Visa information

Brazil offers three named routes in the 2026 guide: a Digital Nomad visa for one year, renewable, a retirement visa on proof of pension income, and an investor visa via property or business. The guide scores Brazil 64/100 for visa and bureaucracy, and its paperwork stage is measured in weeks, not days, on every plan tier.

The three routes the guide names

Digital Nomad visa — listed as 1 year, renewable. The guide's remote-work section names it more fully as the Digital Nomad visa (VITEM XIV).

Retirement visa — listed as granted on proof of pension income.

Investor visa — listed as via property or business.

The same three routes appear, in the same wording, in the guide's visa list and in the site data.

The income and investment tests — what the sources actually say

For the Digital Nomad visa (VITEM XIV), the guide gives a specific figure: 1 year renewable on $1,500/mo income.

For the retiree route, the visa list says only “on proof of pension income,” but the guide's schemes list quantifies it as a retiree visa on ~$2,000/mo pension.

For the investor route, the schemes list gives investor visa from ~R$500k. At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ R$5.1, that is a real-denominated threshold, so this page does not convert it into a dollar figure the guide does not print.

No other income threshold, salary test or savings requirement is printed in either source.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan — its own note under that line reads “government fees, apostilles, translations; luxury adds an immigration lawyer” — and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $750 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,050 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $2,550 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,000 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

The only duration and renewal statement the sources make is for the nomad route: the Digital Nomad visa is 1 year, renewable. Neither the guide nor the site data gives a renewal period for the retirement or investor routes, years to permanent residency or citizenship, or any absence limits, so this page does not state them. Treat the nomad renewal as the one sourced renewal fact, and confirm the rest with an immigration lawyer or the consulate before you rely on it — the Retirement plan's lawyer line exists for exactly this kind of question.

Frequently asked questions