Does Brazil demand temporary work visa for foreigners?

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In Febuary of 2018, the British musician Phil Collins was detained as soon as he landed in Brazil, where he would perform for his solo tour. The reason for that? He wasn’t holding the temporary work visa that he was required to present to Brazilian authorities. Thereby, he was held up for a few hours at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão International Airport until the whole situation was solved.

Collin´s case is more ordinary than it appears to be since Brazil’s has a policy for grating the visa based on principle of reciprocity. That means that citizens from countries that require visa for Brazilian entry in their territories will also need visa to travel to Brazil and vice-versa. According to the current legislation (law 13.445/2017), visa exemption must be only conceded by Brazilian authorities, in reciprocal basis, by means of bilateral agreements about the subject – today, Brazil has agreements with nearly 90 countries.

But, if Brazil and England have this reciprocal agreement then why Phil Collins was barred? The answer is on the rule detail: the visitor visa must be conceded only for tourism, business, cultural artistic or sportive activities, study, volunteer work, participations on conferences and others proposes provided that there isn’t any remuneration involved and the stay doesn’t exceed 90 days.

For lack of knowledge of Brazilian’s law, there are situations when the foreigner from visa-free countries comes to Brazil intending to work, to perform artistically, study or any other activity and ends up being prohibited to entry the country by federal police. That’s what happened with Phil Collins.

Therefore, it is worth to be alert to this information and anticipate the bureaucracy in order to avoid any inconvenience or additional cost. To find out more, access the official website of CELESTINO for foreigners (in English and Portuguese), where it is possible to follow closely all details about temporary visa, temporary or permanent resident, among other subjects.

Article written by Guilherme Soares Dias, edit by Julio Simões and translated by Camilla Sarzedas