Brazil has taken another decisive step in the digitalisation of its immigration system. From 1 September 2026, all temporary-stay visas (the VITEM I-XIV categories covering work, study, family reunion, digital-nomad and other long-stay purposes) issued to nationals who are already exempt from the country’s short-stay visitor visa are now delivered exclusively in electronic form through the Integrated Consular System (SCI). The change was confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a circular to consulates and highlighted in specialised press reports this weekend. Under the previous procedure, applicants had to appear in person—or use a visa-handling agent—to surrender their physical passport at a Brazilian consulate, wait out the processing period, and return (or arrange courier delivery) to collect the visa label. They can now upload supporting documents, pay the fee online and receive a secured PDF by e-mail. The document contains a QR code that airlines and border officials can validate against the ministry’s back-end database. Travellers are advised to print a copy and carry the digital file on their phone because airline staff must visually confirm the code at check-in. Nothing in the substantive eligibility criteria has changed: the same evidence of employment contract, school enrolment, financial means or health insurance is still required. Post-arrival obligations—including Federal Police registration for stays longer than 90 days—also remain in force. The reform merely removes two round trips to a consulate and the time a passport would otherwise spend in transit or in a visa queue. From a corporate-mobility perspective, the switch could shave at least one to two weeks off typical lead times for inbound assignees. Mobility managers should, however, verify that their employees’ nationalities are on Brazil’s visa-waiver list; citizens of countries that still need a visitor visa (for example, the United States, Canada and Australia from January 2027) must continue to submit their passports in person until those programmes are also migrated to the SCI portal. Brazil is positioning the reform as part of a broader effort to compete for mobile talent. By cutting red tape for digital-nomad, start-up and intra-company transferee applicants, it joins a growing roster of Latin-American jurisdictions—Chile, Colombia and Uruguay among them—that now issue most long-stay permissions electronically. Companies should update their assignment checklists, train HR staff to capture the QR code in travellers’ files and remind assignees that electronic visas do not remove the obligation to keep their passports valid for at least six months beyond the date of entry.
Source: Tamara News
