Who runs local government in Brazil?

Brazil's 1988 constitution makes its 5,570 municipalities full members of the federation, alongside the 26 states and the Federal District, with no legal hierarchy between them. Every municipality elects a mayor and council and writes its own 'organic law' (local charter). Brazil is also famous for participatory budgeting, which began in Porto Alegre in 1989, and the constitution protects Indigenous lands and quilombola (descendants of escaped-slave communities) territories, though these are federal land rights rather than separate governments.

Federative Republic of Brazil · Federal republic · South America

The levels of government below the nation

Level	How it is chosen	What it does
States (26) + Federal District	Governor and state legislative assembly directly elected for four years	Police, state schools and hospitals, state roads, courts; states create metropolitan regions.
Municipalities (5,570)	Mayor (prefeito) and council (câmara de vereadores) directly elected for four years; mayors can serve two terms in a row	Primary schools, basic health care, urban planning, local transport, waste; each has its own organic law.

Three questions about local power in Brazil

Are local leaders elected?

Governors, state deputies, mayors and councillors are all directly elected. There are no elected sub-municipal councils. Participatory budget delegates and health council members are chosen in public meetings. Indigenous and quilombola leaders are chosen by their communities.

Which laws set up local government?

Municipalities, Indigenous lands and quilombola titles are in the constitution. Health councils are in federal law. Participatory budgeting is a municipal policy that each mayor can adopt or drop. Residents' associations are private.

Who are local leaders accountable to?

Mayors answer to voters, municipal councils, state audit courts and the courts; councils can remove a mayor by impeachment. Indigenous and quilombola leaders answer to their communities; their land rights are protected by federal agencies, prosecutors and the Supreme Federal Court.

Traditional and customary authority

The constitution (Art. 231) recognises Indigenous peoples' 'social organisation, customs, languages, beliefs and traditions' and their original rights to the lands they traditionally occupy. These lands belong to the federal Union, but Indigenous peoples have permanent possession and exclusive use of their resources. Lands are identified by FUNAI (the federal Indigenous agency), declared by the Minister of Justice and approved by presidential decree (Decree 1,775 of 1996). Inside them, communities are led by their own chiefs (caciques) and councils, but these leaders have no formal government powers: the land still lies within ordinary municipalities. Quilombola communities have a constitutional right to title over their lands (Art. 68 of the transitional provisions); INCRA, the land reform agency, issues these titles (Decree 4,887 of 2003), usually to a community association. Religious leaders, including Catholic and fast-growing evangelical churches, can be influential in local politics but hold no formal office.

Community and neighbourhood power

Residents' associations (associações de moradores) exist in most cities and favelas and are private bodies. Federal law requires municipal councils with citizen members in areas such as health (Law 8,142 of 1990 created health councils and conferences), and many municipalities have used participatory budgeting (orçamento participativo), in which residents meet by district to choose investment priorities and elect delegates to a budget council. In some favelas, armed groups such as drug factions or militias exert control; this is documented by official inquiries but is illegal, not a recognised form of authority.

Points to know

Brazil is one of very few federations where municipalities, not just states, are written into the constitution as part of the federation (Arts. 1 and 18).
Porto Alegre's participatory budget, started in 1989, spread to hundreds of Brazilian cities and around the world, and was promoted by UN-Habitat.
Participatory budgeting is not a legal right: because it depends on each mayor, Porto Alegre's own process lost much of its role in later administrations.
Municipalities vary hugely: São Paulo has over 12 million people, while many have fewer than 5,000.

Local terms

Município: A municipality: a self-governing member of the federation with its own elected mayor and council.
Orçamento participativo: Participatory budgeting: residents vote on how part of the city budget is spent.
Quilombola: A member of a community descended from Afro-Brazilians who escaped slavery, with constitutional land rights.
Terra indígena: Federally recognised Indigenous land: owned by the Union, used exclusively by its Indigenous people.

Sources

Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988, Presidência da República (Planalto), checked 14 October 2026
Country profile: Brazil, OECD–UCLG World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment, checked 14 October 2026
Decreto nº 1.775, de 8 de janeiro de 1996 (demarcação de terras indígenas), Presidência da República (Planalto), checked 14 October 2026
Quilombolas – governança fundiária, INCRA (Government of Brazil), checked 14 October 2026
Lei nº 14.701, de 20 de outubro de 2023, Presidência da República (Planalto), checked 14 October 2026
72 Frequently Asked Questions about Participatory Budgeting (2004), UN-Habitat, checked 14 October 2026
Lei nº 8.142, de 28 de dezembro de 1990 (participação da comunidade na gestão do SUS), Presidência da República (Planalto), checked 14 October 2026