Highways in 2026: common debentures gain space over incentivized ones
A survey by Vitrify, cited by Estadão, shows that 71.5% of the balance of highway debentures issued in 2026 are not exempt from income tax.
BY THE X-TRADER NEWS NEWSROOM · REPORTING FROM ESTADÃO · 2 MIN
The private debt market for highways is changing its profile. According to Estadão, with data from Vitrify, a private credit information platform, the sector's debentures issued in 2026 totaled a balance of R$15.9 billion as of October 9, 2026.
The majority of this balance, R$11.4 billion or 71.5%, is in common debentures, which are not exempt from Income Tax. Infrastructure incentives amount to R$4.5 billion. In practice, the share with tax incentives was much smaller in this year's issuance.
The picture changes when you look back. In the 2024 data cited by the newspaper, those receiving incentives represented 76% of the balance, R$17.2 billion out of a total of R$22.7 billion. In 2025, participation fell to 67.9%, with R$23.2 billion incentivized on a balance of R$34.2 billion.
What is at stake is how the highway sector will raise funds in the coming years, and this answer depends on how attractive the tax benefit remains for those who buy the shares. The numbers, however, do not alone explain the cause of the change. The portrait used by the newspaper is from a specific date, October 9, 2026, and not from a closed series of the year.
What changes for the investor
For those who invest in fixed income, the predominance of common debentures in the sector suggests a highway market with different taxation roles than in previous years. If this composition is confirmed, the supply of IR-exempt securities in the sector will tend to decrease, which could alter the comparison between exempt and taxed securities when evaluating net return. Before drawing conclusions, it is worth monitoring the composition of upcoming broadcasts, as a single snapshot of one day does not define a trend.
Automatically translated from Portuguese.
