The second Gaia data release (Gaia DR2) contains high-precision positions, parallaxes, and proper motions for 1.3 billion sources. The resulting Hertzsprung-Russel diagram reveals fine structures throughout the mass range. This paper aims to investigate the content of Gaia DR2 at the low-mass end and to characterize ultra-cool and brown dwarfs. We first retrieved the sample of spectroscopically confirmed ultra-cool and brown dwarfs in Gaia DR2.We used their locus in the precise Hertzsprung-Russel diagram to select new candidates and to investigate their properties. The number of spectroscopically confirmed objects recovered in Gaia DR2 corresponds to 61% and 74% of the expected number of objects with an estimated Gaia magnitude G_est_<=21.5 and 20.3, respectively. This fills much of the gap to Gaia DR1. Furthermore, Gaia DR2 contains ~13000>=M7 and 631 new L candidates. A tentative classification suggests that a few hundred of them are young or subdwarf candidates. Their distance distribution shows that the solar neighborhood census is still incomplete. Conclusions. Gaia DR2 offers a great wealth of information on low-mass objects. It provides a homogeneous and precise catalog of candidates that is worthwhile to be further characterized with spectroscopic observations.