertainment purposes.
It's a deliberately broad definition. It covers the Instagram influencer, the gaming streamer, the podcaster, and the video editor who works for other people. The thread connecting all of them is regularity with an economic purpose: someone producing content as a hobby isn't the law's target.
On the obligations side, the law consolidates three points that were already being enforced through other means:
- Clear identification of advertising or sponsored content — sponsored content has to be labeled as sponsored.
- Being expressly subject to the Consumer Protection Code and the Civil Code.
- Civil liability for misleading advertising and for omission.
What it doesn't do — and why that matters
A lot of misinformation has circulated about this law, so it's worth being explicit about its limits.
| What people have been saying | What the law actually does |
|---|---|
| "You need a degree to be an influencer now" | No. There's no requirement for specific training |
| "There will be a professional board and an ID card" | No. It doesn't create a professional board or a licensing exam |
| "You have to register before you can post" | No. There's no prior registration with a government body |
| "It's censorship" | No. The law addresses professional practice, not content |
In practice, the law is less a barrier to entry and more a formal recognition — one with concrete effects on contracts, proof of income, brand relationships, and tax classification, precisely because the activity is no longer a legal void.
The part that matters if you buy engagement
Here's the part nobody in our industry likes to write, and that it's only honest to include.
It's worth separating two things that tend to get mixed up. This law didn't create new liability. What exists — and already existed before it — is liability for incorrect information given within a business relationship, which comes from the Consumer Protection Code and the Civil Code. Anyone who uses inflated metrics as a sales pitch is liable for that with or without Law 15,325. Presenting a brand with a follower or engagement number that doesn't match the real audience, to close a sponsorship deal, isn't just a reputational issue anymore: it's incorrect information given within a business relationship, and that has been true since before this law.
That doesn't make buying followers or likes illegal — there's no rule against it, and the subject is covered in detail in our honest guide to buying engagement. What matters is the use you make of the number:
- Reinforcing social proof on a profile that already has a real audience — the number is a showcase, not a contractual argument.
- Selling sponsored posts with a metric you know to be artificial — at that point, the number becomes information given to a contracting party — and the Consumer Protection Code and Civil Code have something to say about that, with or without Law 15,325.
The difference between the two cases is what you declare to the person paying. Anyone who works with brands should know their real engagement rate before negotiating — the engagement calculator and the how-much-to-charge-for-sponsored-posts calculator are free and require no login.
What to do now
If you make a living from content: disclose sponsored posts unambiguously, keep contracts in writing, and keep a record of what was agreed with each brand. Professional recognition works in your favor in a dispute — as long as there's documentation.
If you hire influencers: ask for metric screenshots taken directly from the account dashboard, not screenshots from third-party tools, and include a clause in the contract on the accuracy of the numbers presented.
If you buy engagement: use it for what it's good for — social proof and a baseline — not as a sales pitch. It's the same reasoning behind choosing the right signal for each goal, covered in likes, saves, or shares.
The limits of this article
- This is informational content, written from a public reading of the law and published legal analyses. It's not a legal opinion.
- How a new law applies in practice gets defined in the courts, and there's no settled case law yet.
- Specific cases involving contracts, taxation, and liability require a lawyer.
What this means in practice
Law 15,325/2026 doesn't push anyone out of the game — it formalizes a market that was already moving money without a legal framework. For the serious creator, that's good news: firmer contracts, recognized activity, brand disputes on clearer ground. For anyone whose negotiating leverage rested on a made-up number, it's the end of a comfortable gray area. And that distinction — between using a metric as a showcase and using it as a contractual argument — is the one line that really matters here.
Full guide to pricing and the market: this article digs into one slice of the topic. The bigger picture, with the step-by-step and the context missing here, is in our full guide to pricing and the market.