Country-wide policy
Losing Residency by Being Away
Brazilian residence is lost after more than two years out of the country without a justification offered. It is a rule about continuous absence, not a presence quota, and the difference decides real cases: two separate absences of eighteen months each break nothing, while a single stretch of twenty-five months does. Residence is also lost when the reason it was granted stops being true, and the holder is required to tell the Federal Police when that happens. The one category with an explicit presence obligation instead is the real-estate investor, who must spend at least fourteen days in Brazil every two years and, by doing so, is taken outside the absence rule altogether.
Topics it changes
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Residency through work
- Residency through investment
- Residency as a student
- Residency through marriage
- Residency through ancestry
- Residency under a regional treaty
- Becoming a citizen
- When you become a tax resident
What it requires
- No single absence from Brazil longer than two years without a justification
- Notice to the Federal Police whenever the conditions the residence was granted on cease to hold
At a glance
- Absence that costs residency
- More than two years continuously, without justification
- Type of test
- Continuous absence, not a share of the year spent in the country
- Real-estate investors
- Fourteen days in every two years instead
Meeting that obligation disapplies the absence ground for them
- Other ground of loss
- The reason for the residence ceasing to hold
- Tax residence
- A different and shorter clock
Tax residence ends the day after twelve consecutive months of absence, so it can be lost while migratory residence survives
What the law says
«ausência do País por período superior a dois anos sem apresentação de justificativa.»Our translation - not official
absence from the country for a period exceeding two years without a justification being presented.
Sem apresentação de justificativa - the absence is not automatically fatal, but it puts the burden on the resident to explain it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Publishes the compiled text of laws and decrees with amendments woven in and superseded wording struck through on the same page.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what is in force without reading the strike-throughs: the page stacks every historical wording of an article above the current one, so quoting the wrong layer produces a repealed rule that still passes a verbatim check. It is also not the point of legal effect; that is the gazette.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«cessação do fundamento que embasou a autorização de residência;»Our translation - not official
cessation of the ground on which the residence authorisation was based;
The following paragraph requires the immigrant to notify the Federal Police when this happens, and the one after it preserves the right to apply again on a different ground.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Publishes the compiled text of laws and decrees with amendments woven in and superseded wording struck through on the same page.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for what is in force without reading the strike-throughs: the page stacks every historical wording of an article above the current one, so quoting the wrong layer produces a repealed rule that still passes a verbatim check. It is also not the point of legal effect; that is the gazette.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«O investidor imobiliário deverá permanecer no território nacional por, no mínimo, 14 (quatorze) dias, seguidos ou interpolados, a cada período de dois anos, contados a partir do registro junto à Polícia Federal.»Our translation - not official
The real-estate investor must remain in the national territory for at least 14 (fourteen) days, consecutive or interspersed, in each two-year period, counted from registration with the Federal Police.
The only presence quota in the Brazilian residence system we found, and it exists to buy its holders out of the absence rule rather than to add to it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Grants residence authorisations, runs the application system, and hosts the immigration council's index of resolutions.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the content of a resolution - its service pages paraphrase, and several still describe the allocation of competence as it stood before the 2025 decree moved it. Cannot be cited for who the Mercosur agreement covers: its page names no countries at all.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«que se ausente do Brasil em caráter temporário, a partir do dia seguinte àquele em que complete doze meses consecutivos de ausência.»Our translation - not official
who is absent from Brazil temporarily, from the day after they complete twelve consecutive months of absence.
Twelve months for tax residence against two years for migratory residence. Somebody away for eighteen months has stopped being a tax resident and is still a resident for migration purposes.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Sets tax residence and the customs treatment of travellers' goods, and serves its instructions as consolidated text.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for current migration categories: its residence instruction still defines residence by reference to visa classes the 2017 migration law abolished. And because the served text shows both the old and the new wording of an amended provision in sequence, a quotation can verify against a superseded version.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source