The objective of this study is to characterize the coordination performance in the leather industry by measuring the variability of the amount of leather received and purchased for tanning, in the years from 1999 to 2012. For this, the Transaction Cost Theory was used as analytical framework to discuss the coordination and the governance structure of the Brazilian leather industry. The data were extracted from the quarterly census conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Hypotheses were set to verify the improvement in the degree of coordination of the Brazilian leather chain during this period, and the improvement of leather coordination in the Center-West region. All hypotheses were confirmed. Thus, it is possible affirm that the use of the coefficient of variation of the annual leather production is a suitable proxy for assessing the coordination degree of the chain.