Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies will start its next legislative term with a substantially reconfigured group of representatives. The House elected in 2026 will have 183 lawmakers serving their first term as federal deputies, while 301 current or former members were reelected or returned to the chamber. Together, the figures point to a legislature in which both continuity and turnover will shape the political environment beginning in February 2027.
The renewal rate will be 35.67% among the 513 seats in the Chamber. The result was established after the first round of Brazil’s general elections on October 4, 2026, and analyzed by Agência Brasil the following day. The new lawmakers will form Brazil’s 58th legislature, whose term is scheduled to run from February 1, 2027, through January 31, 2031.
A balance between turnover and continuity
The 183 first-time deputies represent the clearest measure of change in the new House. At the same time, the number of reelected lawmakers shows that most of the chamber will not be entirely new to federal legislative work. In addition to the 301 reelected deputies, 29 former members will return to Congress, according to the composition analyzed after the election.
That combination creates a different institutional starting point for the next term. New deputies will arrive with no previous mandate in the Chamber, while reelected members will bring experience from the current legislature. Former deputies returning to Brasília will add another group with prior knowledge of the institution, even though they were not part of the outgoing composition at the time of the election.
The figures alone do not determine how individual lawmakers will vote or which alliances will prevail. They do, however, establish the size of the groups that will participate in committee work, negotiations over legislation and decisions by the full chamber. The new balance will become especially relevant as political parties organize leadership positions and define their priorities for the opening of the legislature.
Representation of women reaches a new high
The 2026 election also produced a new record for the number of women elected to the Chamber of Deputies. The result expands the presence of female lawmakers in the federal legislature, although the available analysis does not establish that women will hold a majority of the 513 seats. The record is therefore a change in representation, not a prediction about how the new members will act as a group.
At the same time, the post-election composition registered a reduction in the number of seats held by Black and Indigenous lawmakers. The contrast highlights that changes in representation did not move in the same direction for every social group. It also gives the next legislature a broader institutional debate about who is present in Congress and how different communities are represented in national decision-making.
Because the data describe the elected composition rather than future voting behavior, they cannot by themselves indicate the positions that the new deputies will take on individual bills. The political impact will depend on party organization, coalition-building and the priorities adopted once the new term begins.
Why the new composition matters
The Chamber of Deputies has 513 members and plays a central role in Brazil’s political system. Deputies participate in the approval of legislation, examine the federal budget, oversee the executive branch and take part in constitutional political procedures. For that reason, changes in the House’s membership can affect the government’s ability to build majorities and move its agenda through Congress.
A second Agência Brasil analysis, published on October 6, 2026, discusses the possibility that a more conservative profile could influence the congressional agenda. That assessment provides political context for the numerical results, but it does not replace the composition data or establish the outcome of specific proposals.
The first practical test will come as the incoming lawmakers organize the House for the 58th legislature. The distribution of leadership roles, committee assignments and party alliances will help determine how the 183 first-term members interact with reelected deputies and returning former lawmakers. Those arrangements will also shape the conditions for negotiations with the federal government.
For voters, the composition of the 2027 Chamber offers a direct way to understand the consequences of the legislative election beyond the choice of president or state governors. The elected representatives will help decide which bills advance, how public resources are examined and how the executive branch is supervised. The 35.67% renewal rate, the record number of women and the changes in racial and Indigenous representation will form the institutional backdrop for those decisions over the four-year term.
