Brazilian Labor Court Suspends New Glyphosate Registrations for 90 Days

14 September 2026, São Paulo: A labor court in Brasília has ordered a 90-day suspension of new registrations and authorizations for glyphosate-based herbicides in Brazil, the world’s largest user of the weed killer, while regulators complete a pending safety reassessment of the chemical.

Judge Gustavo Carvalho Chehab of the 7th Labor Court of Brasília issued the order on September 4, 2026, in a civil public action, case number 0000883-90.2026.5.10.0014, brought by Brazil’s Labor Public Prosecutor’s Office against the country’s health regulator, Anvisa, and the federal government. The prosecutor’s office had asked the court to cancel all existing glyphosate product registrations and ban the production, export, import, sale and use of glyphosate-based herbicides and derivatives outright, citing research linking exposure to cancers including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, thyroid and breast cancer, as well as endocrine disruption, reproductive harm, neurodegenerative disease and genetic damage. The lawsuit, filed in May 2026, also accused Anvisa of applying a double standard by moving quickly to approve new pesticides while delaying reassessments of chemicals already on the market.

The judge stopped well short of the full ban sought by prosecutors. He found that Anvisa’s decision to keep glyphosate registered enjoys a presumption of legality, and that the evidence presented did not establish a strong likelihood that a full judicial ban was warranted. At the same time, he identified a risk of harm in continuing to grant brand new glyphosate registrations while Anvisa’s own re-evaluation of the chemical, required under Brazil’s 2023 pesticide law, Law No. 14,785/2023, remains unfinished.

The suspension applies specifically to new activity, not to products already on the market. It covers:

• New identical product registrations for glyphosate based herbicides
• New extensions of phytosanitary use for already registered glyphosate products
• New registrations sought by equivalence to existing products

Existing glyphosate registrations remain valid, and the ruling does not restrict the ongoing manufacture, import, sale or use of already registered glyphosate herbicides. The order also directs Anvisa and other agencies involved in the reassessment to submit additional documentation and environmental assessments within 20 days, and the judge described the suspension itself as reversible depending on how that process unfolds.

Glyphosate remains central to Brazilian row crop agriculture, used extensively across the country’s soybean, corn and sugarcane area, much of it planted with glyphosate tolerant seed traits. The suspension arrives in the middle of Brazil’s 2026 crop protection spending cycle, which industry tracking cited by trade press put at roughly 2.86 billion dollars for the current season, up 18 percent from the prior year, as growers expand treated area to manage resistant weeds and pests. Brazil’s pesticide regulators have also been processing a broader wave of registration activity this year, including dozens of pending applications covering herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and other product classes submitted between March and August 2026, work that continues unaffected by this specific glyphosate related order.

This is not the first time glyphosate’s status in Brazil has been contested in court. Brazilian courts have periodically ordered and then lifted broader glyphosate suspensions over the past decade amid ongoing scientific and legal disputes about its health effects, disputes that mirror similar litigation and regulatory reviews underway in the United States and the European Union. The current order is narrower than those earlier actions, targeting only new registrations rather than the product’s overall market status.

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