Age rating for games in Brazil

Brazil is the opposite case to a voluntary industry mark. Classification is a state function, run by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, and the band a game carries now decides what the product may contain. That second half is new, and most releases have not caught up with it.

The seven bands

Free for all audiences, then not recommended under six, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen and eighteen. The under-six band is the recent addition, and the scale is published with what each tolerates: mild sadness and fantasy violence low down, then insults, weapons and bloodless fighting, then injuries and drinking, then death and nudity, then strong and frequent violence, and at the top cruelty and explicit sex.

Two routes, and the one you take depends on the disc

Physical media

Discs, cartridges and anything boxed are classified in advance through the ministry’s system. The decision takes thirty calendar days and appears in the official gazette. There is no classification fee.

Digital-only release

A download-only game may be self-classified, provided it follows the Brazilian criteria and shows the symbols and descriptors correctly. The ministry offers the international questionnaire as the practical way to do that.

What the band now decides

Since the digital statute for children and its implementing decree, the classification of games and apps in digital stores reports not only content but risk: user-to-user features in text, audio or video; paid random rewards, prohibited outright in games aimed at children and teenagers or likely to be reached by them; mechanics pushing problematic use through compulsive engagement; microtransactions; manipulative practices exploiting cognitive biases; and impacts on the health and safety of minors. This is why the band stopped being a label: it now says which prohibitions apply to your build.

What non-compliance costs

The statute sets a ladder: a warning with up to thirty days to fix, then a fine of up to ten per cent of the group’s Brazilian turnover for the last financial year, or, absent turnover, ten to a thousand reais per registered user, capped at fifty million per infringement, then suspension and prohibition of the activity. A foreign company’s Brazilian branch answers for the fine alongside it.

Whether a mechanic survives that prohibition, and what it would take to keep it, is decided in a loot box review. Ratings in the rest of the world come out of a single age rating evaluation. The remainder of a launch is handled in publishing and gamedev.

Sources: thirty days, publication in the gazette, no fee, the two routes and the foreign applicant login — Ministry of Justice and Public Security; the risk criteria — decree 12,880 of 18 March 2026, art. 12; the loot box prohibition, interaction safeguards, advertising ban and penalties — law 15,211 of 17 September 2025, art. 8, 20, 21, 22 and 35.