Getting a Brazilian Work Visa

Outcomes

A Brazilian Temporary work visa(VistoTemporario V) (valid for 2 years and extendable)
CPF number
RNE number/form
Work book
Activated Brazilian bank account
Activated Brazilian sim card

Process Overview

A huge disclaimer and a request for new information

Everything in here is just what I experienced and what I think I did. It is intended simply to be a marker for the scale of what was involved, and in no way should be seen as a step-by-step instruction manual for what everyone will need to do. Every application is a unique journey and should be seen as such, but I would like to keep this up to date, so if you can please email me () anything you found to be different so I can try to keep an as up to date version as possible, available on my website, here:

A super brief summary

This whole process took me about 9 to 10 months (still on the final thing, the CIE card in June, and I started in October). I have a folder with about 641 documents (though some are earlier versions and duplicates) in it relating to this, a whole bunch of emails, and at its peak was spending about an hour a day on managing and organizing it for the first couple of months. In total it has cost me as a single man about $2000 US, and involved bureaucracies in four continents (I was born in the US, got my qualifications in the UK and was working in Korea). Some things I found easy may not have been included, and some things I found difficult you may find very straightforward but I have tried to be as complete as I could. It was unlike any visa application I have ever been involved with.

An outline of the steps involved

Note: There is a lot of repetition here with the definitions in the Glossary (all words in bold are defined there) but it does give you an order to do things.

During Stage A all of your documents necessary for your new job will be legalized by the appropriate Brazilian consulate in the country which those documents were created in, e.g. a US birth certificate needs to be legalized by the Brazilian consulate with jurisdiction covering the state you were born in. Basically, there is a whole lot of verifying going on, first by a lawyer in the country the document is from (notarization), then by the country the lawyer is from (apostilling), then by the Brazilian consulate in that country (legalization). In all likelihood some (or even all) of your documents will need to be legalized using an agency, e.g. because you don’t live in the capital, or they are from a different country. Once you’ve got all of these bad boys together they get Fed Exed to Brazil (if you are using an agency they can Fed Ex them directly to the school in Rio), you can then start the next process.

Stage Bis entirely out of your hands, and involves your legalized documents being sent to Brasilia to be officially translated and imbued with other arcane and mysterious bureaucratic powers so that they have the strength to raise a work permit for a foreign national from nothingness. It takes around 30 to 40 days, including weekends, and results in the creation of a work permit which is valid for a given consulate, e.g. London, which needs to be where you will at that point be living. In my case, this stage started whilst I was in Korea, but I knew that by the time it would be finished I would be living in the UK, so I asked for my work permit to be issued to the Brazilian consulate in London. During this stage you should be thinking about when you should schedule work visa application appointmentto deliver your completed online visa application form receipt, additional visa documents (e.g. police report) 2 passport photos and passport to the Brazilian consulate to get your work visa application receipt which will allow to return to the Brazilian consulate to collect your passport with your work visa sticker stuck into it. In order to attend this interview you will need to think about the availability of the appointment slots, because you can only apply for a visa with an appointment and you can only make one appointment at a time, and in my case there was a 2 week waiting list for these appointments. It might also be worth thinking about how many pages you have left in your passport before any of this starts (and any-one else travelling with you), if possible getting this stuck into a new passport would be a pretty smashing idea.

Stage C requires you to have some idea of when your work permit will be finalized, this is something that you will need to find out about from the admin staff in Rio. Once your work permit has been issued you will be told about it from Rio, as well as when it should get to the Brazilian consulate in the UK, which will allow you to book your work visa application appointment interview with the consulate to hand in your visa application form, your photo for the visa, and collect your CPF (which requires you to complete the online CPF application form and print it off). You will also need to bring your ACRO police check, and your completed work visa application form. This interview takes about 10 minutes, and could be done by an agency if you can’t make it into London. You will be given a work visa receipt which will give you a date when you can pick up your passport with the work visa sticker in it. I found that I could get my ACRO police check sent directly to the Brazilian Consulate and they were able to process it without any trouble which saved me a working day. I got my work visa application receipt which suggested I could pick up my passport about a week later (5 working days). Again an agency could have done this, but I was able to. If this process does not happen before you are scheduled to leave your home country, the worst case scenario would be that you fly in on a tourist visa, but then have to return to the UK to get it during carnival break, which has sometimes apparently happened in the past.

Stage Don your way into Brazil make sure your entry stamp is legible on your passport, you need to be able to read the date. Also keep your boarding pass, this is further evidence about when you got into Brazil and is needed later to get your NRE number.

Stage E before about a month of getting into Brazil expires your need to go to the immigration department at the airport to get your NRE number, a single A4 piece of paper which is necessary to prove you have completed the visa application process. You will have a photo taken of you during this process. You need to very carefully check your details, like your CPF number, and especially the spelling of your parent’s names (mine were wrong). Bring something to do, it takes about 3hours or longer of waiting, then there is the time in the cab which adds another 2 hours to the waiting, and possibly bring something to eat. Next you will get a workbook, which contains every job you have had in Brazil, and particulars about your job e.g. job title and other things. I needed an appointment in town to apply for it, then about half an hour wait to say hi to the people there, then another appointments the week after to pick it up. This is then given to HR who keep it. CIE card

Activating your sim card – try to do this as soon as you can, ideally in the first couple of days on arrival. With your CPF number you can simply go to a Viva shop and ask someone there to do it for you. It took me about 10minutes in total, but I wish I had done it sooner. Getting a Brazilian bank account is fairly straightforward, but requires the originals of your CPF, NRA and passport as well as photocopies of each, sign lots of things and it takes about 10mintues, I had my interview at work at the end of the day. Then you will need to activate your Brazilian bank account, which means you need to go to a HSBC ATM with your debit card and your debit pin number. You will be asked to create a 3 letter password in addition to a new pin number, think carefully about this. I had a problem with this step and had to instead go to the bank to ask in there about it (I tried to use my credit card pin with my debit card and got my account locked). Health insurance – you will be asked if you want to spend an extra small amount of money on this at the start to get the medium plan instead of the basic, my advice would be to get this resolved as soon as possible; I didn’t and now will need to wait until next year to get this done as this can only be done within a window of about a month every year. The CIE Card (my Brazilian ID card) is the final step (that I am aware of) and requires me to go to a notary nearby and sign a form that has been emailed to me in front of them and then pass it on.

Glossary

I found it was quite bewildering (hence this guide), and also that a great many things like a work permit and a work visa were often used interchangeably when they are quite separate things. Be aware that some of these things may be referred to using different names,so some of these definitions are entirely of my own creating to give a better idea of what is going on..

Activating a Brazilian bank account. Again, I wish I had done this sooner, took me about a month all in. You will need to create a 3 letter password as well to withdraw money (the ‘Saque’ option in the menu).

Activating a mobile phone: You will get a sim card when you arrive here, I found my £5 phone from Sainsbury’s worked here without any problems. You will be able to do some things, like get calls, and access data on your phone, but not call other people until you get your phone number registered to your CPF. To activate the phone the easiest way is to go to the Vivo (mobile phone company) shop and ask there, if you get someone with English you are a winner, otherwise you could try to google translate what you want to do. You will need to know your phone number to do this.

Apostil: Recognition by a country that a notarized document has been notarized by a registered notary public. Basically that country is saying that the notarization on the document is legitimate.

Birth certificate: If you were born in a country that is different to the country you are currently living in, you are going to need to get this legalized by the appropriate Brazilian consulate. You will probably need to get it legalized regardless of where you are living.

Boarding pass: Your boarding pass for the journey that got you into Brazil is necessary evidence relating to your entry into Brazil that is needed by the police to produce your finalized work visa.

Brazilian bank account needs to be acquired to get your salary paid into it. I got paid in cash for the first couple of months before this was finalized. If you have US citizenship you will require your Social Security number so the chaps in the US can monitor your life and leak your financial details to hackers via the NSA. You need to do this even if you do not declare your citizenship to anyone before they will allow your bank account application to proceed (I was surprised by this because I had not declared myself a US citizen). You will need the originals of your passport, NRE number and CPF, and photocopies of all including your photo page and your Brazilian work visa to open this.

CIE Card: This is your Brazilian ID card and the last step I am aware of, and requires all of the other Brazilian documents to be in place before you can get it. What I last need to do apparently to get this is to print out a form that has been emailed to me, go to a notary office in Rio near to where I live, notarise my signature for it for about 10 pounds, then send it on for completion.

Collecting your passport: Once you have handed in your passport to get your Brazilian work visa you will be given a receipt for your passport and a date after which you can collect your passport with your Brazilian visa as well as your work visa application form receipt. In London the person collecting these two documents does not need to be you.

CPF:CPFstands for "Cadastro de PessoasFisicas (Individual Taxpayer Registry), it is essential to do anything involving money, like activating a mobile phone, buying white goods like a microwave and setting up a bank account. You can get this on the same day as you apply for your work visa at the Brazilian consulate providing you have a completed print out of your CPF online application form. It can also be obtained in Brazil.

CPF online application form: An online application form that when completed generates a typed document that you bring with you to the embassy when you have your work visa applicationinterview at the Brazilian consulate when you hand in all of your work visa documents.

Entry stamp: The stamp you get in your passport at immigration when you first enter Brazil (usually at the airport), this needs to clearly show the date in order for your visa to be valid (you need to enter Brazil within a given timeframe, this stamp (as well as your boarding pass)is necessary evidence of the date of your arrival for the police when they finalize your work visa).

Finalized work visa: After you arrive in Brazil you will need to go to the Police station to register your arrival. You will need your passport with a legible date on the entry stamp, your boarding pass and work visa application form receipt. Once this has been completed you will have finished this process and can celebrate with perpetual, lifelong happiness.

Health insurance: Three options available, one where you don’t pay anything and get the least best service (so if you were in hospital you would be sharing your room with 2 or 3 other people, and you have much less choice in hospitals that you can go to. The second option has been recommended to me, and the additional money spent makes it the best option.

Notarization: Authentication of certain documents, e.g. qualifications, birth certificates, police record checks by someone who has been accredited by the state (a notary public). Basically, a lawyer vetted by the government is saying that the document they are notarizing is legitimate.

NRE; a police document that finalizes your visa application process. You get this from the airport about a few weeks after you arrive in Brazil, and it can take anywhere up to 5 or more hours of waiting to get. Make sure you bring something to do at the airport, e.g. laptop and charger or a good book.

Legalization: The Brazilian consulate with jurisdiction covering the area that a document has been apostilled in stating that the apostil is genuine. Basically, a notary says your document is legitimate when they notarize it, then the government says that the notary is legitimate with their apostil, then the Brazilian consulate in that country says that the government’s apostil is legitimate, so those documents can then be used by any Brazilian government agency, e.g. the labor ministry that issues work permits to foreign nationals. A good rule of thumb is if you are in doubt and under time pressures, get it legalized. I legalized Tuesdays, my Korean police record check and my favouritecolour, beige, just in case, and one of them turned out to be essential to getting my work visa on time (otherwise I would not have finished this in time for departure which would have meant I would have potentially had to come in on a tourist visa and return to the UK during Carnival to finish this off).

Online visa application form: An online form that is available at that you can use once your work permit has been created (you can’t fill it in until the work permit has been issued in Brazil). It will produce your online visa application form receipt.

Online visa application form receipt: A document which you need to print out and bring with you to your work visa application interviewand contains the reference number that will be needed to easily locate your work permit.

Police check: Only considered valid by the London Brazilian consulate for 3 months.In the UK, this can just be the ACRO police check, which takes between 2 to 10 days (bear in mind that this can be a severely understaffed process, so it could take longer, especially if there are any faults whatsoever with the application). It does not need to be legalized if you are getting your work visa in the same country, but does if you are getting it in another country. If you have been recently living in another country, you may need a police check from that country as well, really worth checking because this was my case and I found it somewhat confusing, my advice to my former self would have been to get the Korean police check and legalize it in Korea before you leave, and as soon as you get to the UK get an ACRO police check as well (I got my work visa in the UK). If in doubt get a police check just in case and make sure to legalize them when you are in the issuing country.