The gradual decline of authoritarian regimes around the world and the consequent appreciation of democracy appear as the main reasons why the culture of secrecy is losing its force at the same time that transparency is consecrated as a fundamental element for the improvement of public management. In this context, gain importance the discussions about the right to information and its relationship with the strengthening of democracy. This fact is ratified by the increase of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in several countries of the world in the last decades and, with the approval of Law 12.527/2011, Brazil enters the list of the countries that regulate the right to information. In view of that, the present research aimed to analyze the implementation stage of transparency practices in the Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology (FIs) of the Northeast region of Brazil, based on the FOIA. This was an exploratory and descriptive research with quantitative-qualitative approach. The data was collected by guided navigation through the websites of the Institutes and information requested by the Electronic System of the Citizen Information Service (e-SIC) of the Ministry of Transparency, Inspection and General Comptroller of the Union. The main results revels that, in terms of active transparency, all FIs provide information on their expenditure, 90.9% of them provide records of financial resources transfers, and more than 81% provide the management report for the previous year. However, 72.72% of the FIs do not disclose the complete records of the bidding procedures and 63.63% do not provide answers to the most frequently asked questions of the society. Regarding passive transparency, more than 31% of requests for information were not answered and 10 of the 22 requests forwarded were answered with non-conformity. Concerning to good practices for promote transparency, it was observed that 100% of analyzed FIs hold public hearings and consultations, however, 82% of them do not have a forum, board or permanent committee of transparency in the body. It was concluded that 36.36% of analyzed Institutes are in a stage of institutional transparency that is significant and 63.64% moderate. Also, none of then fully complies with the requirements of the Brazilian FOIA.