Hi, everyone, and welcome back to A Dica do Dia! Today, we will talk about a very famous and honorable profession: street vendors. Do you know how to say street vendor in Portuguese? Have you ever heard the word camelô? Do you know ambulante meaning in Portuguese? This topic is very important because if you ever come to Rio de Janeiro, you will see these people everywhere, selling the most different kinds of things! They are very famous on the beaches, selling food, sunglasses, and even handmade accessories. So, let’s take a look to learn everything about ambulantes in Rio de Janeiro!
Ambulante Meaning in Portuguese
There are many different words for street vendors in our language. We call the street vendors camelô or ambulante. You can listen to how to pronounce it in our podcast at the end of the Dica!! The word ambulante has a more formal meaning in Portuguese, while camelô is more informal. This is a person who sells things on the streets of the city. You can find them anywhere, anytime, during the day or the night. There are many kinds of camelô around the city. The simple ones and the ones that are more sophisticated and have many items. You can buy pretty much anything with them.
The Street Vendor Impact
Many imagine that street vendors are informal workers, who do not follow labor laws. But did you know that this is a myth? Since 1992, the city of Rio de Janeiro has had a law that formalizes and registers people who work on the street. Street vendors are considered self-employed and have some government guarantees, such as retirement. Many of them today have formalized themselves as MEI, a variation of microentrepreneurs. If you want to read more about MEI and the different types of employment relationships, we have a special Dica just for that.
The city of Rio de Janeiro has more than nine thousand duly registered street vendors. Of these, 49% declare having an assistant to perform their sales functions. When registered, street vendors must define a geographic region for their work. The region that has the most registered street vendors is downtown (mostly due to the Popular Market that developed there, which you can visit through RioLIVE! Downtown). In second place, come the street vendors registered for the region of the beaches of Rio, which reached more than a thousand people!
It is obvious that there are many unregistered street vendors in the city, but these pieces of data already show us how important this activity is not only for the economy of our city but also for the survival of many families!
What Can We Buy?
Let’s list examples of things you can find when looking for a camelô in Rio de Janeiro:
- clothing in general, like t-shirts;
- accessories in general, like sunglasses;
- canga, if you’re going to the beach;
- headphones, earphones, or items to your cellphone;
- souvenirs to your family and friends;
- bed wear, sheets, and towels.
- food: the beach food and the street food in Rio de Janeiro is simply amazing!
- and even weird things like: chicks (yes, the live animal), analog antennas for television (who still uses that?), and snowsuits (in Rio???).

Can be Ambulantes in Rio de Janeiro Annoying?
In case street vendors are not usual in your culture, it is quite possible that you have a cultural shock and get annoyed by so many people wanting to talk with you and trying to sell their stuff. Especially on the beach where you want to relax, ambulantes will pass through every time offering things. Just one advice, be patient!!! As you are a tourist they think you have plenty of money and they just want to subsist and keep going with life, they deserve for us to be nice, don’t lose your temper! They will be nice to you!!! Let’s see next, how we can nicely decline the offers we receive!
How to answer to Street Vendors in Portuguese
To help you handle these situations where street vendors in Brazil offer their products, we suggest a polite way to decline an offer by saying: Não, obrigado! Boas vendas! that we can translate as: No, thank you! Have a good sales day! This simple phrase shows gratitude and lets the vendor know you’re not interested, without any need to worry about further insistence. While some days you may not want to buy anything, other days, a vendor’s snack might be exactly what you need to satisfy a sudden hunger without leaving your spot. It’s a convenient service when you need it, right? 😉
Funny fact: Brazilians prefer to lie than to say No!
Trust us, you won’t have any problem declining a product with the previous sentence. In fact, street vendors hear all kinds of excuses from Brazilians every day not to buy something and they accept them without judgment! From being allergic to the peanuts they offer, to diabetics when they offer sweets! In addition to health problems, there are many who claim to have stopped drinking so as not to buy a caipirinha on offer, or claim to be on a diet, so they can’t eat brigadeiros. But if you follow our Dicas, you already know that Brazilians don’t like to say no. If you don’t follow yet, now is the moment.
Vocabulary Related to Ambulante Meaning in Portuguese
See below the Portuguese vocabulary we just learned and understand the ambulante meaning!
| ambulante/camelô | street vendor |
| autônomo | self-employed |
| aposentadoria | retirement |
| assistente | assistant |
| leis trabalhistas | labor laws |
| microempreendedor | microentrepreneur |
| mito | myth |
| região | region |
| registrado | registered |
| não registrado | unregistered |
| simples | simple |
| sofisticado | sophisticated |
| Não, obrigado! Boas vendas! | No, thank you! Have a good sales day! |
| Não, obrigada! Boas vendas! (for women) | No, thank you! Have a good sales day! |
If you wanna fix and pronounce all the vocabulary we just learned, listen to our podcast about camelôs in Rio de Janeiro just here, and in case it is too easy for you, change to our Dica in Portuguese just by clicking on the superior right corner of your screen and even listen to our podcast in Portuguese.
Let’s Experience the Camelô Culture!
What about we have an online experience with camelôs in Rio? The video below shows, not only the vocabulary we learned but how it works in real life! Let’s experience it!
That’s it, guys! So, if you’re coming to Rio de Janeiro, you won’t be wondering what is a camelô in Portuguese anymore! Remember, Rio de Janeiro ambulantes are all around the city, so you just have to look around and you will find them. There are a bunch very near Rio & Learn in Copacabana! By the way, one of them has a message for you:
Here it’s all happiness, the Marvelous City. It’s the best city in the world!
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Hugs and kisses to everyone!
Click on the links below to see more related Dicas
Brazilian Street Food
Brazilian Beach Food
What is a Brazilian Canga?
Street in Portuguese
Online Academic Coordinator at Rio & Learn Portuguese School.
Experienced educational coordinator and teacher since 2007, adept in curriculum development, creating physical and digital educational materials, and leveraging online platforms to enhance learning outcomes
One Response
Hi! Wonderful information on your page!
I saw that you noted that there are 9,000 street vendors licensed in Rio! Do you know how many work on the beaches? Do you know where I could find this information?