Injunction reignites debate on georeferencing of rural properties

In an injunction issued on May 7, 2026, in a class action filed against the President of the Republic and the Federal Government, the Federal Court of Maranhão partially suspended the effects of Decree No. 12.689/2025. The decree had extended, until October 21, 2029, the deadline for requiring georeferenced identification in acts involving rural properties — such as purchase and sale, subdivision, parceling, consolidation and other transfer scenarios. The central point of the controversy lies in the breadth of the extension promoted by the decree. Before the regulatory change, the requirement followed a staggered schedule based on the area of the rural property, so larger properties had been subject to the requirement for years. The new decree revoked that progressive regime and reopened the deadline indiscriminately for all rural properties, including those whose certification duty was already fully in force.

To understand the practical effects of the decision, it is essential to distinguish two concepts often treated as synonyms but legally distinct: georeferencing and the certification of georeferencing. The first consists of a technical survey to identify the rural property through geodesic coordinates that define its vertices, limits and confronting boundaries, forming the property's "polygonal." Certification is a subsequent stage, performed by INCRA through SIGEF (the Land Management System). At that stage, it is verified whether the polygonal does not overlap with other areas already registered in the national land database.

When analyzing the injunction request, the judge found that the broad postponement promoted by the decree appears disproportionate — especially because it reaches properties already subject to the requirement — and pointed out that registering acts based on potentially imprecise descriptions could create situations difficult to reverse, such as rectifications, cancellations and future litigation. Against this backdrop, the Federal Court partially granted urgent relief to suspend the effects of Decree No. 12.689/2025 with respect to rural properties whose requirement deadlines had already expired under the previous regime, preserving — at least provisionally — the decree's effectiveness only for properties under 101 hectares.

The judicial decision reinforces precisely this distinction. Although Decree No. 12.689/2025 extended the deadline for INCRA certification, that does not mean the dispensing of georeferencing as a technique for describing the rural property. The requirement of a georeferenced description remains tied to the principles of objective specialty and registry security, including under the guidelines of NBR 17.047:2022 and CNJ Provimento No. 195/2025.

The result was an intermediate solution: on one hand, some adaptation room is preserved for small rural properties; on the other, properties already reached by the obligation are prevented from returning to a scenario of lesser registry control. For the real-estate market, the signal is clear: georeferencing — and, when required, its certification before INCRA — remains an essential instrument of legal certainty, transparency and predictability in rural-property transactions in Brazil. The extent and stability of the effects of the decision, however, will still depend on the next steps in the case. If, at the end, the judgment confirms the merits and becomes final, the decision will produce erga omnes effects under article 18 of Law 4.717/1965 and article 5, item LXXIII, of the Constitution.