Brazilian container terminals changed owners faster in 2025 than almost anywhere else in the world. Santos Brasil, long the dominant listed terminal operator at the Port of Santos, was taken over by CMA Terminals in a tender offer settled in September 2025 and compulsorily delisted from the exchange two months later. Wilson Sons, the country's other major listed port and towage group, went through the same process into an MSC-linked buyer within weeks of it. Both now sit inside global carrier terminal networks rather than trading as independent Brazilian companies. Set against that, the underlying trade kept growing: Brazilian ports handled around 15.3 million TEU in 2025, up 10.2%, and the Port of Santos alone moved 109.5 million tonnes of cargo in the first seven months of 2026, up 3.6%. The open question is what United States tariffs do to that growth, since Brazilian exports to the US fell from a record 40.4 billion dollars in 2024 to 37.7 billion in 2025, with steel and aluminium, unlike soy, coffee, beef and orange juice, left carrying the full tariff. This 2026 guide profiles seven providers with the strongest footprint in Brazil, listed in no particular order, drawn from CVM and B3 filings, official port data and company reporting.
How we chose this list
This is an editorial guide, compiled from public sources such as annual reports, company accounts, regulatory filings and trade media, rather than from paid placements or our own directory data. We weighed four things:
- Scale in Brazil: revenue, sites, fleet and employees based in the country.
- Breadth of services: freight forwarding, contract logistics, haulage, parcels and terminal operations.
- Track record: years operating in Brazil and publicly verifiable results.
- Network: domestic coverage plus international connections.
Figures are the most recent publicly reported at the time of writing. The companies appear in no particular order. A provider further down the page may well be the better fit for your specific lane or freight type.
The 7 companies at a glance
| Company | Type | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Rumo | Listed rail logistics operator | Hauling grain from the Cerrado to the Port of Santos and the southern ports |
| Santos Brasil | Container terminal operator, now CMA CGM controlled | The dominant terminal at the Port of Santos, until its 2025 buyout |
| Wilson Sons | Port and maritime services group, now under MSC-linked ownership | Terminal operations at Rio Grande and Salvador, plus towage across Brazilian ports |
| BTP | Container terminal joint venture | The Santos terminal jointly owned by Maersk and MSC's terminal arms |
| VLI Logistica | Private multimodal rail and port operator | Moving grain and forestry products from central Brazil to port |
| Simpar | Listed road transport, rental and logistics group | The holding company behind JSL freight transport, Vamos equipment rental and Movida car rental |
| Hidrovias do Brasil | Listed river and barge logistics operator | Grain barging on the Parana-Paraguay and Madeira-Amazon waterway systems |
Rumo
Part of the Cosan group and listed on B3, Rumo reported transported volume of 23.8 billion revenue tonne kilometres for the second quarter of 2026, up 9.1%, with adjusted EBITDA of 2,267 million reais and adjusted net income of 688 million, down 5.8%. It holds 41% of the origin volume out of Mato Grosso and Goias, 50% of the traffic destined for the Port of Santos, and 26% of exports moving through Parana and Sao Francisco do Sul.
The first phase of its Ferrovia do Mato Grosso extension was delivered in June 2026, but management struck a noticeably more cautious tone in its own results letter, describing a new cycle focused on looking inward rather than expanding the network further, citing sustained high interest rates and cost pressure. Worth knowing if you are planning multi-year grain logistics around continued network growth.
Best for: bulk and agricultural rail haulage into the Port of Santos or the southern export corridors.
Santos Brasil
Santos Brasil operates container terminals including Tecon Santos and Tecon Vila do Conde in Para, and was for years the reference listed terminal operator in Brazil. That changed fast. CMA Terminals Atlantic won a tender offer settled in September 2025 at 14.38 reais a share, taking 42.07% of the company for about 5.23 billion reais, and its stake rose to 95.03% within the following month, triggering a compulsory buyout of the remaining shares that shareholders approved in November 2025. The company delisted from B3 shortly after.
In July 2026 CMA CGM and the infrastructure investor Stonepeak formed a joint venture called United Ports to hold CMA's port terminal assets, including those Santos Brasil operates, with CMA keeping 75% and operational control. If you are still quoting Santos Brasil as an independent Brazilian counterparty, update that: it is now a piece of a global carrier's terminal network.
Best for: container handling at Santos, now negotiated as part of a CMA CGM contract rather than a standalone terminal relationship.
Wilson Sons
Wilson Sons ran Tecon Rio Grande and Tecon Salvador, shipping agency and one of the largest tugboat fleets in the country before its own ownership changed in almost exactly the same way as Santos Brasil's. A deal process that opened in October 2024 concluded with a tender offer settled in October 2025 at 18.53 reais a share, run by SAS Shipping Agencies Services, an entity widely reported to be linked to MSC. Shareholders approved compulsory redemption of the remaining shares in December 2025, and the company was delisted from B3.
That two Brazilian port operators went from independently listed to carrier-controlled within weeks of each other in late 2025 is the single biggest structural fact in this market right now, and it is worth understanding before you assume either name still operates as an arm's length Brazilian counterparty.
Best for: towage and terminal services at Rio Grande and Salvador, now under carrier-aligned ownership.
BTP
Brasil Terminal Portuario sits on the Alemoa dock at the Port of Santos and began commercial operations in August 2013 after roughly 2 billion reais of initial development. It runs 1,108 metres of quay, can work up to three New Panamax vessels at once, employs more than 1,700 people and has a stated handling capacity of 1.5 million TEU a year.
It is a joint venture between Terminal Investment Limited, the terminal arm linked to MSC, and APM Terminals, Maersk's terminal business, confirmed on APM Terminals' own site. That makes it the clearest alternative to Santos Brasil for shippers who want container handling at Santos outside the CMA CGM-controlled terminal, though note the two largest carrier alliances now effectively co-own both major options.
Best for: container handling at Santos as an alternative to the CMA CGM-controlled terminal.
VLI Logistica
VLI runs a multimodal network connecting rail, port terminals and maritime chartering, moving around 34.4 million tonnes of grain a year, chiefly soybeans, corn and soybean meal, and about 9.3 million tonnes of forestry products. It operates a public terminal at Vila Velha under commercial agreement with Vale and connects Vale's own Estrada de Ferro Vitoria a Minas railway with the MRS network, giving it reach across systems that would otherwise not interconnect.
Its ownership base includes Vale, Mitsui and the Brazilian development bank BNDES's investment arm, and Brookfield Infrastructure bought half of Mitsui's stake in February 2024, becoming VLI's largest shareholder. It publishes no separate financial results, so it is judged here on network reach and volume rather than disclosed scale.
Best for: bulk grain, minerals and forestry products needing a rail-to-port route across multiple networks.
Simpar
Simpar reported gross revenue of 12.2 billion reais for the first quarter of 2026, up 6%, with adjusted EBITDA of 3.2 billion, up 14%, across more than 56,000 employees group-wide. Net leverage stood at 3.0 times net debt to EBITDA, which the company describes as its lowest in 15 years, though the holding recorded an adjusted net loss of 13 million reais for the quarter against a small profit the year before.
The group sold a 45% stake in a waste-management subsidiary, Ciclus Amazonia, for 121.5 million reais of equity value in April 2026, consistent with a broader push to simplify and deleverage. JSL, its road freight arm, trades separately on B3, but its own investor relations site did not have current standalone results available to check directly, so treat any JSL-specific revenue figure you see with caution until you have confirmed it against JSL's own filing.
Best for: shippers wanting a large, financially transparent, publicly listed group spanning road freight and fleet rental.
Hidrovias do Brasil
Hidrovias moves commodity cargo, chiefly grain, by barge along Brazil's two major river systems, and is controlled by the Ultra group, whose listed holding company guarantees some of its debt. It is a genuine alternative to road and rail for shippers moving bulk out of the Cerrado.
In June 2026 it called a debenture holders' meeting to relax the early-redemption and early-maturity terms on debt issued the year before, described in its own filing as part of an active debt-restructuring strategy. That is a real, disclosed liability-management exercise rather than a distress signal on the scale of some peers, but it is worth factoring into how much long-term counterparty risk you are willing to carry with it.
Best for: grain and bulk commodity shippers using the Parana-Paraguay or Madeira river corridors.
Names you might expect that are not on this list
A few companies appear in almost every guide to this market but should not, because their situation has changed:
- Log-In Logistica: Frequently described in trade coverage as having passed into MSC's control alongside Santos Brasil and Wilson Sons. We could not confirm any change of control from Log-In's own exchange filings, and the stock continued trading on B3 and filing routine quarterly disclosures through August 2026. Treat the MSC ownership claim as unconfirmed rather than settled.
- Sequoia Logistica: A recognisable name in Brazilian trucking and last-mile logistics. Its shares were trading at 0.07 reais in September 2026 alongside a run of debt-restructuring filings, which is not the position of a company to build a delivery commitment around without a clear-eyed view of the risk.
How to choose between them
The right provider depends less on overall size than on fit with your freight and lane:
- Containers at Santos: BTP as the Maersk and MSC joint venture, Santos Brasil now folded into CMA CGM's terminal network.
- Rail and bulk: Rumo for grain out of the Cerrado, VLI Logistica where the route needs more than one rail network.
- River and barge: Hidrovias do Brasil for the Parana-Paraguay and Madeira-Amazon systems.
- Road freight and rental: Simpar's JSL business, with the group's fleet-rental arms available alongside it.
- Port and towage: Wilson Sons for Rio Grande and Salvador, now under MSC-linked ownership.
Whoever you shortlist, get more than one quote, because rates for the same lane can vary widely, and confirm licences, insurance coverage and references for your specific freight type. Our guide to the best websites to find a freight forwarder covers how to run that comparison, and the credentials you can check yourself covers verifying them.
Compare Brazil logistics providers in one place
The seven companies above are the biggest names, but they are not always the best-priced option for a specific shipment, and independent forwarders often handle SME import and export work more attentively than the majors. CargoLinked's directory lists more than 300 logistics companies and freight forwarders based in Brazil, which you can browse by service and location. If you have cargo to move, you can also post your shipment for free and collect quotes from interested forwarders instead of contacting providers one by one.
