Bringing appliances from South Africa to Brazil: will it work?

Hello Mariana,

There are a couple of major problems with bringing appliances to Brazil. First of all depending on where in Brazil you will be living you will find that the electricity will be either 127 v or 220 v, 60 Hz. So unless your appliances are for that specific voltage you are going to have to invest in either a step-up or step-down transformer for them to function.

The other problem, which is probably much more important is that the appliances you will be bringing to Brazil will not be type approved by INMETRO, which is Brazil's standards agency. In order to get them type approved you would need to go through exactly the same costly and time consuming process that the appliance manufacturer would have to go through here.

Most televisions, stereo equipment and computers will work quite well here in Brazil provided that they are dual voltage; however you still have the risk involved with them not being type approved. As many people tend to bring those items more often I would suspect that the risk there would be somewhat less, but still could pose a problem.

Using appliances which are not type approved creates serious civil liability should anything go wrong. For example if an appliance were to develop a short circuit and cause a fire, any insurance you have would not cover any damages to your property or that of any third party. So if you lived in an apartment building and a fire substantially damaged or destroyed other units as well as your own you would be facing astronomical expenses that would come out of your pocket to cover those damages. This could potentially wipe the average person out financially. Trust me, it is not worth the risks involved with appliances. You can purchase a good quality gas stove/oven combo for R$500 an up, a refrigerator (2dr) runs around R$1500 or a little more depending on the features you want. A digital control washing machine sells for around R$1000 and air conditioners around R$850 and up.

Electric stoves / electric clothes dryers / gas clothes dryers are not popular here in Brazil and are rarely ever seen.

It is much more practical to sell or donate your existing appliances (or put in storage if your move is only temporary) and purchase new appliances here in Brazil, which will not carry this inherent risk. Actually, unless your employer is picking up the bill for shipping a container to Brazil you're really going to be much better off (and money ahead) by only bringing small items, personal items and anything with great sentimental value. You could probably go a very long way towards furnishing your new home here completely with what you would spend on shipping a container. Also you would not have to worry about your belongings being tied up in Customs for a prolonged period of time before they would be available to you here. 

Cheers,
James     Expat-blog Experts Team

Thank you James!
I am aware of all that and we have counted all that into the decision process, but I was now informed about this frequency thing that I am not sure impacts on the appliances functioning...