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Lawyers in Brazil: official counts by state bar section
Brazil reaches July 2026 with 1,498,419 lawyers holding an active OAB registration, the highest density among the ten countries in our comparative collection: one lawyer for every 141 residents. The Federal Council's official roster, updated daily, lets us split that contingent across the 27 state sections. That is what the table below does, with each section's share of the national total.
Lawyers by state bar section (July 2026)
| # | State bar section | Lawyers | % of total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | São Paulo | 393,572 | 26.3% |
| 2 | Rio de Janeiro | 162,992 | 10.9% |
| 3 | Minas Gerais | 150,571 | 10.0% |
| 4 | Rio Grande do Sul | 101,908 | 6.8% |
| 5 | Paraná | 96,306 | 6.4% |
| 6 | Bahia | 65,592 | 4.4% |
| 7 | Goiás | 56,937 | 3.8% |
| 8 | Santa Catarina | 54,803 | 3.7% |
| 9 | Distrito Federal | 54,011 | 3.6% |
| 10 | Pernambuco | 46,500 | 3.1% |
| 11 | Ceará | 42,312 | 2.8% |
| 12 | Pará | 30,405 | 2.0% |
| 13 | Espírito Santo | 28,590 | 1.9% |
| 14 | Mato Grosso | 27,317 | 1.8% |
| 15 | Maranhão | 26,061 | 1.7% |
| 16 | Paraíba | 23,108 | 1.5% |
| 17 | Mato Grosso do Sul | 19,968 | 1.3% |
| 18 | Piauí | 19,226 | 1.3% |
| 19 | Rio Grande do Norte | 17,534 | 1.2% |
| 20 | Amazonas | 17,019 | 1.1% |
| 21 | Alagoas | 16,137 | 1.1% |
| 22 | Sergipe | 13,900 | 0.9% |
| 23 | Rondônia | 11,700 | 0.8% |
| 24 | Tocantins | 10,318 | 0.7% |
| 25 | Amapá | 4,377 | 0.3% |
| 26 | Acre | 4,188 | 0.3% |
| 27 | Roraima | 3,067 | 0.2% |
The weight of São Paulo and the map of Brazilian lawyering
The São Paulo section gathers 393,572 registered lawyers, 26.3% of the country's entire bar, more than France and Germany combined (242,185 lawyers across both countries' official registers). Rio de Janeiro (162,992) and Minas Gerais (150,571) follow, and the top 5 sections hold 60.4% of the total. At the other end, Roraima closes the list with 3,067 members, 128.3 times fewer than São Paulo.
The international contrast puts it in scale: the United States, with a population 59% larger than Brazil's, has 1,322,649 active attorneys, fewer than Brazil in absolute numbers. No other country in the collection goes past one lawyer per 250 residents; Brazil runs at one per 141.
Source and method
Data: OAB Federal Council, Quadro de Advogados (official page updated daily), retrieved July 10, 2026. Coverage: lawyers with an active OAB registration. Terms of use: Public institutional page, no explicit license; aggregate counts only, with source attribution. Population ratios use the 2023 estimates cited in the comparative collection page.
An active registration does not mean the professional currently practices: part of the roll does not work as a lawyer day to day. This page publishes aggregate counts per state bar section only, never individual professional records.
Last updated: · Methodology and sources