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This guide will help you understand how to properly cite sources in ABNT format, Brazil's official standard for bibliographic references. Whether you're writing a TCC (trabalho de conclusão de curso), dissertação, or tese for a Brazilian university, following ABNT NBR 6023 rules ensures your academic work meets national requirements.
What Is ABNT?
ABNT (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas / Brazilian Association of Technical Standards) publishes Brazil's official standards for academic writing. Two key standards govern citations:
- NBR 6023:2025 — Rules for bibliographic references (3rd edition, released May 2025)
- NBR 10520:2023 — Rules for in-text citations and footnotes
These standards are required by virtually all Brazilian universities and academic journals.
Citation Systems
ABNT supports two in-text citation methods:
Author-Date System (Sistema Autor-Data)
The author's surname appears with the year, separated by a comma. Since NBR 10520:2023 the surname takes normal capitalization inside the parentheses too. The all-capitals form, (SILVA, 2023), belongs to the 2002 edition and still shows up in older templates:
According to recent research (Silva, 2023), the phenomenon occurs frequently.
Silva (2023) demonstrated that the phenomenon occurs frequently.
"Silva, 2023" here stands for whatever surname and year your source has; it is a pattern, not a citation of a particular work. The reference-list examples further down are all real, published works.
With page numbers:
(Silva, 2023, p. 45)
Numeric System (Sistema Numérico)
Each source gets an Arabic numeral, shown in parentheses on the line or as a superscript. The number points to the reference list at the end of the work, chapter or part, in order of first appearance. The numeric system cannot be combined with footnotes:
The phenomenon occurs frequently¹.
The phenomenon occurs frequently (1).
Citing Books (Monografias)
Format: SURNAME, First Name. Title: subtitle. Edition. Location: Publisher, Year.
Single author:
FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2011.
List every author when there are up to three, separated by semicolons. With four or more, the standard recommends listing all of them but allows the first author followed by et al. (in italics). The four-author example under "Citing Journal Articles" below shows both forms.
Elements you cannot confirm are shown in square brackets on this page; every named work is real and was checked against its own record.
Citing Book Chapters
Format: CHAPTER AUTHOR. Chapter title. In: BOOK AUTHOR. Book title. Edition. Location: Publisher, Year. p. X-Y.
[SURNAME], [First name]. [Chapter title]. In: [SURNAME], [First name] (org.). [Book title]. [n]. ed. [Location]: [Publisher], [Year]. p. [X-Y].
Fill each bracket from the book in front of you; the chapter author comes first, then In: and the book.
Citing Journal Articles
Format: SURNAME, First Name. Article title. Journal Name, Location, v. X, n. X, p. X-Y, month(s). year.
One author:
CARVALHO, Marília Pinto de. Estatísticas de desempenho escolar: o lado avesso. Educação & Sociedade, Campinas, v. 22, n. 77, p. 231-252, dez. 2001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302001000400011.
Four authors (all listed; et al. after the first is also permitted):
BRISOLLA, Sandra; CORDER, Solange; GOMES, Erasmo; MELLO, Débora. As relações universidade-empresa-governo: um estudo sobre a Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Educação & Sociedade, Campinas, v. 18, n. 61, p. 187-209, dez. 1997. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73301997000400009.
Article with an article number instead of pages (NBR 6023:2025 writes the DOI as a full address):
GONÇALVES, Anderson; ALVES, Luciana Correia. Regional inequalities in Brazil and new approaches to measuring population aging. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro, v. 42, e00217725, 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311XEN217725.
All three articles were checked against their Crossref records on 21 September 2026.
Citing Theses and Dissertations
Format: SURNAME, First Name. Title. Year of deposit. Type (Degree and programme) – Institution, Location, Year of defence.
Doctoral thesis: [SURNAME], [First name]. [Title]. [Year]. Tese (Doutorado em [Programme]) – [Institution], [City], [Year].
Master's dissertation: [SURNAME], [First name]. [Title]. [Year]. Dissertação (Mestrado em [Programme]) – [Institution], [City], [Year].
Undergraduate (TCC): [SURNAME], [First name]. [Title]. [Year]. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (Graduação em [Course]) – [Institution], [City], [Year].
Take the exact wording of the degree and programme from the title page of the thesis. Brazilian theses are indexed in the Biblioteca Digital Brasileira de Teses e Dissertações (BDTD) and in each university's repository, which usually prints a suggested citation.
Citing Websites and Online Documents
Format: AUTHOR or ENTITY. Title. Location, Year. Disponível em: URL. Acesso em: day month. year.
Institutional website:
BRASIL. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Inep. Brasília, DF. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/inep/pt-br. Acesso em: 21 set. 2026.
An entry with no named author begins with the title, with the first word in capitals:
[FIRST WORD of the headline in capitals] [rest of the headline]. [Publication], [day month. year]. Disponível em: [URL]. Acesso em: [day month. year].
Citing Legislation
Format: JURISDICTION. Type Number, Date. Summary. Publication, Location, date. URL and access date for the online text.
BRASIL. Lei nº 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educação nacional. Diário Oficial da União, Brasília, DF, 23 dez. 1996. Disponível em: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9394.htm. Acesso em: 21 set. 2026.
The law, its date and its publication date were checked on Planalto's official text on 21 September 2026; add the section, year, number and page range of the Diário Oficial only if you have the gazette itself in front of you.
Citing Conference Papers
Format: AUTHOR. Paper title. In: CONFERENCE NAME, Number., Year, Location. Anais [...]. Location: Publisher, Year. p. X-Y.
[SURNAME], [First name]. [Paper title]. In: [CONFERENCE NAME IN CAPITALS], [n]., [Year], [City]. Anais [...]. [City]: [Publisher], [Year]. p. [X-Y].
The conference name goes in capitals, followed by its number, the year and the city where it was held.
Author Formatting Rules
- Surnames: in capitals in the reference list (SILVA, SANTOS, OLIVEIRA); normal capitalization in in-text citations (Silva, 2023)
- First names: can be full or abbreviated (Maria or M.)
- Multiple authors: separate with semicolons (;)
- Four or more: in references, listing every author is recommended, and the first author followed by et al. is allowed. In the text, the first author followed by et al. may be used, consistently throughout the work
- Corporate authors: full institutional name in capitals in the reference; in the text, normal capitalization (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 2023) or the acronym (IBGE, 2023)
INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO DE GEOGRAFIA E ESTATÍSTICA. Censo demográfico 2022. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, [year of the volume you used].
The Censo Demográfico 2022 is published in several volumes with different dates; take the year from the volume in your hands.
Key Formatting Elements
| Element | ABNT Format |
|---|---|
| Author surnames (reference list) | CAPITALS |
| Author surnames (in-text) | Normal capitalization: (Silva, 2023) |
| Titles | One consistent highlight (usually bold) |
| Subtitles | Not highlighted, after colon |
| DOI | Full address: https://doi.org/... |
| Edition | "2. ed." (not "2nd ed.") |
| Months | Abbreviated in Portuguese (jan., fev., mar., etc.) |
| Pages | "p. 45-67" |
| Access date | "Acesso em: 15 jan. 2024" |
Reference List (Referências)
- Title the section "REFERÊNCIAS" (centered, bold, all capitals)
- Arrange entries alphabetically by author surname
- Use single spacing within entries, one blank line between entries
- Align entries to the left margin (no indentation)
- Do not number entries (unless using the numeric system throughout)
ABNT vs APA
| Feature | ABNT | APA |
|---|---|---|
| Author format | SURNAME, First Name | Surname, F. N. |
| Title format | Highlighted (usually bold) | Italics |
| Location placement | Before publisher | Not given (APA 7) |
| Edition format | "2. ed." | "(2nd ed.)" |
| Access phrase | "Disponível em:" and "Acesso em:" | URL only; "Retrieved ... from" just for content that changes |
| Months | Portuguese abbreviations | English |
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Lowercase surname in the reference list: reference entries start with the surname in capitals (SILVA, Maria)
- All-capitals surname in the text: since 2023 the in-text form is (Silva, 2023), not (SILVA, 2023)
- Missing highlight on titles: book and journal titles need the same typographic highlight in every entry
- Incorrect edition abbreviation: use "2. ed." not "2ª ed." or "segunda edição"
- Wrong date format: use "15 jan. 2024" not "15/01/2024" or "January 15, 2024"
- Missing access information: online sources need "Disponível em:" with the URL and, for pages that can change or disappear, "Acesso em:" with the date
- Wrong order: location comes before publisher in ABNT (São Paulo: Atlas), unlike APA
References
- ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE NORMAS TÉCNICAS. NBR 6023: informação e documentação: referências: elaboração. Rio de Janeiro: ABNT, 2025.
- ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE NORMAS TÉCNICAS. NBR 10520: informação e documentação: citações em documentos: apresentação. Rio de Janeiro: ABNT, 2023.
The two ABNT standards are sold by ABNT and are not open access, so we could not open them to check every rule on this page against the primary text. Where a detail matters for your work, use your university library's normalização guide, which reproduces the standard under licence, and follow it if it differs from this page.
Reference records checked on 21 September 2026: Crossref for the three journal articles, Planalto for Lei nº 9.394/1996, Open Library for Pedagogia do oprimido, and gov.br for the Inep page.
