Brazil For Digital Nomads And Remote Workers. A Full Visa Guide For Brazil.

7 min readNov 3, 2018

Most people are able to come to Brazil on a tourist visa. And Brazil’s tourist visa is great. It allows you to spend 90 to 180 days in Brazil without any problems. There are not many countries who top this. Pretty great for Digital Nomads who don’t want to move countries all the time. If you want to stay longer in Brazil there are different ways to do so. From extending your tourist visa, to arranging a student, work, volunteer or an investors visa. Let’s have a look.

Tourist Visa

If you have a tourist visa for 90 or 180 days, this means you can spend this amount of days in Brazil without any problems. Those days you can be in Brazil all at once, or if you prefer to break it up, that’s possible too, as long as you don’t overstay the 90 or 180 days given on your tourist visa.

The calculation of 90 / 180 days per year is based on the first day of arrival in Brazil, so not per calendar year. The date on your visa card, which you receive on arrival, determines this specific date and therefore is the key indicator for your 90 / 180 days.

Tourist Visa For Americans And Canadians

As American or Canadian you will initially get a tourist visa for 90 days. You can easily extend this visa by going to the Policia Federal and ask for an extension before your 90 days are up. This extension will give you another 90 days if you like. In total you can easily stay for 180 days per year in Brazil. For Americans and Canadians it doesn’t matter if those 180 days are all at once, which is slightly different for Europeans.

How to Apply For A Brazilian Tourist Visa As An American Or Canadian?

Only a few months back you still had to go to a embassy or consulate if you wanted to fly to Brazil. Luckily those times changes. As an American or Canadian you can now get an e-visa online. This makes the whole visa process all a lot easier. I’m surprised this didn’t happen earlier, as Americans are one of the biggest group of tourist coming to this country.

Besides the big benefit of not having to go to an embassy or consulate anymore, it also take a lot less time. You can now have your e-visa for Brazil within 5 working days.

In general you will need the following for each application:

A credit or debit card for online payment of the visa fee
A passport valid for at least another 6 months
A working email address
A digital passport photo
Proof of outbound travel
Proof of residency (for example a utility bill)
Proof of yellow fever vaccination

Don’t forget to print your approval as you will need to show this when you arrive at the border control.

Tourist Visa For Europeans

The visa process as European is a lot easier, you don’t have to apply for a visa up front, you just get one at arrival. Also this tourist visa is valid for 90 days. The main difference is that the tourist visa for Europeans of 90 days can only be used within 180 days. This can be slightly confusing but is pretty simple. It means you can stay for a maximum of 90 days every 6 months.

For more detailed information about other countries and time restrictions, have a look at this list and consult your local embassy for latest updates.

Extend Your Tourist Visa in Brazil

If you would like to extend your tourist visa you can go to Policia Federal to do so. A list of all Policia Federal can be found here. It’s pretty easy, it just takes time, like everything in Brazil takes time. Don’t be surprised to wait hours in line and to return a few times as you forgot to bring something. It’s Brazil and bureaucracy isn’t easy to deal with.

The most important thing is to extend your visa before it runs out. Don’t go to the Policia Federal after your visa expired, they won’t help you and instead they will tell you that you have 7 days to leave the country.

Although you shouldn’t wait till it’s too late, you should wait till you’re pretty much at the end of your first visa. The extension is given from the day of the extension and not in addition to the first 90 days visa.

Don’t forget to bring an extension request form, your passport with the entrance stamp to Brazil, proof of outbound travel (a flight ticket out of Brazil), sufficient bank statement, proof of income, your tourist card (Cartão de Entrada), issued when entering Brazil and a receipt of payment of your visa fee.

Find the visa extension request form here.
Receipt of payment of visa fee can be arranged through this online form.

For everyone who wants to stay even longer in Brazil, there are several options to do so. And I don’t talk about getting married or quickly get children in Brazil, as this might be the easiest ways to do. They are also the most permanent ways you might not want to get into.

Student Visa

If you would like to stay more than 180 days a year in Brazil you can do so by applying for a student visa. It isn’t too hard, but can be slightly annoying as it needs to be done at a Brazilian Consulate or Embassy outside of Brazil. This means you have to leave Brazil to go home or to a neighbouring country to re-enter Brazil with your new visa.

The student visa is definitely one of the easiest and fastest Brazilian visas to arrange.

Investor Visa

The easier option to stay long term in Brazil, without getting married or have a child with a Brazilian, is to get an investor visa. You will have to invest R$150,000 in land for example, and you will be given a investors visa for 10 years. You will need to proof that you’re actually investing and have local employees. So it’s not as simple as it used to be with just an investment, you actually have to do something for it.

If you don’t want to deal with all the bureaucracy in Brazil and you’re only planning on staying a few days extra there are more options. Overstaying your tourist visa.

Overstaying a Brazilian Tourist Visa

Every time I’m in Brazil, this happens: tourists overstay their visa, on purpose, or not. No wonder Brazil has increased their fine prices from R$8.28 per day to R$100 per day with a maximum fine of R$10,000 no matter how long you have overstayed.

There’s one big reason a lot of tourist do this, and that’s because the fine doesn’t need to be paid before you leave the country. You can choose to pay the fine on your next return. When you’re not planning to return to Brazil, you will get away with the fine easily.

As soon as you leave Brazil, customs will take you apart, let you acknowledging that you’ve overstayed. They give you a form and a big stamp in your passport with notice you have an outstanding fine because of your overstay.

You’re supposed to pay this fine at a Banco do Brasil outside Brazil but in most cases this is done when you would like to come back to Brazil. The immigration officer will hold on to your passport until the fine has been paid. If you arrive in the middle of the night this might give you a problem, as banks will be closed and there’s a possibility you will be send back to your departure place as you won’t be able to enter the country.

When you return to Brazil you will have to show a form which is given to you with your acknowledgement of overstaying. Make sure you don’t forget to bring this.

Which Visa Is Best For You?

Which visa is best for you all depends on how long you would like to stay and what your plans are. There’s a lot more to say, but as most of us Digital Nomads love to explore the world and will move on eventually I won’t go deeper into the more definite visa possibilities.

If you’re joining our upcoming workation kitesurfing in Brazil, December 2018, the tourist visa will be enough. Unless when you’re planning to stay more than 90 days.