Brazil Work Culture

Competence over the entry of foreign nationals belongs to the Union. The 1988 Constitution reserves to the Union, privatively, the power to legislate on emigration, immigration, entry, extradition and expulsion of foreign nationals (art. 22, XV), subject to the reserve carried by the parágrafo único of that same article, under which a complementary law may authorise the States to legislate on specific questions within the matters it lists. Lei no. 13.445 of 24 May 2017, known as the Lei de Migração, lists at its art. 12 the visit visa, the temporary visa, the diplomatic visa, the official visa and the courtesy visa, and that list carries no referral to the regulation. The list of purposes of the visto de visita, the visit visa, does carry one: art. 13 covers tourism, business, transit and artistic or sporting activities, then closes on other situations defined by regulation, wording that leaves the list open.

The visto de visita carries no right to work. Art. 13, § 1º of the law forbids its holder to carry on paid activity in Brazil, and the implementing regulation repeats the prohibition in the same terms at its art. 29, § 1º (Decreto no. 9.199 of 20 November 2017). The § 2º of that same art. 13 preserves payments that remain admissible, per diem, expense allowance, appearance fee and pro labore, and it ends that list on an open branch, other travel expenses; it also admits prizes, including in money, in sporting competitions and in artistic or cultural contests. The visto de visita is not required for a stopover or a connection, provided the traveller does not leave the international transit area (art. 13, § 3º of the law, repeated at art. 29, § 10 of the regulation). The regulation states what tourism and business cover for the purposes of this visa, at art. 29, §§ 2º and 3º, the latter in the wording given to it by Decreto no. 12.657 of 7 October 2025, which added to it the supply of technical assistance or transfer of technology arising from a contract, a cooperation agreement or a convention between a foreign legal entity and a Brazilian legal entity. Both paragraphs are introduced by the verb to comprise, with no opening clause and no statement of exhaustiveness.

The validity of a visa and the length of a stay are two distinct notions. Validity is the period during which the visa can be used to enter the country (art. 14 of the regulation). For the visto de visita it is one year and in principle allows multiple entries, unless the Ministério das Relações Exteriores determines otherwise; it can be reduced at that ministry's discretion, extended to ten years where reciprocity is defined by diplomatic communication, and exceed one year where the visa is applied for and issued electronically, again at that ministry's discretion (art. 15). The length of stay, by contrast, runs from the first entry (art. 19). It is ninety days at most, extendable by the Polícia Federal by ninety days at most, without the total stay exceeding one hundred and eighty days per migratory year, subject to the case provided for at § 7º of art. 29 (art. 20). The regulation defines the migratory year as a period of twelve months counted from the visitor's first entry into the territory, on the conditions set by an act of the head of the Polícia Federal (art. 1º, parágrafo único, VIII). The count is suspended each time the visitor leaves the territory, the extension is open only to nationals of countries that afford reciprocity of treatment to Brazilians, and the Polícia Federal can exceptionally grant a shorter period or reduce the period provided for at any time; the application for renewal is made before the initial period expires (art. 20, §§ 1º to 4º). The regulation adds that this regime of duration can be applied to nationals exempt from the visa requirement and that different durations and different methods of counting can be established, on condition of reciprocity (art. 23).

The distribution by nationality is not in the decree. Art. 32 of Decreto no. 9.199/2017 charges the Ministério das Relações Exteriores with publishing and keeping up to date, on an electronic site, the list of countries whose nationals benefit from exemption from the visto de visita, and it is that regulatory obligation that gives its status to the ministerial table, the Quadro Geral de Regime de Vistos, published by the ministry in an English edition headed Entry Visas to Brazil, in the version that dates itself 29 July 2026. Its caption attaches a code to each row, worded in that English edition as follows: 1, Visa required; 2, Visa exemption, for a period not exceeding thirty (30) days; 3, Visa exemption, for a period not exceeding sixty (60) days; 4, Visa exemption, for a period not exceeding ninety (90) days. An asterisk adds Maximum stay of 90 days every 180 days, and a hash marks Entrance allowed by presenting Civil Identity Card. The column that governs an ordinary passport is the one headed VIVIS, which the English caption gives as Visit Visa and the Portuguese caption as the visit visa for holders of an ordinary passport; the PADIP and PASOF columns cover diplomatic, official and service passports. The caption carries codes other than the ones taken up here.

An exemption can arise without a decree. Lei no. 13.445/2017 provides at its art. 9º, parágrafo único, that simplification of the visa requirement and reciprocal exemption from it can be defined by diplomatic communication, and the regulation repeats this at its art. 25: exemption is granted, at the discretion of the Ministério das Relações Exteriores, to nationals of a country that affords reciprocity of treatment to Brazilians, for as long as that reciprocity lasts, the requirements of the reciprocal exemption being defined by diplomatic communication, and a joint act of the ministers of justice and public security and of external relations can, exceptionally, waive the requirement of the visto de visita for determined periods and nationalities, the national interest being observed. Decreto no. 9.731 of 16 March 2019 had, for its part, unilaterally exempted nationals of Australia, Canada, the United States and Japan. Decreto no. 11.515 of 2 May 2023 revoked it and restored the earlier wording of the regulation, its entry into force having been deferred by successive decrees, the date finally retained being 10 April 2025 under Decreto no. 11.982 of 2024. The table of 29 July 2026 places Australia, Canada and the United States in band 1, and Japan in band 4. The primary sources cited here do not establish the instrument on which the Japanese exemption rests today.

Beyond the general documents, the consular authority can require of an applicant for a visto de visita proof of transport into and out of the territory, evidence of means of subsistence compatible with the length and the purpose of the trip, and documentation attesting the nature of the activities to be carried out in the country; additional documents and an in-person interview can be requested to confirm the purpose of the trip (Decreto no. 9.199/2017, art. 29, §§ 11 and 12, both drafted in the conditional of a faculty). The regulation lists separately the cases in which the visa is not granted, among them that of a person who does not meet the conditions of the type of visa applied for, those conditions being defined by specific regulations, and it states that a refusal does not bar a fresh application once those conditions are met (art. 27).

The electronic visa exists as a legal category. The law refers the application for and the issue of a visa by electronic means to the regulation (art. 9º, V), and the regulation provides that a visa can be applied for and issued by that route on the conditions defined by an act of the minister of external relations, an act that is to state the nationalities, the time limits and the conditions that apply, the maximum period of validity being capable of being tied to the expiry date of the travel document presented (arts. 17 and 26). The content of that act is not reproduced here. The table also carries rows that do not reduce to the simple numeric codes: Taiwan (China), Kosovo and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic fall under codes of their own, whose caption states that Brazil does not maintain diplomatic relations. For Taiwan (China), the English edition of the caption adds that the VIVIS is valid for up to five (5) years, with stays of 90 days, and that no diplomatic or official visas are issued; the Portuguese edition of the same entry adds a total presence of up to 180 days per year counted from the first entry, and states the exclusion by reference to Taiwanese PADIP, PASOF and PASER passports.

The Mercosur residence accord was promulgated in Brazil by Decreto no. 6.975 of 7 October 2009, which orders its full execution; the preamble of the decree states that the accord entered into force for Brazil, on the external legal plane, on 28 July 2009. The annexed text carries the signatures of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay as States Parties of Mercosur, and of Bolivia and Chile as associated States: those are the signatories of 2002, and not the state of the parties today. The accord does not in fact define its States Parties by a list of countries, but by an open reference to the member States and the associated countries of Mercosur, and it reserves its benefit to persons holding the nationality of origin of one of those States or a nationality acquired by naturalisation at least five years earlier (art. 2). This regime therefore opens by nationality, and it is art. 2 of the accord, and not where a reader lives or works, that settles whether the regime is open to that reader. It is set out here because it is a part of Brazilian immigration law that stands apart from the general route described in the section on the autorização de residência.

In domestic law the hook is Lei no. 13.445/2017, whose art. 30, II, a) provides that residence can be authorised for a person who is a beneficiary of a treaty on residence and free circulation, a list that stays open since it closes on other situations defined by regulation. The same law reserves, at its art. 111, the rights and obligations established by treaties in force in Brazil that are more favourable to the migrant and to the visitor, in particular treaties concluded within the framework of Mercosur. The regulation devotes an article of its own to this case: the autorização de residência can be granted to a person who is a beneficiary of such a treaty, and it is then the bilateral or multilateral treaty that governs, the decree applying only subsidiarily and to the extent applicable (Decreto no. 9.199/2017, art. 154; see also art. 142, II, a)). The word Mercosul does not appear in the text of the regulation, which grasps this regime only through the generic category of the treaty on residence and free circulation.

The accord gives rise to a temporary residence of up to two years, which the consular representation or the migration services can grant on prior production of the documents it lists, among them a passport, an identity card or a certificate of nationality, a birth certificate and evidence of civil status, certificates of absence of judicial, criminal or police records in the country of origin or in those where the applicant has resided over the preceding five years, a sworn declaration of absence of international records, where applicable a medical certificate where the domestic legislation of the State of entry requires one, and payment of a service fee in accordance with domestic legislation (art. 4). The verb used is that of a faculty and not of an automatic entitlement. The temporary residence can then be converted into permanent residence if the applicant appears before the migration authority of the host country ninety days before it expires, with, among other things, evidence of lawful means of existence allowing the applicant and the family group to subsist (art. 5). An immigrant whose temporary residence has expired and who does not appear before the migration authority falls back under the domestic migration legislation of the State concerned (art. 6).

The holder of a residence obtained under the accord has the right to enter, leave, move about and stay freely, after completing the formalities provided for and without prejudice to exceptional restrictions imposed on grounds of public order and public security, and the right to carry on any activity, on their own account or for another, on the same conditions as nationals of the host country, in accordance with the legal norms of each country (art. 8). The accord also carries a clause of equality of civil rights; a right to family reunification, which family members who do not hold the nationality of a State Party can benefit from provided they produce the documentation required and are subject to no impediment, the residence authorisation granted to them having the same period of validity as that of the person on whom they depend, and the accord adding that if, by reason of their nationality, those family members need a visa to enter the country, they are to process the residence before the consular authority, except where the domestic norms of the host country make that last requirement unnecessary; treatment no less favourable than that of nationals of the host country as regards the application of labour legislation, in particular in matters of remuneration, working conditions and social insurance; a right to transfer freely to their country of origin their income and their personal savings, in particular the sums needed to maintain their family, in accordance with the norms and the domestic legislation of each of the Parties; and a right of access to education for children (art. 9). In matters of social security, the same article states not a right but an undertaking by the parties to examine the feasibility of concluding reciprocity agreements in that field. The accord applies without prejudice to domestic norms more favourable to immigrants (art. 11) and each State Party can denounce it, the denunciation taking effect one hundred and eighty days after notification to the depositary (art. 16).

On the nationalities actually processed by this route, it is the authority that receives the applications that publishes a list: the Polícia Federal states, in its frequently asked questions page carrying the note Atualizado em 09/10/2023, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay as grounds of application falling under the Mercosur residence accord. That list is the list of an administrative authority at a given date, and not the content of the 2009 decree. The same authority treats Venezuela, Suriname and Guyana as neighbouring countries where the residence accord of the States Parties of Mercosur and the associated countries is not in force, and applies to them a distinct route founded on Portaria Interministerial MJSP/MRE no. 19 of 23 March 2021, which opens an application before a unit of the Polícia Federal irrespective of the migratory situation in which the person entered Brazil, for a residence of two years. The Mercosur regime is finally not the only residence route opened by nationality: the Polícia Federal also processes applications founded on the accord concluded with Argentina at Puerto Iguazú on 30 November 2005, promulgated by Decreto no. 6.736 of 12 January 2009, whose title designates it by the States that concluded it, by the place and by the date of its conclusion, and whose recital names it Acordo para Concessão de Permanência a Detentores de Vistos Temporários ou a Turistas, and on the accord concluded with Uruguay, promulgated by Decreto no. 9.089 of 6 July 2017 under the title Acordo sobre Residência Permanente com o Objetivo de Alcançar a Livre Circulação de Pessoas. A parallel accord was also promulgated by Decreto no. 6.964 of 29 September 2009 under the title Acordo sobre Residência para Nacionais dos Estados Partes do MERCOSUL, a title covering only the States Parties, where that of Decreto no. 6.975 of 7 October 2009 covers the States Parties of Mercosur, Bolivia and Chile.

The autorização de residência can be granted, on registration, to an immigrant, a border resident or a visitor who falls within one of the situations the law lists, the article distinguishing those that turn on the purpose of the residence from those that turn on the person. By purpose: research, teaching or university extension work, medical treatment, humanitarian reception, study, work, working holiday, the practice of a religious activity or volunteer service, the making of an investment or an activity of economic, social, scientific, technological or cultural relevance, and family reunification. By person: someone who is the beneficiary of a treaty on residence and free circulation, someone holding an offer of work, someone who has previously held Brazilian nationality without wishing to recover it or without meeting the conditions to do so, someone who benefits from refuge, asylum or protection as a stateless person, an unaccompanied or abandoned minor who is a national of another country or stateless and is at the borders or in the territory, a victim of trafficking in persons, of slave labour or of a violation of rights aggravated by their migratory condition, and a person on provisional release or serving a sentence in Brazil. The list is not closed: it ends on other situations defined by regulation (Lei no. 13.445/2017, art. 30). The regulation takes those grounds up again at its art. 142, cutting them differently, and adds a residual branch, that of the immigrant who answers the interests of national migration policy.

Applications for an autorização de residência are addressed to the Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública (Decreto no. 9.199/2017, art. 127, caput, in the wording given by Decreto no. 12.657 of 7 October 2025), subject to the applicable treaty where the application rests on a treaty on residence and free circulation, in which case it is that treaty that governs and the regulation applies only subsidiarily (art. 154). The paragraph that sent to the ministry of labour applications founded on research, on work or an offer of work, on investment, on an activity of economic relevance, on religious activity or on volunteer service was repealed by that same decree. The authorisation can be granted irrespective of the migratory situation, once the conditions of the modality applied for are met (art. 123, § 1º), and applications are made by preference by electronic means (art. 127, § 2º). The file includes, among other things, an identification form, a valid travel document or another document proving identity and nationality, a document establishing filiation, proof of payment of the migration fees where applicable, criminal record certificates or an equivalent document issued by the competent judicial authority of the places of residence over the last five years, and a sworn declaration of absence of criminal records in any country over the same period. The text expressly reserves other documents required by an act of the minister competent to receive the application, so that this list is not closed (art. 129). The same article makes the processing of an application for an autorização de residência conditional on payment of the fines applied on the basis of that regulation (§ 3º). A decision refusing the application can be appealed within ten days from the date on which the immigrant becomes aware of it (art. 134).

The period depends on the ground. For research, teaching or university extension work, humanitarian reception, work, the practice of a religious activity, volunteer service, an activity of economic, social, scientific, technological or cultural relevance, and for a proven offer of work, the authorisation can be granted initially for a period of up to two years, the body that granted it being able thereafter, on the immigrant's application, to renew it for a period of up to two years or to convert it to an indefinite period (art. 142, §§ 2º and 3º). Loss of the authorisation is pronounced where the ground that justified it ceases, where an authorisation founded on another situation is obtained, or where the holder is absent from the country for more than two years without justification, the cessation of the ground not preventing an application for an authorisation on another ground (art. 135). Annulment can occur at any time in the situations the regulation lists: fraud; concealment of a condition standing in the way of the grant of a visa, of entry or of residence in the country; the case where information about the conviction referred to in incisos II and III of the caput of art. 133 becomes known after the authorisation is granted; and the case where it is established that the applicant's name appeared, at the date of the residence authorisation, on the list referred to in inciso IV of the caput of that same art. 133 (art. 136). Both loss and annulment are preceded by an administrative procedure respecting the adversarial principle and the rights of the defence (art. 137).

The fees are in the annex to the regulation, in the table to which its art. 131 refers: BRL 168.13 for processing and assessing an application for an autorização de residência, BRL 204.77 for issuing the immigrant's identity document, and BRL 168.13 for converting a visit, diplomatic, official or courtesy visa into an autorização de residência. The processing fee is not payable by an immigrant holding a temporary visa where the residence has the same purpose as the visa already granted (art. 131, § 2º), the collection of the fees under that article otherwise observing what the international agreements to which the country is a party provide (§ 1º). Renewing the period of an authorisation does not give rise to the processing fee (§ 3º), and the regulation authorises the competent body of the federal public administration to adjust these amounts, so as to preserve the national interest or to secure reciprocity of treatment (§ 4º): they are therefore dated to the reading of the text and not fixed. Holding or owning property in Brazil confers no right to a visa or to an autorização de residência, without prejudice to the provisions on investment (Lei no. 13.445/2017, art. 35; regulation, art. 123, § 2º). A visit or courtesy visa can be converted into an autorização de residência, on application and registration, if the conditions laid down by the regulation are met, the situations of refusal and rejection applying to that procedure (Lei, art. 36; regulation, arts. 124 and 126). The law finally imposes a time limit, for the grounds alone that it designates by cross-reference, alíneas a) and e) of inciso I of its art. 30, that is research, teaching or university extension work and work: the autorização de residência is facilitated there and the deliberation on the authorisation takes place within a period not exceeding sixty days from the application (art. 31, § 1º).

A final criminal conviction, handed down in Brazil or abroad, for conduct also criminalised by Brazilian criminal legislation, is in principle an obstacle to the autorização de residência. The law reserves the case where the conduct amounts to an offence of lesser offensive potential and the case where the person falls under medical treatment, humanitarian reception, family reunification or a treaty on residence and free circulation (Lei no. 13.445/2017, art. 30, § 1º). The regulation carries a wider series of reserves: it adds the passage of five years after the sentence has been served, the case where the crime for which the immigrant was convicted abroad does not give rise to extradition or where punishability is extinguished under Brazilian law, and, among the grounds reserved, the serving of a sentence in the country (Decreto no. 9.199/2017, art. 132).

The regulation lists separately the persons to whom an autorização de residência can be refused: someone previously expelled from the country, for as long as the effects of the expulsion remain; someone who, on the terms of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court promulgated by Decreto no. 4.388 of 2002, is convicted of or prosecuted for genocide, a crime against humanity, a war crime or a crime of aggression; someone convicted of or prosecuted in another country for an intentional crime giving rise to extradition under Brazilian law; someone whose name appears on a list of restrictions by judicial decision or by virtue of a commitment made by the country before an international body; and someone who has committed an act contrary to the principles or the objectives set out in the Constitution (art. 133). The law for its part carries a comparable rule of cross-reference, designating by their number those of the grounds for refusing entry that can found a refusal of an autorização de residência (art. 34).

The temporary visa for work is provided for by Lei no. 13.445/2017, whose art. 14, § 5º states that it can be granted, in the situations provided for by regulation, to an immigrant who comes to carry on a work activity, with or without a salaried subordination relationship in Brazil, provided that person shows an offer of work formalised by a legal entity active in the country, that requirement being set aside where the person shows a higher education diploma or its equivalent. The regulation takes the principle up at its art. 38 (Decreto no. 9.199/2017). The acronym VITEM, common in private summaries, does not appear in that regulation: it appears in the table of consular fees and charges annexed to the law, whose enumeration runs from VITEM I to VITEM XI. The rule is therefore cited by article and by purpose.

With a salaried subordination relationship, the visa is granted on proof of an offer of work in the country, the offer being characterised by an individual employment contract or by a services contract, immigrant seafarers engaged on a vessel flying the Brazilian flag having to hold an individual employment contract in the country (art. 38, § 1º).

Without a salaried subordination relationship, the visa is likewise granted on proof of an offer of work, but only for the activities the regulation lists: the supply of a service or technical assistance to the Brazilian government, the supply of a service under an international cooperation agreement, the supply of technical assistance or transfer of technology subject to the case provided for at art. 29, § 3º, representation in the country of a financial institution or similar body headquartered abroad, representation of a non-profit legal entity of private law, professional training with a Brazilian subsidiary, branch or parent company, work as a seafarer in the cases and beyond the periods the text sets, an internship or professional exchange, the holding of an office, function or duty that requires, under Brazilian legislation, residence for an indefinite period, work as a correspondent for a foreign newspaper, magazine, radio station, television station or news agency, and carrying out an audit or a consultancy assignment for a stay of more than ninety days (art. 38, § 2º). The reserve turning on art. 29, § 3º comes from Decreto no. 12.657 of 2025 and the wording of the seafarer case comes from Decreto no. 9.500 of 2018. The same article exempts from the temporary visa it provides for the seafarer who enters the country on a long-haul voyage or on a maritime cruise along the Brazilian coast, on condition of presenting an international seafarer's card issued on the terms of a convention of the International Labour Organization (art. 38, § 3º); the law provides the same exemption for the temporary work visa, presentation of the international seafarer's card being enough there, on the terms of the regulation (Lei no. 13.445/2017, art. 14, § 7º). The enumeration in § 2º is closed within that paragraph, but the whole is not: art. 48 of the same regulation, in its wording in force, allows a temporary visa to be granted to answer the interests of national migration policy in other situations established by joint act of the minister of justice and public security and the minister of external relations.

A visa and an autorização de residência are not the same act and do not fall to the same authority. The visa is granted abroad by embassies, consulates general, consulates, vice-consulates and, where they are empowered to do so by the Ministério das Relações Exteriores, by the country's commercial and representation offices (regulation, art. 7º; law, art. 7º). For the issue of the temporary visa for work, a prior autorização de residência is applied for from the Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública before the visa is issued, except in the situations established by the act provided for at § 8º, and the grant of that prior authorisation does not entail automatic issue of the visa (art. 38, §§ 9º and 10). Applications for an autorização de residência are addressed to that same ministry since the wording given to art. 127 by Decreto no. 12.657 of 2025, the paragraph that sent files founded on work or on an offer of work to the ministry of labour having been repealed by art. 20, I, of that decree. The role that the same decree gives the Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego in national migration policy bears on employment and income, professional qualification and apprenticeship, intermediation with a view to hiring, and the prevention of exploitation of the workforce, and its article introduces those duties with a formula that leaves them open, without prejudice to other actions (art. 10).

What sets the requirements, the conditions, the time limits and the procedures for issuing this visa today is a joint act of the minister of justice and public security and the minister of external relations, the Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego and the other interested ministries having been heard (art. 38, § 8º, in the wording of Decreto no. 12.657 of 2025). The earlier wording referred to a resolution of the Conselho Nacional de Imigração. The same decree revoked Decreto no. 9.873 of 27 June 2019, which governed that council, and Decreto no. 10.974 of 22 February 2022, which had updated its composition (art. 20). In the consolidated text of Decreto no. 9.199/2017 as Planalto displays it, every referral to a resolution of that council appears in superseded wording, and the wordings in force refer to a joint act of the two ministers. The Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública for its part continues to present, on its Portal de Imigração Laboral, the Resoluções Normativas of that council as the main normative instruments setting the requirements, the procedures and the documentation needed for each type of autorização de residência, and publishes there Resolução CNIg/MJSP no. 51 of 14 March 2025, which amends Resolução Normativa no. 01 of 1 December 2017 so as to provide expressly for that ministry's competence. This divergence between the text of the regulation and the ministerial page is recorded here rather than settled.

The autorização de residência for the purposes of work is an object distinct from the visa and has an article of its own: it can be granted to an immigrant carrying on a work activity, with or without a salaried subordination relationship in the country, and the offer of work is characterised there in the same terms as at art. 38, by an individual employment contract or by a services contract (art. 147, caput and § 1º).

Legislating on labour law falls privatively to the Union (1988 Constitution, art. 22, I), and the Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho, approved by Decreto-Lei no. 5.452 of 1 May 1943, is a federal text that applies throughout the national territory. Art. 7 of that same consolidation states that its precepts, except where it is expressly decided otherwise in each case, do not apply to certain categories of worker, among them domestic employees and rural workers, both of which the article defines (art. 7, a) and b)). The parágrafo único of art. 22 of the Constitution nonetheless allows a complementary law to authorise the States to legislate on specific questions within the matters it lists, and it is by that route that Lei Complementar no. 103 of 14 July 2000 authorises the States and the Federal District to institute, by a law initiated by the executive, the wage floor referred to at art. 7, V of the Constitution, for employees who have no floor set by a federal law, a collective convention or a collective labour agreement. The applicable floor is therefore not the same everywhere. In the State of São Paulo, state law Lei no. 18.471 of 27 May 2026 uprates the floors instituted by state law Lei no. 12.640 of 2007 and sets, for the occupations listed in its first inciso, among them domestic employees, people who accompany elderly people or people with disabilities, cleaning and maintenance staff, agricultural and forestry workers and fishermen, a monthly floor of BRL 1,874.36, within the perimeter of that State alone.

The minimum wage is set by law and unified nationally (Constitution, art. 7, IV). Decreto no. 12.797 of 23 December 2025, taken in view of Lei no. 14.663 of 28 August 2023 and Lei no. 15.077 of 27 December 2024, raises it to BRL 1,621.00 a month from 1 January 2026, that is BRL 54.04 a day and BRL 7.37 an hour. It is a federal floor and not the amount that applies everywhere: where a State has instituted a floor under Lei Complementar no. 103/2000, the amount applicable to the occupations covered is that of that State.

Normal working time does not exceed eight hours a day and forty-four hours a week, the offsetting of hours and the reduction of the working day remaining possible by collective labour agreement or convention (Constitution, art. 7, XIII); the CLT for its part sets the normal working day at eight hours, save where a different limit is expressly fixed (art. 58). The working day can be increased by two overtime hours at most, by individual agreement, collective convention or collective labour agreement, the overtime hour being paid at least 50% above the normal hour (CLT, art. 59, in the wording given by Lei no. 13.467 of 2017; Constitution, art. 7, XVI). The CLT places outside the regime provided for by the chapter in which its arts. 58 and 59 appear those employees who carry on an external activity incompatible with the fixing of working hours, that condition having to be noted on the Carteira de Trabalho e Previdência Social and in the register of employees, the gerentes, understood as those holding management posts, to whom the same article assimilates directors and heads of department or branch, and employees on a teleworking arrangement who deliver their work by output or by task (art. 62, in the wordings given by Lei no. 8.966 of 1994 and by Lei no. 14.442 of 2022); the regime of that chapter becomes applicable again to gerentes where the salary of the position of trust, including any function bonus, is lower than the corresponding effective salary increased by 40% (art. 62, parágrafo único).

The overtime premium can be set aside where the excess hours of one day are offset by a corresponding reduction on another day, by collective labour agreement or convention, without exceeding, over a period of at most one year, the sum of the weekly working times provided for, or the limit of ten hours a day (art. 59, § 2º, in the wording given by Medida Provisória no. 2.164-41 of 2001); that same arrangement can be agreed by written individual agreement provided the offsetting takes place within at most six months (art. 59, § 5º), and an offsetting arrangement within the same month can be established by individual agreement, tacit or written (art. 59, § 6º). By way of exception to art. 59, the parties can finally establish, by written individual agreement, collective convention or collective labour agreement, a schedule of twelve hours of work followed by thirty-six hours of uninterrupted rest, rest and meal breaks being observed or indemnified (art. 59-A, in the wording given by Lei no. 13.467 of 2017).

The constitutional enumeration of workers' rights is expressly open: art. 7 sets them out besides others aimed at improving their social condition. Nor does it apply uniformly, since its parágrafo único, in the wording given by Emenda Constitucional no. 72 of 2013, designates by their number those of its incisos that are guaranteed to domestic workers, so that the general catalogue does not apply to them as a block. For a foreign worker, it is the migration law that carries the rule of equality: Lei no. 13.445/2017 guarantees the migrant, in the national territory and on an equal footing with nationals, the performance of statutory and contractual employment obligations and the application of the norms protecting the worker, without discrimination on grounds of nationality or migratory condition (art. 4, XI). The rights and guarantees provided by that law are exercised in accordance with the Constitution and do not exclude those flowing from a treaty to which Brazil is a party.

The registration, the Registro Nacional Migratório number and the card that carries it are distinct objects, and the Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas, administered by the Receita Federal, is distinct from them again. The registro is a civil identification by biographic and biometric data, compulsory for every immigrant holding a temporary visa or an autorização de residência; it generates a unique identification number that secures the full exercise of the acts of civil life, and the immigrant's identity document is issued on the basis of that number (Lei no. 13.445/2017, art. 19). For as long as the civil identification has not been issued, the document proving that it has been applied for from the competent authority secures its holder access to the rights the law organises. The regulation states that the entry of the data into a system belonging to the Polícia Federal generates the unique Registro Nacional Migratório number (Decreto no. 9.199/2017, art. 62) and that the Carteira de Registro Nacional Migratório is the card given to the registered immigrant, on which that number appears (art. 63). It falls to the Polícia Federal to organise, maintain and manage the processes of civil identification of the immigrant, to produce that card and to administer the Registro Nacional Migratório database (art. 58).

The time limits are not the same according to the title held. The holder of a temporary visa who has entered the country applies for registration within ninety days from the date of entry, failing which the penalty provided for at art. 307, caput, III applies, which the regulation states as a fine (art. 64). The same article brings that limit down to thirty days from the date of entry in the case of a domestic employee, with proof of the annotation on the Carteira de Trabalho e Previdência Social and of the registration with the Escrituração Digital das Obrigações Fiscais, Previdenciárias e Trabalhistas, known as e-Social (art. 64, § 1º). If the annotation on the Carteira de Trabalho e Previdência Social and the registration with e-Social are not proved within that limit, the Polícia Federal proceeds with the immigrant's registration and informs the ministry of labour (art. 64, § 2º). An immigrant whose application for an autorização de residência has been granted in Brazil applies for registration within thirty days from publication of the decision, that publication being made by preference by electronic means, failing which the penalty provided for at art. 307, caput, IV applies, which the regulation states as a fine per day of delay, the infringement being defined there as failing to register within that limit where the competent body has indicated that it should be done (art. 66).

The regulation quantifies these fines in an article other than the one that provides for them. Art. 307 characterises the infringement and names the penalty without setting its amount; art. 301 lists what the Polícia Federal takes into account in setting the amount of the fine applied: the situations individualised by Lei no. 13.445/2017, the economic condition of the offender, repetition and the gravity of the infringement, the periodic updating established by an act of the minister of justice and public security, an individualisable minimum amount of BRL 100.00 and, for infringements committed by a natural person, a minimum amount of BRL 100.00 and a maximum amount of BRL 10,000.00, the same article carrying a distinct range for infringements committed by a legal person. Those are the amounts the 2017 regulation carries in the text read here, and the periodic updating it itself provides for belongs to a ministerial act that has not been retrieved. Where there is repetition, art. 303 doubles the individualisable minimum value on the first repetition, triples it on the second, quadruples it on the third and quintuples it from the fourth, art. 302 defining repetition as committing again, within twelve months, an infringement governed by art. 307, anywhere in the national territory. That same art. 303 excludes from the effects of repetition a record drawn up more than one year after the date of the previous one (§ 2º). Art. 305 provides that the fixing of the fine takes into account the economic situation of the person recorded, the situations provided for natural persons and for legal persons being observed, and that the amount can be increased up to the maximum provided by law if the authority considers that, given that situation, applying the individualisable minimum amount would be ineffective. Art. 304 provides that a fine arising from an infringement governed by art. 307 is time-barred after five years from the date of the act or, in the case of a permanent or continuous infringement, from the date on which it ceased.

The Polícia Federal public service sheet, carrying the note Última Modificação: 24/07/2026, publishes the ninety-day limit for the holder of a temporary visa, counted from entry into Brazil, and the thirty-day limit from publication of the autorização de residência in the Diário Oficial, refers penalties to Decreto no. 9.199/2017, and describes the registro as an identification process with collection of personal and biometric data, at the end of which the person receives a Registro Nacional Migratório number and then the corresponding card.

Registration is applied for at any unit of the Polícia Federal handling the reception of immigrants, for the holder of a temporary visa or for a person whose autorização de residência has been granted in the capacity of a seafarer, and at the unit for the district of the applicant's domicile for an authorisation granted inside the country on another ground, the article also providing for a case specific to border residents, the faculty for people with disabilities, people aged sixty or over, pregnant women, breastfeeding women, people carrying an infant and people who are obese to apply for registration at the unit of the Polícia Federal nearest their domicile, in accordance with Lei no. 10.048 of 8 November 2000, and the possibility for the Polícia Federal to authorise, in exceptional cases and by reasoned decision, registration at another unit (art. 67, caput and §§ 1º and 2º). For as long as the card has not been issued, the registered immigrant presents the receipt given when the application was made, together with their travel document or another identification document established by an act of the minister of justice and public security, and keeps the rights provided by law for a period of up to one hundred and eighty days, extendable by the Polícia Federal and at no cost to the applicant (art. 63, § 1º); the card can also be issued in electronic form, on the terms set by an act of the Polícia Federal, without prejudice to its issue on a physical medium (art. 63, § 2º). The travel document of an immigrant holding a valid temporary visa is enough to prove identity and the regularity of the stay for as long as the registration period has not expired (art. 65). The card carries the residence period as established by the authorisation obtained and, in the case of temporary residence, expires at the term of that authorisation (art. 73).

The card and the CPF meet on one point: the Receita Federal admits the Carteira de Registro Nacional Migratório among the documents, issued by a public body in Brazil, that prove registration with the CPF by carrying the registration number. The article that lists them is introduced by a formula of example, in particular the following documents, so that this list is not closed (Instrução Normativa RFB no. 2.172/2024, art. 5).

The tax residence of natural persons is defined by an act of the tax administration, Instrução Normativa SRF no. 208 of 27 September 2002, published in the official journal of 1 October 2002, taken in view of the provisions of the laws and provisional measures its preamble lists, among them Lei no. 4.506 of 30 November 1964 and Lei no. 7.713 of 22 December 1988, and amended on several occasions, most recently by Instrução Normativa RFB no. 2.312 of 13 March 2026; the Receita Federal norms portal gives it as in force and signals, by an indicator of its own, that it has been amended and is to be read in its compiled version. Its art. 1 sets the scope of taxation: income received from sources situated abroad and capital gains realised on the disposal of assets and rights situated abroad by a natural person resident in Brazil, together with income received and capital gains realised in the country by a natural person not resident in Brazil, are subject to income tax, without prejudice to the international agreements, treaties and conventions concluded by Brazil or to the existence of reciprocity of treatment. Income tax is a federal tax: the Constitution attributes its institution to the Union (art. 153, III). This section bears on that tax alone and deals with no other levy, whether it belongs to the Union, a State, the Federal District or a municipality.

The text sets several tipping points. A person who enters Brazil under a temporary visa in order to work there with an employment relationship is treated as resident from the date of arrival. Failing that, the person becomes resident on the date on which they reach one hundred and eighty-four days of presence in Brazil, consecutive or not, within a period of up to twelve months, or on the date of obtaining an employment relationship if that comes first. If, within a period of twelve months, those one hundred and eighty-four days are not reached, a new period of up to twelve months is counted from the entry following the one that opened the previous count (art. 2). The mirror image is in the next article: a person who has entered under a temporary visa and stays up to one hundred and eighty-three days, consecutive or not, over a period of up to twelve months is treated as non-resident, and remains so until the day before obtaining an employment relationship where that comes before the one hundred and eighty-four days are completed (art. 3). Two elements read badly from a distance and are worth stating: the reference period is not the calendar year but a period of up to twelve months, and the thresholds the text uses, one hundred and eighty-three and one hundred and eighty-four, are the source's own and are not the same figure.

The income tax regulation, Decreto no. 9.580 of 22 November 2018, provides that natural persons residing abroad have their income and gains of every kind, including capital gains, received in the country taxed in accordance with the provisions it designates. That same regulation states that it consolidates the legislation on that tax published up to 31 December 2016, so that it does not reflect texts later than that date. The rates and bands of personal income tax are not taken up here.