The services sector, which brings together activities such as transport, tourism, restaurants, beauty salons and information technology, grew 0.3% in October compared to September. This performance represents the ninth consecutive increase.
The sequence of growth that began in February means an accumulated increase of 3.7% and makes the sector reach the highest level of activity ever recorded. It is also 20.1% above the pre-covid-19 pandemic level (February 2020).
The data is part of the Monthly Services Survey, released this Friday (12) by Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
With nine months of consecutive growth, 2025 surpasses the mark of eight consecutive months between February and September 2022. In that period, however, the accumulated expansion was 5.6%. The IBGE series contains data since January 2011.
The performance of October 2025 shows an increase of 2.2% in relation to the same month in 2024. In the 12-month period, the sector shows an expansion of 2.8% (in the period ending in September it was 3.1%).
See the sector’s behavior in the year:
Jan: -0.4%
Feb: 0.8%
Sea: 0.4%
Apr: 0.3%
May: 0.2%
Jun: 0.4%
Jul: 0.3%
Aug: 0.2%
Set: 0.7%
Oct: 0.3%
Large sectors
The five major sectors showed growth from September to October:
Services provided to families: 0.1%
Information and communication: 0.3%
Professional and administrative services: 0.1%
Transport, storage and mail: 1%
Other services: 0.5%
The research manager, Rodrigo Lobo, highlights that air and road freight transport were protagonists.
“Air travel has grown due to the greater number of passengers transported, which is reflected in higher revenues for airlines”, he mentions.
“The increase in revenues of road freight transport companies is growing, to a large extent, due to freight carried out to transport agricultural production, which will have a record harvest this year, and deliveries from electronic commerce”, he adds.
Transport and storage account for 36.40% of the country’s total services.
The second biggest growth driver came from the information and communication sector. Lobo recalls that information technology (IT) activities have been in high demand after the pandemic due to the need to digitize companies.
Tourism
The Monthly Services Survey also includes the Tourist Activities Index (Iatur), which grew 0.8% in October, compared to the previous month. In 12 months, the increase is 6% (in the period ending in September it was 6.7%).
These results leave tourism activities 12.7% above the pre-pandemic level and 1% below the highest level ever achieved, in December 2024.
Iatur brings together 22 of the 166 service activities investigated in the research and which are linked to tourist activity, such as hotels, travel agencies and air passenger transport.
Information is published from 17 federation units: Ceará, Pernambuco, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Goiás and Distrito Federal, Amazonas, Pará, Mato Grosso, Alagoas and Rio Grande do Norte.
Situation
The Monthly Services Survey is the third of three short-term surveys released monthly by IBGE. In recent days, the institute revealed that the industry presented a positive change of 0.1% in October and the business grew 0.5% compared to September.
