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Policy and licensing / Brazil

Brazil: Federal Constitution art. 225 § 6, location of nuclear power plants defined by federal law

Brazil's 1988 Constitution requires that power plants operating with a nuclear reactor have their location defined in federal law before they can be installed, and makes all nuclear activity subject to National Congress approval within a Union monopoly over nuclear installations and ores. It designates no site itself.

Category
Laws, rules and executive directives
Status
In effect
Instrument
statute · Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988, art. 225, § 6º (read with art. 21, XXIII, a, and art. 49, XIV)
Issued by
Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (Federal Constitution of 1988)
Jurisdiction
Brazil
Affects
Siting
Effective date
Not recorded
Expiry or completion
None recorded
Operative text
STF: A Constituição e o Supremo, art. 225 (STF 'A Constituição e o Supremo' compilation, art. 225, read 2026-10-18)
Record reviewed · next review
2026-10-18 · 2027-04-18 (dates our review of this record; not a statement of the measure's present legal effect)

Legal and geographic scope

Constitutional provision, recorded under the statute type: power plants that operate with a nuclear reactor must have their location defined in federal law, without which they may not be installed (art. 225, § 6). Related provisions read in the same official compilation: the Union is competent to explore nuclear services and installations of any nature and holds a state monopoly over research, mining, enrichment, reprocessing, industrialisation and trade of nuclear ores and derivatives, and all nuclear activity in national territory is admitted only for peaceful purposes and with the approval of the National Congress (art. 21, XXIII, a); the National Congress has exclusive competence to approve Executive initiatives concerning nuclear activities (art. 49, XIV). The provision does not itself designate any site. How it applies to research, test or non-power reactors is not addressed here.

Not approved or still pending

No federal law defining the location of any new nuclear power plant was reviewed, and none is recorded here. Pending constitutional amendment proposals on the nuclear monopoly or on state consent to plant siting were not verified. Whether a given SMR or microreactor needs a siting law is not established.

Dated lifecycle

Related instruments

Projects or designs named by the source

Sources