Charities and NGOs in Latin America: the Latin America Charity Database
The GiveRadar Latin America charity database covers 937,431 nonprofit records across 15 countries, from Brazil's federal registry to civil-society listings in Uruguay. Records come from official government registries and open-data portals where available, and from vetted public sources elsewhere. Each record carries a normalized profile: legal name, registration details, category, contact information, and an integrity assessment that measures disclosure, not impact, and cannot be bought.
Browse Latin American charities by country
GiveRadar publishes a country page for every Latin American country it covers, each with its own searchable list of charities and NGOs and its own live record count. The largest datasets come from Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Ecuador; the full list runs from federal tax registries to smaller open-data imports. Pick a country below to browse its charities and search by name or registration number.
Brazil
571,978 records
Sourced from Receita Federal CNPJ Public Data.
Registry
Colombia
161,133 records
Sourced from RUES (Registro Unico Empresarial y Social) + DIAN RTE.
Registry
Argentina
145,230 records
Sourced from Inspección General de Justicia (IGJ).
Registry
Ecuador
23,682 records
Imported from public Ecuadorian nonprofit data. We have not been able to confirm the original publisher, so we do not name one.
Public Data
Chile
16,443 records
Sourced from Registro Civil + Registro Nacional de Personas Jurídicas.
Registry
Mexico
10,528 records
Sourced from SAT Donatarias Autorizadas.
Registry
Peru
3,112 records
Sourced from Agencia Peruana de Cooperación Internacional (APCI).
Registry
Uruguay
2,109 records
Listed from the Mapeo de la Sociedad Civil civil-society mapping, not a government register.
Directory
Guatemala
1,807 records
Listed from the REPEJU register of legal entities, published via legis.gt.
Directory
Dominican Republic
1,035 records
Sourced from the ASFL nonprofit dataset published on datos.gob.do.
Registry
Bolivia
244 records
A small early import with no verified publisher to name yet, not a full country pass.
Partial Import
Venezuela
86 records
A small early import with no verified publisher to name yet, not a full country pass.
Partial Import
Puerto Rico
21 records
A small early import with no verified publisher to name yet, not a full country pass.
Partial Import
Costa Rica
12 records
A small early import with no verified publisher to name yet, not a full country pass.
Partial Import
Panama
11 records
A small early import with no verified publisher to name yet, not a full country pass.
Partial ImportNot yet covered: Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. That is 14 of Latin America's 20 countries covered, plus Puerto Rico: for the other six we have no importable register or vetted source yet, so they are absent rather than shown as empty country pages. We would rather show you an honest gap than a padded map.
Coverage is uneven, and we say so. Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Ecuador hold most of the records on this page because their national data is the most open in the region. Bolivia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Panama are small early imports that we have not yet grown into full country passes, and their cards say so rather than wearing a registry badge they have not earned. Every country above links to its own page, where the live count and the last-updated date live.
Look up a Latin American charity in seconds
Search 937,431 organizations by name or registration number, or run one through the checker to see what its register publishes and what it does not.
Which register or source does each Latin American country publish?
One row per covered country: where the records come from, how many we hold, and how much of that set carries financial figures and named officers. The percentages describe what the source publishes, not how transparent any single charity is.
| Country | Register or source | Records | With financials | With officers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil |
Receita Federal CNPJ Public Data | 571,978 | none | none |
| Colombia |
RUES (Registro Unico Empresarial y Social) + DIAN RTE | 161,133 | none | 93% |
| Argentina |
Inspección General de Justicia (IGJ) | 145,230 | none | 5% |
| Ecuador |
Public Ecuadorian nonprofit data, publisher unconfirmed | 23,682 | none | 78% |
| Chile |
Registro Civil + Registro Nacional de Personas Jurídicas | 16,443 | none | 88% |
| Mexico |
SAT Donatarias Autorizadas | 10,528 | 92% | 100% |
| Peru |
Agencia Peruana de Cooperación Internacional (APCI) | 3,112 | none | none |
| Uruguay |
The Mapeo de la Sociedad Civil civil-society mapping | 2,109 | none | none |
| Guatemala |
The REPEJU register of legal entities | 1,807 | none | none |
| Dominican Republic |
The ASFL nonprofit dataset published on datos.gob.do | 1,035 | none | none |
| Bolivia |
Small early import, publisher unconfirmed | 244 | none | none |
| Venezuela |
Small early import, publisher unconfirmed | 86 | none | none |
| Puerto Rico |
Small early import, publisher unconfirmed | 21 | none | none |
| Costa Rica |
Small early import, publisher unconfirmed | 12 | none | none |
| Panama |
Small early import, publisher unconfirmed | 11 | none | none |
"None" means the source publishes nothing we can import for that field, not that the charities withhold it. Financial disclosure is limited across the region because most Latin American registers record legal status rather than accounts.
How are NGOs and charities regulated in Latin America?
NGOs and charities in Latin America are organized under national law, and most countries in the region maintain some form of public register or tax-authority list of nonprofit entities. There is no single regional register: each country defines its own legal forms and its own disclosure rules, which is why coverage in this database varies so much from country to country.
How many NGOs are there in Latin America?
No single number covers the region, and anyone quoting one is guessing. There is no Latin American register, and each country counts nonprofits under its own law: an entidad sin ánimo de lucro in Colombia, an asociación civil or fundación across most of Spanish-speaking Latin America, an organização sem fins lucrativos in Brazil. What can be counted is what the registers publish, which is what this page holds: 937,431 organizations across 15 countries, 7 of them from a national register. That number moves when a register is re-imported, not when the sector itself grows.
Which legal forms do Latin American charities register under?
The common legal forms you will see in these records are the asociación civil and the fundación in Spanish-speaking countries, and the associação and fundação in Brazil. On top of the base legal form, several countries maintain a separate tax-privileged status: Brazil registers all legal entities, including nonprofits, under a CNPJ number with the Receita Federal; Mexico's SAT publishes the list of donatarias autorizadas, the organizations authorized to receive tax-deductible donations; Colombia's ESAL entities (entidades sin ánimo de lucro) appear in the RUES business registry; and Argentina's civil associations and foundations register with the IGJ and the Registro Nacional de Sociedades. Peru's APCI tracks organizations that receive international cooperation funds, and Chile publishes a central register of state collaborators.
What does a Latin American charity record on GiveRadar contain?
GiveRadar normalizes these sources into a single schema, with up to 80+ fields per record where the source publishes them: names in their original Spanish or Portuguese, registration numbers (CNPJ, NIT, CUIT, RFC, RUT, and other national identifiers where the source provides them), categories, contact details, and officers. Financial figures appear only where a source publishes them; financial disclosure coverage in the region is limited and varies by country. Searches work in Spanish, Portuguese, or English text.
How to verify a charity in Latin America
To verify a charity in Latin America, search its name or national registration number on GiveRadar and check what the official record shows. A practical routine before you give:
Find the record Search by name, or by registration number if you have it (a CNPJ in Brazil, an RFC in Mexico, a NIT in Colombia). Use the charity checker or the country page for the country in question.
Confirm the registration details A legitimate organization's legal name, registration number, and country should match what it presents publicly. If you cannot find a record at all, ask the organization for its registration number before donating; in countries where our import is partial, absence from GiveRadar is not evidence against an organization.
Read the integrity assessment The 0-100 score measures disclosure and governance signals: Registration, Financial Transparency, Governance, Contact Availability, and Data Recency. It is not an impact rating and it is not a verdict on which charity is better; a low score often means limited public disclosure, which is common in countries with thin registries.
Check contact details and red flags Working contact information and the absence of red flags (high executive pay, stale filings, bare-minimum disclosure) are useful signals, not guarantees.
For the full check-before-you-give routine, see our guide for donors.
Can I access Latin American charity data through an API?
Yes. Every Latin American record on this page is available through the GiveRadar REST API and MCP server, with a free tier and paid tiers for volume. See the charity data API page for endpoints, fields, and pricing. To query one country, use /api/v1/search/?q={name}&country=BR and swap the country code for any of the 15 covered here (the q parameter is required; there is no collection-listing endpoint). The same records are reachable over MCP, so an agent can read registration identifiers such as a CNPJ or NIT, contacts, and integrity assessments without scraping the pages.
Frequently asked questions about Latin American charities
How many charities are there in Latin America?
GiveRadar lists 937,431 charities and NGOs across 15 Latin American countries, 7 of them imported straight from a national register.
No single number covers the region, because Latin America has no shared register and each country defines its own legal forms. Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Ecuador hold most of the records here because their national data is the most open.
Is there a single Latin American charity register?
No. There is no regional charity register, and no Latin American regulator that nonprofits register with.
Registration is national, and often split between a business registry, a tax authority and a ministry: Brazil issues every legal entity a CNPJ through the Receita Federal, Colombia records ESAL entities in the RUES, Mexico's SAT publishes the donatarias autorizadas authorized to receive tax-deductible gifts, and Argentina's associations and foundations sit with the IGJ. GiveRadar imports the open ones into one search and labels each record with its source.
Which Latin American countries have public charity registers?
7 of the 15 countries on this page publish data open enough to import. The rest are listed from vetted public sources, and a few are small early imports we label as such.
- Brazil: the Receita Federal CNPJ public data
- Colombia: the RUES business registry plus the DIAN RTE list
- Argentina: the Inspección General de Justicia (IGJ)
- Chile: the Registro Civil and the Registro Nacional de Personas Jurídicas
- Mexico: the SAT list of donatarias autorizadas
- Peru: the Agencia Peruana de Cooperación Internacional (APCI)
- Dominican Republic: the ASFL dataset on datos.gob.do
How do I verify a charity in Latin America?
Match the national identifier, then read what the record discloses. On GiveRadar that takes four steps:
- Find the organization on its country page or in the charity checker
- Match the registration number rather than the name: a CNPJ in Brazil, an RFC in Mexico, a NIT in Colombia, a CUIT in Argentina
- Read the integrity assessment, a 0-100 score of registration, financial transparency, governance, contact availability and data recency
- Ask the organization directly for its registration certificate where the register publishes little
Every record names the source it came from. Where our import is partial or the publisher is unconfirmed, the card says so rather than implying a register we cannot point to, and a low integrity score there reflects the source, not the organization.
How do I find the largest charities in Latin America?
Search by country and sort by revenue. Open the search page, filter to a Latin American country, set Sort to Revenue, and the largest organizations by reported income come first.
The caveat is that most Latin American registers record legal status rather than accounts, so the ranking only covers organizations whose source publishes figures, and "largest" means reported income, not impact. GiveRadar publishes no paid or editorial rankings, and no charity can pay to appear higher.
Related pages
Search 930K+ charities and nonprofits in Latin America
Open a country page to see the organizations we hold for it and how they are sourced, or search the whole database by name.