Written by Matheus Ximenes Pinho, founder and managing director of Vista Furniture Co.
Attending ABIMAD 2026 or sourcing remotely from the show floor?
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If you buy furniture or decor for a store, a studio, or a project, and you have ever wondered where to actually see what Brazil makes at the high end, the answer next week is one place: ABIMAD. The 42nd edition runs from August 3 to 6, 2026, at São Paulo Expo, and it is the largest fair for high-end furniture and decorative accessories in Latin America. For an international buyer, it is one of the most efficient ways to read the upper end of the Brazilian market in a few days. It is also easy to use badly. This guide covers how to get there, how to work the floor, who exhibits, and, just as important, what a fair like this can and cannot do for a sourcing decision.
What ABIMAD is, and who it is for
ABIMAD is the Brazilian Association of High-Decor Furniture Industries, and its twice-yearly fair in São Paulo is the showcase for the country’s upper-market furniture, upholstery, lighting, outdoor pieces, mirrors, art, and decorative objects. This is not the mass-market, flat-pack end of Brazil. It is design-led product, made by brands that compete on finish, material, and authorship.
It is also a trade-only event. Accreditation is open to furniture and decor retailers, architects, interior decorators, and designers, and the floor is built for that audience rather than the public. For a buyer, that is a feature: the people around you are specifiers and store owners, and the conversations are commercial. The fair also runs ABIMAD Export, its arm aimed at connecting Brazilian brands with buyers from abroad, which tells you the organizers take the international visitor seriously.
ABIMAD ’42, the essentials
Dates: August 3 to 6, 2026
Hours: Monday to Wednesday, 10:00 to 19:00. Thursday, 10:00 to 17:00
Venue: São Paulo Expo, Rodovia dos Imigrantes km 1,5, Vila Água Funda, São Paulo
Who can attend: retailers, architects, decorators, and designers, with prior accreditation
Note the calendar change: this edition runs Monday to Thursday, not the usual Tuesday to Friday.
How to get to São Paulo Expo
The venue sits on the Rodovia dos Imigrantes, on the south side of São Paulo, and it is more central than the highway address suggests. The São Paulo Expo location page has the full detail, but here is what matters for a visitor.
- By metro: the pavilion is roughly 850 meters from Jabaquara station, the southern terminus of Line 1 (Blue), which is the simplest public route across the city. Santos-Imigrantes station on Line 2 (Green) is also close. Large fairs often run a free shuttle from Jabaquara, so check the fair’s own updates before the day.
- From the airports: Congonhas, the domestic airport, is about ten minutes away, which is convenient if you are combining the fair with meetings elsewhere in Brazil. Guarulhos, the main international airport, is roughly forty minutes out in normal traffic.
- By car or ride-share: the venue has a parking structure with around five thousand spaces, accessed from the Rodovia dos Imigrantes km 1,5. It also sits outside the city’s weekday plate-rotation restriction zone, which is useful if you or a driver are moving around São Paulo during the week.
There are more than seven thousand hotel rooms within a ten-kilometer radius, so basing yourself near the venue or near Congonhas both work. For anything specific on times and services, the fair keeps a visitor FAQ.
How to register
Because ABIMAD is trade-only, you register in advance rather than buying a ticket at the door. Accreditation is online, through the fair’s credentialing page, and it is worth doing before you travel. Bring proof of your business, a store, a studio, or professional registration, since the fair verifies that visitors belong to the trade. Sorting this out early means you walk straight in on day one rather than losing a morning at the counter.
How to actually work the floor
A fair this size rewards a plan and punishes wandering. A few things that separate a productive visit from a tiring one.
Start with the map
ABIMAD publishes a floor map for the ’42 edition, and the floor is organized by sector. Download it before you arrive, mark the exhibitors and categories that matter to your program, and route yourself so you are not crossing the pavilion five times. If you only have one or two days, plan them by category, not by aisle.
Go with a brief, not a wish list
The buyers who get the most from ABIMAD arrive knowing what they are looking for: a category, a price band, a material, a style their market actually buys. That focus turns a beautiful but overwhelming floor into a filter. It also makes your conversations with exhibitors sharper, because you can ask about lead times, minimums, and customization instead of just admiring the stand.
Take structured notes
By the end of day two, every stand blurs. Photograph each piece you care about with its stand number, and note the brand, the category, and one line on why it fits. The follow-up after the fair is where deals are actually made, and it only works if your notes are usable a week later.
Use the content, not just the stands
ABIMAD runs trend and sector content around the fair, including through its Hall News channel. For a buyer trying to read where the Brazilian high end is heading, that context is worth an hour.
A few practical tips for the trip
Small things make a difference over four days on a large floor.
- Sort your accreditation and proof of business before you fly, and carry both a digital and a paper copy. The fair verifies that visitors belong to the trade, and doing this early saves you a morning at the counter.
- Bring business cards, and plenty of them. The Brazilian high-decor market still runs on personal contact, and a card left at a stand is what gets your follow-up answered a week later.
- Wear shoes you can stand in for eight hours. São Paulo Expo is a large pavilion, and the buyers who see everything are the ones who paced themselves.
- Understand the commercial reality before you talk terms. Many high-end Brazilian brands quote domestically, in local currency, and are not always set up on day one to handle an order from abroad. That is a conversation to have, not a reason to walk away, and it is often where an independent advisor earns their place.
- Build factory visits around the fair rather than treating São Paulo as the whole trip. The fair shows you the brand. The factory, often in the interior of São Paulo or the southern clusters, shows you whether it can deliver. Our guide to Brazil’s furniture manufacturing regions maps where those factories are.
Who exhibits
ABIMAD gathers hundreds of Brazilian brands across the high-decor spectrum: solid wood and upholstered furniture, lighting, outdoor and garden pieces, mirrors and framing, rugs, art, sculpture, and decorative objects. Exhibitors in a recent edition range from Meridiano Design, with wood and steel furniture and outdoor pieces, to Madeplan Design in mirrors and framing, and Studio L in wood decor and sculpture. The mix leans toward design-driven, made-in-Brazil product rather than imported goods, which is exactly why it is useful for a buyer sourcing authentically Brazilian pieces. The full, current list is on the fair’s exhibitor directory, and it is the first thing to review when you build your route.
What a fair shows you, and what it hides
Here is the part most guides skip, and it is the part that protects your money. A trade fair is a shortlist generator, not a sourcing solution. Every stand at ABIMAD is a brand’s best possible face: its finest samples, its most photogenic styling, its most persuasive salesperson. That is what a fair is for, and there is nothing wrong with it. The risk is treating the stand as the whole story.
What the floor does not show you is the factory behind the brand. It does not show whether the company can hold that finish across a container, not a single sample. It does not show whether the wood is legal and traceable, or whether the composite parts meet the formaldehyde and durability rules of your destination market. And it does not show you the capable factories that are not at the fair at all, the makers who supply and orbit these brands but do not run a stand or an English-speaking sales desk. Some of the best sourcing in Brazil sits exactly there, one layer behind the names on the floor.
So the fair is where a shortlist begins. The real work starts after it: verifying the company behind the beautiful stand, and deciding which of them can actually carry your program.
What to verify before you commit
Once you have a shortlist from the fair, three things decide whether a supplier is right, and none of them is visible at a booth.
- Destination compliance. Furniture entering the United States or the European Union carries real regulatory weight on formaldehyde, timber legality, and deforestation. We cover the whole stack in furniture compliance for the US and EU, and a brand’s ability to produce that documentation is itself a test of how serious it is.
- Production, not presentation. The gap between a flawless fair sample and a consistent production run is where programs fail. This is the discipline in how to vet a furniture factory, and it usually means seeing the factory, not just the stand.
- Fit for your market. A piece that sells in São Paulo may need adapting in materials, finish, or size for your market and price point. Adapting a collection well is a specific skill, closer to collection development than to placing an order.
If solid wood is your focus, the high end at ABIMAD connects naturally to Brazil’s wider strength in the material, which we cover in sourcing solid wood furniture. And for the full picture of how sourcing from the country works, the guide to sourcing Brazilian furniture is the place to start.
How Vista helps buyers use ABIMAD well
Vista Furniture Co. is a buyer-side sourcing consultancy, and a fair like ABIMAD is exactly the kind of moment where independent, on-the-ground judgment pays for itself. Before the fair, we help you arrive with a focused shortlist and a clear brief, so your days on the floor are spent on the right brands. After it, we do the work the floor cannot: we find and qualify the right suppliers for your program, including the capable factories that never take a stand, we visit and verify the factories in person, and we help develop and adapt the collection for your market.
We work for the buyer, never the factory. You buy directly from the supplier you select, with no factory commissions and no conflict of interest. If you are planning to visit ABIMAD, or wish you could and cannot make the trip, get in touch with us and we can be your eyes and judgment on the ground in Brazil.
The short version
ABIMAD ’42, from August 3 to 6 at São Paulo Expo, is the best single window into Brazil’s high-end furniture and decor in 2026. Go with a plan, register early, start with the map, and treat the floor as the beginning of a shortlist rather than the end of a decision. The beautiful stand is the invitation. Verifying what sits behind it is the job, and it is the difference between a good trip and a good supplier.
Talk to us before your first order.
About the author
Matheus Ximenes Pinho is the founder and managing director of Vista Furniture Co. He has spent more than twenty years designing, curating, and building furniture in Brazil, working across product design, manufacturing, and digital retail. He advises international retailers, brands, hotel groups, and developers on sourcing furniture in Brazil with less risk and better decisions.
About Vista Furniture Co.
Vista Furniture Co. is a buyer-side furniture sourcing consultancy founded by veterans of Brazil’s furniture and home industry. We work with global retailers, brands, and hospitality buyers in two ways: qualifying suppliers and reducing risk before the first order, and developing collections built for the buyer’s market. We are buyer-paid and independent. You buy directly from the supplier you select. Talk to us before your next order.
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