Brazil has a wide variety of tropical, subtropical, and temperate fruits with widely differing carotenoid compositions, providing a good setting for investigating the natural occurrence of cis-isomers of provitamins. Seventy-five samples were analyzed. The fruits could be classified into two main groups:(1) those having @-carotene as the principal provitamin and (2) those with @-cryptoxanthin as the major provitamin. Some fruits also had a-carotene, y-carotene, a-cryptoxanthin, and @-apo-10'-carotenal, usually at low levels. cis-Isomers were not found in caj6, papaya (two cultivars), passion fruit, pitanga, and West Indian cherry. Traces of 134s-@-carotene were found in some samples of loquat, mango (two cultivars), and piqui. Buriti, mamey, nectarine, and peach had 0.1-4.2 pg/g 13-cis-fl-carotene and 0.1-1.0 pg/g 9-cis-@-carotene; the latter two fruits and piqui also had 0.2-0.4 pg/g neo-@-cryptoxanthin. Overestimations of only 3-10 5% of the retinol equivalents occurred when the isomers were not separated, indicating that this separation is not important in fresh fruits.