Brazil sees record surge in women entrepreneurs thanks to better credit access
Key Takeaways
- Driven by the desire for independence and new financing options, 10.3 million female entrepreneurs lead small businesses in essential sectors such as commerce and services.
- Public microcredit and training programs have injected billions into the economy, enabling women to move past informality, including in rural areas.
- Despite this growth, Brazilian women still face severe economic barriers, including higher interest rates than men (40.6% vs. 36.8% annually) and high rates of delinquency.
The role of women in Brazilian entrepreneurship is preponderant.
The latest data from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD Contínua) by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) indicates that the country has reached a historic milestone of 10.3 million female business owners, equivalent to one-third of the total. Although men still make up the majority, Brazilian women lead in sectors essential to the national economy, such as services (53% to 36%) and commerce (27% to 20%).In addition to altering household dynamics and the very social configuration of Brazil—where historically women have been viewed as caregivers of the home and children, and men as providers—the logic behind this progress is explained by financing and credit distribution numbers in the country. Access to these resources drives the overcoming of a historical backdrop of scarce opportunities in the labor market.
In public institutions, such as Banco do Brasil (BB), financing funds like Mulheres no Topo (Women at the Top) stand out. Launched in 2023, this platform integrates credit and training for female entrepreneurs. Since then, BB has come to serve more than 1.3 million women-owned companies, releasing over R$ 102 billion in resources through various lines of credit.
Air-Conditioned Store
Aimed at individuals registered in the Unified Registry for Social Programs (CadÚnico) of the Federal Government, the Acredita no Primeiro Passo (Believe in the First Step) Program guaranteed access to low-interest credit for 176,160 female entrepreneurs—women represent 70% of the audience served by the initiative.
The social impact is visible. In Parnamirim, a city in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, self-employed worker Zenilda Aleixo owns a store selling clothes and cosmetics. With resources from the program, she set up her store in a property right next to her house.
"I managed to invest and expand the shop, and install air conditioning to make it more comfortable for customers because the climate here is very hot," Zenilda explains.
"Financial autonomy allows us to dream and plan. I want to keep growing," she says. In total, R$ 2.27 billion was distributed by the beginning of 2026.
Rural Financing
In the Northeast, where the rates of women living below the poverty line are around 24%—above the national average—Agroamigo, a microcredit program by Banco do Nordeste aimed at farmers, reached 403,000 contracts signed by female entrepreneurs in 2025. This figure allowed them to surpass men in access to this type of financing.
For Luiz Sérgio Farias Machado, Superintendent of Agribusiness and Rural Microfinance at Banco do Nordeste, the numbers reflect a shift in gender patterns within the rural economy.
"The expansion of credit for women is directly related to the strengthening of non-agricultural initiatives, such as handicrafts, rural tourism, and small enterprises run by women, which diversify income and boost female entrepreneurship in the countryside," he said.
The diagnosis and results of the program are faithful indicators of the country's reality. According to data from the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), women represent more than 67% of credit borrowers from the National Program for Directed Productive Microcredit (PNMPO)—more than three million Brazilian women have been served by the initiative.
Higher Interest Rates
Despite the prospect of change, women still suffer from higher interest rates than men on financing aimed at small businesses. In 2024, the study "The Financing of Female Entrepreneurship in Brazil: A Credit Market Overview," conducted by Sebrae using Central Bank data, revealed that loans for male small business owners were taxed at an average of 36.8% per year, while the female audience faced rates of 40.6%.
With more than 83.5 million people in default on debt in Brazil as of May 2026, according to the credit evaluation firm Serasa Experian, these higher charges obstruct the path for women—who account for 50.5% of debt holders in the country. However, they do not seem to slow down a movement of independent economic development sustained by entrepreneurship.
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