Ten days before the first round of Brazil's 2026 elections, campaigns have already paid Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, a record R$ 167.3 million (roughly US$ 32 million) to boost posts. The figure, based on spending reported to the TSE, Brazil's top electoral court, through Tuesday, already exceeds what campaigns spent on boosting in the entire 2022 election, according to the news outlet UOL.
"Boosting" means paying a platform so a post reaches more people than it would on its own. It works like an auction: the campaign picks an audience, sets a budget, and Meta's system delivers the post into feeds, labeled "sponsored". The numbers come from the Observatório do Impulsionamento Eleitoral (Election Boosting Observatory), run by the journalism outlet Núcleo Jornalismo, which compiles campaign finance reports filed with the TSE. Across all platforms, campaigns have declared R$ 215 million in boosting, about 7% of all declared campaign spending. More than 70% of that money went to Meta alone, and roughly 6,700 candidates have filed such expenses. On September 15 the Meta total stood at R$ 156 million: in just over a week, another R$ 11 million came in.
Who is paying
Among presidential candidates, President Lula of the Workers' Party (PT) leads declared spending, with R$ 2.7 million paid to Meta through September 15. Next come Ceará governor Elmano de Freitas (PT), with R$ 2.2 million, and São Paulo governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos), with R$ 1.5 million; former minister Fernando Haddad (PT), who is challenging Tarcísio in São Paulo, also ranks among the biggest spenders. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), Lula's main rival in the presidential race, declared R$ 900,000, less than a third of the president's total. By party, the PL leads with R$ 43.8 million, followed by the PT with R$ 27.8 million.
Change the source and the number changes. According to Meta's own ad library, cited by UOL, Lula has invested R$ 4.7 million to expand the reach of his posts in the period examined, above the R$ 2.7 million declared to the TSE. The two measurements look at different points: the TSE records what campaigns have reported, with delays and gaps, while Meta's library shows what passed through the company's till, in spending ranges and on its own time windows.
What the numbers still do not show
Two caveats before drawing conclusions. First, the declared total likely understates reality: according to the observatory itself, many campaigns do not say which platform they used, so part of the money paid to Meta sits hidden inside the broader R$ 215 million. Second, the data stops on September 23: the final week before the October 4 first round is precisely when spending peaks, and any runoff could multiply the bill in states such as São Paulo.
It is worth remembering who profits from this. Meta's business is selling attention in auctions, and an election squeezes the fight for that attention into a few weeks, turning the electoral calendar into a revenue peak for the company, which earns from every side and runs its own ad transparency tool. For voters, the practical move is twofold: before sharing a post that looks organic, look for the "sponsored" label, and, to dig deeper, check Meta's ad library, which is public and shows who paid for each political ad and the spending range. The next campaign finance filings, in the final stretch, will show the true size of the bill.