How Long Can a Visitor Remain in Brazil?

According to Brazilian law, any person who comes to Brazil only for short-stay is a "visitor". This category encompasses those persons that enter the national territory for reasons other than immigration. So, tourists are visitors.

Whenever a visitor arrives in Brazil, his "migratory year" (ano migratório) begins. The Decree 9.199/2017 presents the official definition of migratory year: a continuous "twelve months period, counting from the date of the first entry of the visitor in the national territory". This is not the same thing as a "calendar year" that ranges from January 1st until December 31th.

In general, a visitor can stay up to 90 days without interruption in Brazil. However, a renewal is allowed during the migration year upon request and provided that the applicant's country ensures reciprocity of treatment for Brazilian citizens. Therefore, a visitor can stay up to 180 consecutive days but it's important to see the "Quadro Geral de Regime de Vistos" or "Entry Visas to Brazil" (available here in English and Portuguese).

If the visitor intends travelling several times to Brazil during his migratory year, he must be cautious because the sum of every entry can not surpass 180 days.

If a tourist comes to Rio de Janeiro for the Carnaval in February 2021, spends two weeks and then returns to his home country. In March, he returns to Brazil for a three months stay because he works on-line. In the end of May he leaves the country and returns once again in December aiming to stay two more consecutive months. As long as he does not exceed 180 days during his migratory year, from February 2021 until February 2022, it's all right.

The European Union has an on-line tool to help foreign visitors, the Short-Stay Visa Calculator. Although the Brazilian legal system has its own particularities, it can be useful since the users don't forget how to calculate the migratory year in Brazil. What if someone would like to spend more time living in Brazil but does not have a labor contract or enough money for investing or buying real state property? That's the case of many digital nomads. This scenario was not envisaged by the law-makers but one possible way is applying for labor residency permit for special cases and remain a little bit longer in Brazil.

Paulo Henrique Faria Nunes