Brazil Start-up Visa

The decree prints no figure for this route, and the route does not rest on Article 152. Normative Resolution No. 13 of 12 December 2017, as amended by Resolution CNIg/MJSP No. 49 of 25 June 2024, grants residence under Article 42 and the head of Article 151 of Decree 9,199, that is the route for investment by an individual in a legal entity in Brazil.

The head of Article 151 fixes the shape of the investment itself: an immigrant investing their own funds of foreign origin in a legal entity in Brazil, in a project with potential to generate jobs or income in the country. The figures sit in the resolution: Article 2 sets the general level at 500,000 reais or more with an investment or business plan, and Article 3 allows less than that, but not less than 150,000 reais, for an entrepreneur investing in innovation or in basic or applied research of a scientific or technological character.

Article 151(4) has just been replaced: the earlier text required applications on the investment route to meet requirements set in a resolution of the National Immigration Council; the version introduced by Decree No. 12,657 of 2025 moves that to a joint act of the Minister of Justice and Public Security and the Minister of Foreign Relations, after hearing the other interested ministries.

The power to set thresholds for this route has therefore moved out of the National Immigration Council and into two ministries, so before trusting any figure one must establish who issued it and when.

The two figures in the options table, 500,000 reais at the general level and 150,000 reais for investment in innovation and research, come from the investment visa page of a Brazilian consulate read on 14 September 2026. Their originating instrument is recorded in the tax cell of this page.

As the warning above says, those are levels set by an instrument predating the transfer of power, and they hold until a joint instrument of the two ministries replaces them.

The start-up route does not rest on Article 152 of the decree; it is a branch of the investment route in Article 151. Article 1 of Normative Resolution No. 13 of 12 December 2017 of the National Immigration Council, as amended by Resolution CNIg/MJSP No. 49 of 25 June 2024, allows the Ministry of Justice and Public Security to grant residence under Article 42 and the head of Article 151 of Decree 9,199 to an immigrant who, with their own funds of foreign origin, invests in a legal entity in Brazil.

Article 3 of that resolution is where the start-up route sits: the investment may fall below the general level of 500,000 reais but not below 150,000 reais, for an entrepreneur settling in Brazil in order to invest in innovation or in basic or applied research of a scientific or technological character.

What is granted is a residence authorisation of indefinite term: Article 6(4) of the resolution says so, consistent with Article 151(5) of the decree, which allows authorisations under that article to be granted for an indefinite term.

An indefinite term is not an unconditional one. Article 151(6) allows the authorisation to be declared lost under Article 135(I) if the immigrant has not carried out the investment plan on which it rested, and Article 6(2) of the resolution makes continued residence conditional on filing proof that the investment or business plan has been carried out no later than ninety days before the term granted ends.

The instrument that sets requirements for the investment route has also changed: the earlier text of Article 151(4) left them to a resolution of the National Immigration Council; the current text, introduced by Decree No. 12,657 of 7 October 2025, leaves them to a joint act of the Minister of Justice and Public Security and the Minister of Foreign Relations, after hearing the other interested ministries. The Ministry of Justice labour immigration portal still publishes Resolution No. 13, with a note of the 2024 amendment, among its normative resolutions.

Article 152, on activities of economic, social, scientific, technological or cultural relevance, is a different ground, and Resolution No. 13 does not refer to it.

No instrument governing this route sets a processing time. The start-up route rests on the head of Article 151 of the decree, under Article 1 of Normative Resolution No. 13 of 2017, and that resolution sets dates only for the applicant: the investment or business plan runs on a three-year implementation horizon, and proof that the plan has been carried out must be filed no later than ninety days before the term granted ends.

What timing remains in the decree is common to every residence authorisation, and all of it falls on the applicant rather than the authority. No provision requires the authority to decide within any period.

The only date attached to a decision comes after a refusal: Article 134 allows an appeal within ten days from the date the immigrant learns of the decision, guaranteeing the adversarial principle and full rights of defence, and applying Law No. 9,784 of 29 January 1999 subsidiarily.

On the applicant's side each date carries a money penalty: Article 307(iii) fines a failure to register within ninety days of entry where civil identification is compulsory.

Article 307(iv) fines per day of delay a failure to register for a residence authorisation within thirty days after being directed to do so; and Article 130(2) provides that applying afresh after the previous authorisation has expired brings the sanction in Article 307(ii), a fine for each day of excess plus deportation.

There is no presence obligation counted in days, but there is an absence ceiling and a reporting duty, and for this route the dangerous door is the investment plan rather than the days spent abroad.

Article 135 lists three cases in which a residence authorisation is declared lost: cessation of the ground on which it rested; obtaining an authorisation on another ground; and absence from the country for more than two years without presenting a justification.

Those two years are a ceiling on unjustified absence, not an absolute one.

This route rests on the head of Article 151, that is on an investment plan to be carried out rather than on a sum already paid — so the first case, cessation of the ground, is a standing risk: Article 151(6) allows the authorisation to be declared lost under Article 135(I) if the immigrant has not carried out the investment plan on which it rested.

Article 135(1) turns that into an active duty on the immigrant themselves: they must notify the Federal Police whenever they cease to hold the conditions that grounded the authorisation, at any point during its validity.

Paragraph 2 leaves a way out: losing the ground does not prevent an application on another ground. And Article 137 requires every declaration of loss or cancellation to pass through an administrative procedure observing the adversarial principle and full rights of defence.

On the term: Article 151(5) allows authorisations under that article to be granted for an indefinite term, and Article 6(4) of Normative Resolution No. 13 sets an indefinite term for this route; even so, paragraph 2 of the same article makes continued residence conditional on filing proof that the plan has been carried out no later than ninety days before the term granted ends.

The resolution creating this category is silent on dependants: Normative Resolution No. 13 of 12 December 2017 does not mention family, a spouse, a child, a dependant or reunion.

Relatives use the general reunion route, and this is a join to two other instruments:

Article 37 of Migration Law 13,445 of 2017 covers a spouse or partner without any discrimination, a child of an immigrant holding a residence authorisation, ascendants and descendants to the second degree and siblings, and a person who has a Brazilian in their care or custody.

Article 153 of Decree 9,199 of the same year details eight groups, in which ascendants to the second degree means parents and grandparents and descendants to the second degree means children and grandchildren.

An economic dependency test is imposed on exactly one group: paragraph 3 requires a sibling over eighteen to prove economic dependency on the sponsoring relative, while children, spouses, parents and grandparents are not, and the decree states no age limit for children.

The sponsored relative permission expires on the same date as the sponsor permission; applications may be filed together but are granted only after the sponsor has been granted.

The dependant may undertake any activity including paid work on the same footing as a Brazilian; and a person holding residence by reunion may not in turn sponsor another.

There is no additional financial threshold per dependant in any of the three instruments. One limit: article 153(1) delegates the detailed conditions to an interministerial ordinance whose full text has not been verified, so any practical age limit for children sits there.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Brazil passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Brazil passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Brazil passport reaches 180 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The resolution that creates this category imposes no tax regime on the individual investor, but it does carry a real tax obligation and that obligation runs in the opposite direction from a benefit.

Article 6(III) requires a copy of the company income tax return for the most recent fiscal year together with its filing receipt, alongside three years of annual labour reports and severance fund records; the corporate tax file thus becomes a condition of keeping the residence rather than a concession.

What the resolution does say: the general threshold is foreign currency investment of 500,000 reais or more with an investment or business plan.

The startup route drops below that but not below 150,000 reais, and is open to an entrepreneur intending to settle in Brazil for the purpose of investing in innovation, or in basic or applied research of a scientific or technological character.

At least one of five alternative conditions must be met, namely receiving innovation capital or funding from a public institution, being located in a technology park, being incubated or having graduated from an incubator, reaching the final stage of a public startup support programme, or being supported by an accelerator in Brazil.

The plan runs on a three-year implementation horizon and must state intended salaries and a hiring plan. The residence term is indefinite, and renewal requires proof of implementation filed at least 90 days before expiry.

Two small points matter when quoting: the startup threshold as printed in figures in the pdf is wrong, and only the words cento e cinquenta mil reais are correct; and the word renda mostly belongs to the phrase geração de renda no País, meaning income generated for the economy, and refers to tax in one place only.

The same two federal charges as for any other residence route, printed verbatim on the Ministry of Justice page: processing and assessment fee for residence authorisation applications R$ 168.13, collection code 140066, and issue fee for the National Migration Registry Card R$ 204.77, collection code 140120, paid by GRU bank slip.

On renewal only the R$ 204.77 card fee remains.

On the filing door the limit of the source has to be stated plainly:

The page lists six grounds that must be filed directly with the Ministry of Justice through MigranteWeb version 2.0, of which the third is carrying out an investment and the fourth is carrying out an activity of relevance under Article 152.

The page does not mention the start-up route, but the route's own instrument answers the question: Article 1 of Normative Resolution No. 13 of 2017 grants residence under the head of Article 151, so the start-up route falls under the third ground, carrying out an investment, and not under the Article 152 ground. Both grounds use the same door and carry the same two charges.