Brazilian law provides for unincorporated and incorporated types of partnerships. While unincorporated partnerships are quite widespread, the incorporated options of partnerships are rarely used in Brazil since they attract unlimited liability to one or all of their individual partners. The types of partnerships regulated by the Brazilian corporate law are:

The consórcio is the Brazilian form equivalent of a consortium, an unincorporated partnership that allows a group of companies to combine efforts on a temporary basis to execute a certain project or business venture.

Consórcios are common e.g. in large public construction projects where several companies act in collaboration to execute a specific project;
the consórcio can be useful to facilitate the combined invoicing to a single client, by having a leader entity handling the collection of revenue in one single step;
however, the consórcio is transparent and each participant company will issue specific invoices to the client, documenting their revenue share and also their corresponding costs/expenses;
the consórcio may also be used to concentrate the relationships with certain suppliers, in which case the consórcio may act as an opaque entity, handling the contracting, the payments and corresponding ancillary obligations in its own name;

The Sociedade em Conta de Participação (SCP) is an unincorporated type of partnership that may be considered equivalent to a silent partnership, as it allows companies or individuals to invest in the activities of a main partner (the sócio ostensivo or managing partner) and share the corresponding profit/loss.

the SCP has also been common in joint venture cases where both partners perform complementary business activities and intend to combine efforts to attend to one specific client (with or without the revelation of the identity of both partners);
the SCP is considered a separate taxpayer and must keep separate accounting (a division within the books and records of the managing partner);
taxes due by the SCP are paid directly by the managing partner, however, the SCP does have a separate taxpayer ID for purposes of control and also for the fulfilment of certain ancillary obligations.

The Sociedade Simples is a kind of regulated professional partnership that is incorporated and suitable for liberal professionals;
The Sociedade em Nome Coletivo and Sociedade em Comandita por Ações are both incorporated types of partnership. The first case is a general partnership where all partners (who must be individuals) bear unlimited liabilityand the second case is a hybrid model of limited partnership where two types of partners coexist: one with limited liability (the investing partners, who can be individuals or companies) and one with unlimited liability (the managing partner).

In practical terms, these partnerships are not commonly used for international businesses. The incorporated forms of partnerships are avoided for the unlimited liability effect they bring to one or all partnersand as for the unincorporated types of partnerships (consortium and SCP), the SCP has not been utilized in international structures since the foreign partners were not able to register their investment with the Central Bank of Brazil. This is a mandatory step of the incorporation of a company or entrance of a foreign shareholder into an existing company and simply was originally not designed to cover the case of an SCP. Nevertheless, new landmark legislation in the banking area has changed this scenario in 2023 and nowadays foreign persons can be partners of SCPs and have their foreign investment duly registered with the Central Bank (allowing them to receive dividends and make capital repatriations).

Consortiums may be formed with a foreign party, who will have to obtain a federal taxpayer identification number (CNPJ) just for controlling purposes (i.e., without causing a taxable legal presence in Brazil).

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