The information production is essencial for the guidelines of oral cancer assistence and control policies. Objective: The present study is a report on oral cancer mortality in Brazil, from 1996 to 1998, arranged according to variables which include geographical area, sex and age. Methods: Research material was comprised of the estimative of the population from the demographic census and mortality data were obtained from the Mortality Information System of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Oral cancer mortality rates were calculated. Results: During the period under study there were 12,123 deaths, amounting to an oral cancer mortality rate of 2.53 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1996, 2.51 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1997 and 2.55 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1998. It was obtained a male/female ratio of 4.5:1 (4.2 per 100,000 men and 0.94 per 100,000 women). The geographical distribution showed the highest mortality rates in the Southeast (3.5 per 100,000 inhabitants) and South (3.4 per 100,000 inhabitants) regions and the lowest mortality rates were obtained in the Middlewest (1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants), Northeast (1.3 per 100,000 inhabitants) and North (0.8 per 100,000 inhabitants) regions. Over the age of 40 the mortality rate of oral cancer increases as the population gets older. Conclusion: In Brazil, the oral cancer mortality rate was 2.5 per 100,000 inhabitants from 1996 to 1998 and the highest rates were observed in the Southeast and South regions, and there was an excess of males among the deaths. This study was supported by CNPq/PIBIC