Global Affairs & Diplomacy · 16 min read · Published 8 October 2026

BRICS Members and Partner Countries in 2026: Full List, Status and What Each Category Means

By Dishantra Editorial

The short answer

BRICS currently has 11 full members and 10 partner countries.

The 11 full members are:

• Brazil
• Russia
• India
• China
• South Africa
• Saudi Arabia
• Egypt
• Ethiopia
• Iran
• United Arab Emirates
• Indonesia

The 10 partner countries are:

• Belarus
• Bolivia
• Cuba
• Kazakhstan
• Malaysia
• Nigeria
• Thailand
• Uganda
• Uzbekistan
• Vietnam

These two categories are not interchangeable.

Full members participate across the BRICS structure and take part in a decision-making system based on consensus. Partner countries have a recognised relationship with BRICS and can participate in important BRICS engagements, including leaders’ and foreign-ministers’ meetings, but they are not full members of the decision-making group.

There are also two other terms that frequently cause confusion: BRICS Outreach and BRICS Plus. These are formats for inviting countries to particular meetings; they are not the same as either full membership or partner-country status.

Understanding those distinctions is essential because a photograph of a leader at a BRICS meeting, an invitation to a summit, or participation in a BRICS Plus session does not by itself mean that the country has become a BRICS member.

1. Why BRICS lists often look inconsistent

A reader can search “BRICS countries” and find different totals on different websites.

That does not always mean one source is deliberately wrong. BRICS expanded rapidly between 2023 and 2025, while older pages, graphics and news articles remained online.

The original political grouping began with Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2011. A much larger expansion was agreed at the Johannesburg Summit in 2023. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates became part of the expanded grouping, and Indonesia’s full membership was formally announced by the Brazilian BRICS Presidency on 6 January 2025.

That brought the full-member count to 11.

At the same time, BRICS created a new participation category — partner country — at the Kazan Summit in 2024. Nine partners were participating by early 2025, and Vietnam became the tenth partner in June 2025.

By India’s 2026 BRICS Presidency, official Government of India material described BRICS as comprising 11 member nations. The September 2026 New Delhi Declaration separately recognised the contribution of partner countries and encouraged their increasing participation in BRICS engagements.

So when a page says BRICS has five, nine, ten or eleven countries, the first question should be:

What date is that list describing?

The second should be:

Is it listing full members only, or members plus partners and invited countries?

2. The current 11 full BRICS members

Official BRICS material under the Brazilian presidency listed the full members as:

Brazil

Brazil is one of the four original countries associated with the BRIC grouping and held the BRICS presidency in 2025.

Russia

Russia is another original BRIC member and hosted the 2024 Kazan Summit at which the partner-country category was created.

India

India is an original member and held the BRICS Presidency in 2026, hosting the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi in September.

China

China is an original BRIC member and has played a central role in the grouping’s economic and diplomatic development.

South Africa

South Africa joined in 2011. Its inclusion changed “BRIC” into “BRICS”.

Egypt

Egypt joined during the post-Johannesburg expansion.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia joined as part of the same expansion, increasing African representation in the grouping.

Iran

Iran joined the expanded BRICS framework following the 2023 enlargement decision.

Saudi Arabia

Official BRICS and Government of India materials in 2025–26 list Saudi Arabia among the 11 full members.

This is worth stating explicitly because some earlier reporting treated Saudi Arabia’s status as unsettled during the transition following the Johannesburg invitations. For a current article, the appropriate reference point is the latest official BRICS and Indian-government material rather than older transitional coverage.

United Arab Emirates

The UAE joined during the same expansion cycle.

Indonesia

Indonesia is the newest full member. Brazil formally announced its entry on 6 January 2025. Official Brazilian BRICS material says its accession had been approved in the Johannesburg expansion process and was formalised after Indonesia completed its domestic political transition and confirmed its interest.

Indonesia is important to the membership story because it demonstrates that an invitation and formal membership can occur at different points in time.

3. What does being a full BRICS member actually mean?

BRICS is not structured like the European Union.

Official BRICS material describes it as a political and diplomatic coordination forum rather than an organisation with a constitutive treaty, its own permanent budget or a permanent secretariat.

That makes membership more political and cooperative than supranational.

A full member:

• participates throughout the BRICS meeting architecture;
• takes part in leaders’ and ministerial processes;
• participates in working groups and cooperation tracks;
• joins the consensus-based decision-making process;
• can shape declarations, priorities and institutional initiatives;
• participates in deciding how BRICS itself develops.

The word consensus is particularly important.

BRICS decisions are not normally presented as majority votes in which six countries can simply overrule five. The grouping works by developing positions that all members can accept.

That means expansion changes more than the size of a summit photograph. Every additional full member increases the range of national interests that must be reconciled to produce a common BRICS position.

4. What is a BRICS partner country?

The partner-country category is much newer than BRICS membership itself.

It was created at the Kazan Summit in 2024.

Official BRICS guidance says partner countries are generally invited to participate in meetings of BRICS foreign ministers and at leaders’ summits. They may also participate in other meetings where the full members agree by consensus.

The 2026 New Delhi Declaration went further in political language by recognising the “valuable contribution” of partner countries and encouraging their increasing participation in BRICS engagements and practical cooperation in areas of shared interest.

But partner status still does not equal full membership.

A partner country does not automatically acquire the same place in consensus decision-making that a full member has.

A useful way to understand it is:

membership = participation inside the core decision-making group

partnership = an institutionalised relationship with significant access and cooperation, but not identical status

That is much more precise than saying partners are simply “new BRICS members”.

5. The current 10 BRICS partner countries

Belarus

Belarus was among the countries that accepted partner-country status as the category became operational.

Bolivia

Bolivia is a BRICS partner, but it should not be counted among the 11 full members.

Cuba

Cuba participates as a partner country.

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a partner. Its participation is separate from the membership category occupied by countries such as India, China or Indonesia.

Malaysia

Malaysia accepted partner-country status and participates through that framework.

Nigeria

Nigeria became a BRICS partner in January 2025.

Nigeria’s case is another reason lists published at different moments can disagree: some early partner-country summaries were produced before its formal acceptance was reflected.

Thailand

Thailand participates as a partner country.

Uganda

Uganda is a BRICS partner, adding another African country to the partnership framework without making it a full member.

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan participates as a partner country.

Vietnam

Vietnam became the tenth BRICS partner country when Brazil, as the 2025 BRICS chair, formally announced its admission on 13 June 2025.

That date is useful because it provides a clear point after which a current partner list should contain ten rather than nine countries.

6. Member and partner are not stages that automatically follow one another

It may be tempting to think of partner status as a waiting room in which every partner will eventually become a full member.

Official material does not establish such an automatic progression.

A partner may deepen cooperation with BRICS without becoming a full member.

Likewise, a country interested in joining BRICS does not become a partner or member simply by announcing that interest.

BRICS expansion is political and consensus-based.

Official Brazilian BRICS material described a process for prospective membership that can involve:

1. expressing interest;
2. being considered as a potential member;
3. a consensus decision by BRICS leaders;
4. completion of the steps necessary for formal accession.

The precise diplomatic process can evolve, especially as BRICS itself adjusts to rapid expansion.

The safest rule for readers is therefore:

Do not treat an expression of interest, an invitation, partner status and full membership as the same event.

7. Why does BRICS use a partner category?

Rapid enlargement creates a tension.

On one side, BRICS wants to broaden engagement with countries that identify with Global South cooperation, reform of global governance or specific BRICS initiatives.

On the other side, every new full member becomes part of a consensus-based core.

If dozens of interested states became full members quickly, reaching common positions could become more difficult.

A partner category provides a middle structure.

It allows BRICS to:

• institutionalise relationships with additional countries;
• include them in high-level political dialogue;
• involve partners in practical cooperation where appropriate;
• broaden geographic representation;
• test and deepen working relationships;
• expand engagement without immediately enlarging the core decision-making group to every interested country.

The 2026 New Delhi Declaration’s call for increasing partner participation shows that partners are not merely ceremonial guests. At the same time, the Declaration does not erase the legal-political distinction between partners and members.

8. What is BRICS Outreach?

BRICS Outreach is not a third membership level.

It is a meeting format.

Official BRICS material says Outreach began under South Africa in 2013.

In an Outreach format, the country holding the rotating BRICS presidency can bring together BRICS and invited countries from its geographic region.

Participation can therefore depend on the host presidency and the meeting.

A country can attend an Outreach event without becoming either:

• a full BRICS member; or
• a BRICS partner country.

That is why a photograph of a national leader at a BRICS-related event must be interpreted carefully.

Presence does not automatically equal institutional status.

9. What is BRICS Plus?

BRICS Plus is also an engagement format rather than a membership category.

It was introduced under China’s presidency in 2017.

Official BRICS explanations distinguish it from Outreach because BRICS Plus can involve invited countries beyond the geographic region of the current chair.

India used the Outreach/BRICS Plus dialogue format during the 2026 New Delhi Summit. The New Delhi Declaration specifically commended India for hosting that dialogue.

Again, participation should not be misread.

A country appearing at a BRICS Plus dialogue is not necessarily a partner, and a partner is not necessarily a full member.

10. Four different labels readers should keep separate

When reading BRICS news, four concepts may appear together.

Full member

Part of the 11-country core. Participates in consensus decision-making.

Partner country

Has formal partner status and structured participation, but is not identical to a full member.

Outreach participant

Invited into a particular regional engagement format associated with the current chair.

BRICS Plus participant

Invited into a wider dialogue format that can include non-member countries from beyond the chair’s region.

A fifth label also appears:

Interested country

A government may publicly express interest in BRICS without having any of the four statuses above.

This is why statements such as “Country X has joined BRICS” require verification against an official BRICS announcement.

11. How did BRICS expand from five countries to eleven?

A simple timeline helps.

2000s: BRIC takes shape

Brazil, Russia, India and China became the core grouping.

2011: South Africa joins

South Africa’s accession produced the familiar BRICS acronym.

For more than a decade, the five-member format remained the public identity of the grouping.

August 2023: Johannesburg expansion decision

BRICS leaders agreed to invite additional countries.

The expansion brought Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates into the enlarged framework.

2024: partner category created

At the Kazan Summit, leaders created the BRICS partner-country category.

January 2025: Indonesia becomes a full member

Brazil formally announced Indonesia’s entry on 6 January 2025.

BRICS now had 11 full members.

2025: partner framework expands

Partner countries began participating under the new category. Nigeria formally joined the partner group, and Vietnam became the tenth partner in June.

2026: India hosts an expanded BRICS

The New Delhi Summit took place in a BRICS environment that was much larger than the five-country institution familiar to many readers.

That expansion helps explain why terms such as partner, Outreach and BRICS Plus now matter more.

12. Does the “BRICS” acronym still describe all the members?

Not literally.

The name is historically derived from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Once the grouping expanded, changing the name to include the initials of every new member would have produced an unwieldy label.

So “BRICS” now functions as an established institutional name rather than a literal list of every member’s initial.

This is common in international institutions: a name can survive even as membership changes.

13. Why does membership status matter in practice?

The distinction matters in at least five ways.

Decision-making

Full members form the consensus decision-making core.

Diplomatic weight

A joint declaration is negotiated by the member countries. Partner participation can be influential, but status matters when interpreting whose agreement produced the formal BRICS position.

Institutional participation

Members participate across the BRICS system. Partners may take part in specified engagements and additional meetings where members agree.

Media accuracy

Calling every summit guest a “BRICS member” overstates the organisation’s actual composition.

Future expansion

Partner status gives BRICS a way to deepen cooperation with additional countries without immediately changing the core membership every time a government expresses interest.

14. Why are more countries interested in BRICS?

There is no single reason that applies to every interested state.

Countries can see value in BRICS for different reasons, including:

• greater diplomatic engagement with major emerging economies;
• stronger representation of developing-country priorities;
• reform of institutions of global governance;
• trade and investment relationships;
• development finance;
• cooperation in health, technology, climate, agriculture, culture or education;
• South-South cooperation;
• a desire for more options in international partnerships.

Some governments also use language about a more multipolar or representative international order.

But joining BRICS does not mean that every member shares identical foreign-policy positions.

The grouping contains countries with very different economies, political systems, alliances, security interests and relationships with Western states.

Consensus therefore matters not because the members are identical, but precisely because they are not.

15. Does BRICS membership create treaty obligations like the EU or NATO?

Not in the same way.

Official BRICS material emphasises that the grouping does not have a constitutive treaty comparable to treaty-based organisations with supranational institutions.

It also does not operate like a military alliance.

Membership therefore should not be interpreted as:

• an automatic defence guarantee;
• surrender of national sovereignty to a central BRICS authority;
• adoption of one foreign policy;
• membership in a customs union;
• adoption of a common currency;
• automatic access to every BRICS-linked financial programme.

Cooperation is organised through political commitments, declarations, ministerial tracks, working groups and institutions such as the New Development Bank, each of which has its own rules.

16. Are all 21 member and partner countries equal inside BRICS?

They are sovereign states, but their BRICS status is not identical.

The 11 full members are the consensus decision-making members.

The 10 partners participate through the partner framework.

That does not mean partners are unimportant. The 2026 New Delhi Declaration explicitly described their contribution as valuable and called for increasing their participation in engagements and practical cooperation.

But an article that simply says “BRICS has 21 members” would blur a distinction that official BRICS sources themselves maintain.

The more accurate formulation is:

BRICS has 11 full members and 10 partner countries as of 8 October 2026.

17. How should readers check future claims that another country has “joined BRICS”?

Use a simple verification sequence.

Step 1: check the date

BRICS status can change, so an old list may be obsolete.

Step 2: find an official announcement

Prefer:

• the current BRICS presidency;
• a summit declaration;
• the government of the joining country;
• India’s Ministry of External Affairs or other relevant official government source.

Step 3: identify the exact word

Does the announcement say:

• member;
• partner;
• invited;
• interested;
• Outreach participant;
• BRICS Plus participant?

Those words have different meanings.

Step 4: check whether the status has taken effect

An invitation may precede formal accession.

Step 5: avoid counting summit guests as members

Attendance is evidence of engagement, not proof of membership.

18. What the 2026 New Delhi Declaration tells us about the direction of travel

The New Delhi Declaration does not announce another round of full-member expansion.

Instead, it emphasises the expanded BRICS, recognises the contribution of partners and encourages their greater participation in areas of common interest.

That suggests an important institutional priority: making the already-expanded structure work.

Expansion creates opportunity, but it also creates coordination costs.

BRICS now has to maintain consensus among 11 members while developing useful forms of engagement with 10 partners and a wider circle of Outreach and BRICS Plus participants.

The success of the expanded grouping will therefore depend not only on how many flags appear at a summit, but on whether its different participation categories produce workable cooperation.

19. What this means for an Indian reader

For an Indian reader, understanding the categories helps in three practical ways.

First, it prevents exaggerated conclusions from headlines.

If another country attends a BRICS Plus event, that does not mean India has suddenly acquired a new full BRICS partner in the decision-making sense.

Second, it makes summit declarations easier to read.

When “BRICS leaders” adopt a declaration, the member-country consensus is the central institutional fact. Partner countries may contribute to cooperation without holding identical status.

Third, it provides context for India’s role as 2026 chair.

India was not simply hosting the old five-member BRICS. It was chairing an expanded 11-member grouping while also managing a formal partner framework and wider dialogues.

That makes institutional clarity more important, not less.

Conclusion

The most useful way to understand today’s BRICS is not to ask only, “How many countries are there?”

Ask instead:

Which countries are full members, which are partners, and which are simply participating in a particular dialogue?

As of 8 October 2026, the answer is clear in current official material:

11 full BRICS members and 10 partner countries.

Full members form the consensus-based core. Partners have a formal and increasingly important cooperation role, but they are not identical to members. Outreach and BRICS Plus are meeting formats rather than membership categories.

Those distinctions may sound technical, but they prevent a common mistake: treating every BRICS invitation, photograph or political expression of interest as formal membership.

For a grouping that has expanded quickly and may continue evolving, careful use of these categories is essential to understanding what BRICS actually is — and what it is not.

Continue with Dishantra

Complex public issues often become confusing because membership, invitation, proposal, implementation and political interpretation are treated as if they mean the same thing.

Dishantra’s approach is to separate those layers before drawing conclusions. Explore more evidence-led Dishantra Insights, or visit Solutions for structured tools designed to help turn complicated questions into clearer next steps.

Sources & verification trail

• Government of India / PIB — BRICS 2026 backgrounder
• BRICS New Delhi Declaration, 12 September 2026
• Official BRICS material — About BRICS
• New Development Bank — current members
• Wikimedia Commons — PMO/PIB summit photograph and GODL-India licensing record

BRICS participation status can change through consensus decisions and formal announcements. This article uses a visible reference date and should be rechecked whenever a new membership or partner announcement is made.