If you plan on going to Brazil to work, your first point of call will be your local Brazilian embassy to get a visa. Check our travel section for your nearest Brazilian consulate or embassy.

To obtain a 3-month visa that can be extended for a further 3 months, you will need to provide proof of roundtrip airline ticket and a valid passport that won’t expire within that period of time. You may be asked to provide additional documents depending on the country you are applying from. You may only visit Brazil on a tourist visa for 6 months out of every year. This means you won’t be able to go on a visa run to a neighboring country once your visa expires.

It is not legal for you to work on a tourist visa, but many expats especially teachers do. You can switch from a tourist visa to a work visa once you have found a sponsor. Business people will most likely have their company pay for this, but English teachers will be hard pressed to find a school willing to do this.

A work visa can also be obtained from your home country. A temporary work visa is valid for 2 years and can be renewed for a further 2 years. It can take up to 2 months for the application to be processed. It is quite complicated for a Brazilian company to sponsor a work visa, so don’t take it for granted.

Getting health insurance before going to Brazil is strongly recommended. Also make sure that you have had vaccinations for Typhoid, Polio, Hepatitis A and Cholera.