Residency Through Marriage or a Stable Union
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Uruguay on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Uruguay to Brazil · Residency through marriage
A spouse or partner of a Brazilian, or of someone who already holds Brazilian residence, is granted residence by family reunion, and the regulation is explicit that it applies without any discrimination - a stable union counts on the same footing as a marriage, and the sexes of the partners are not a condition. Where the Brazilian relative holds indefinite residence the permit is indefinite too. The naturalisation clock is the shortest Brazil offers: a spouse or partner of a Brazilian needs one year of residence rather than four.
At a glance
- Relationships covered
- Spouse or partner, without discrimination
- Term where the Brazilian partner is a citizen
- Indefinite
- Work
- Any activity, including paid work, on equal terms with Brazilians
- Naturalisation after marriage to a Brazilian
- One year of residence
- Who cannot call a spouse over
- Someone whose own residence is by family reunion or provisional
- Route to indefinite residence otherwise
- Four years
Requirements
- A spouse or partner who is Brazilian, or who holds a Brazilian residence authorisation that is not itself a family-reunion or provisional one
- Proof of the marriage or of the stable union
- Criminal record certificates for the last five years and a declaration that there are none anywhere
- The processing fee and the fee for the residence card
Country-level policy
Two fees cover almost every residence application: R$ 168,13 to process it and R$ 204,77 to issue the residence card. They are set in the annex to the 2017 regulation, and the interesting thing is that the Federal Police and the justice ministry both charge exactly those amounts nine years later. Instrument and agency agree, which is not what we found in Paraguay. The regulation allows the amounts to be adjusted and nobody has adjusted them, so in real terms the fee has fallen by more than half. Citizens of the Portuguese-speaking community are exempt from the processing fee under a 2002 treaty, but not from the card fee - the treaty excepts the cost of issuing documents, and the Federal Police applies exactly that carve-out.
Lei 13.445/2017 replaced the 1980 foreigners' statute and changed the thing that shapes every other answer about Brazil: residence can be applied for from inside the country, regardless of the status you are in. Both the statute and its regulation say so in terms. A visitor may turn a visit into residence by request and registration; an irregular overstayer may apply on any ground whose conditions they meet. That is why Brazil has no equivalent of Paraguay's consular visa for residency or Chile's rule that residence is applied for from abroad. The same law abolished the permanent and temporary visa categories, replacing them with residence authorisations of determinate or indeterminate term - which matters because two instruments that still govern real decisions, the revenue's residence test and older agency pages, were never rewritten.
For eight years the detailed conditions of almost every Brazilian residence category were set by resolutions of the national immigration council. Decreto 12.657/2025 went through the regulation and replaced the council with joint acts of the ministries of justice and foreign affairs, article by article - work, investment, study, family, religious activity, volunteering and the residual migration-policy ground all now point at a different rulemaker. The decree did not repeal the existing resolutions, so they remain in force until they are replaced. The practical consequence for a reader is that every figure on the investor, retiree, digital nomad and work pages sits on an instrument whose author no longer has the power to issue it, and any of them may be reissued without notice.
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.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Uruguay
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«cônjuge ou companheiro, sem discriminação alguma, nos termos do ordenamento jurídico brasileiro;»Our translation - not official
spouse or partner, without any discrimination, under the Brazilian legal order;
Sem discriminação alguma is the operative phrase: a stable union is treated as a marriage and the partners' sexes are not a condition.
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
«A autorização de residência por reunião familiar não será concedida na hipótese de o chamante ser beneficiário de autorização de residência por reunião familiar ou de autorização provisória de residência.»Our translation - not official
A residence authorisation by family reunion shall not be granted where the person calling is the holder of a residence authorisation by family reunion or of a provisional residence authorisation.
The chain stops after one link. A person who is themselves in Brazil on a family-reunion permit cannot bring a spouse over on the same 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 beneficiário da autorização de residência para fins de reunião familiar poderá exercer qualquer atividade no País, inclusive remunerada, em igualdade de condições com o nacional brasileiro, nos termos da legislação vigente.»Our translation - not official
The holder of a residence authorisation for family reunion purposes may carry out any activity in the country, including paid activity, on equal terms with a Brazilian national, under the legislation in force.
About 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
«ter cônjuge ou companheiro brasileiro e não estar dele separado legalmente ou de fato no momento de concessão da naturalização;»Our translation - not official
to have a Brazilian spouse or partner and not to be legally or factually separated from them at the moment naturalisation is granted;
The condition is tested at the moment naturalisation is granted, not at the moment it is applied for - a separation during the process defeats 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
«O prazo de residência fixado no inciso II do
caput
do art. 65 será reduzido para, no mínimo, 1 (um) ano se o naturalizando preencher quaisquer das seguintes condições:»Our translation - not official
The residence period set out in item II of the caput of article 65 shall be reduced to a minimum of 1 (one) year if the applicant for naturalisation meets any of the following conditions:
The one year is a reduction of the ordinary four years in article 65, and a Brazilian spouse or partner is one of the conditions that earns 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
«ter residido no País por, no mínimo, quatro anos;»Our translation - not official
to have resided in the country for at least four years;
This is the route to indefinite residence for someone whose family-reunion permit was granted for a fixed term, and the same four years is the ordinary naturalisation period.
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
Practical notes
The application for the spouse may be filed at the same time as the calling relative's own application, but it is only granted after theirs is.
Where the calling relative's residence is for a fixed term, the spouse's permit is made to expire on the same day as theirs.
- consolidatesDecreto nº 9.199, de 20 de novembro de 2017
Presidência da República - Portal da Legislação (Planalto)
About 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
- consolidatesLei nº 13.445, de 24 de maio de 2017 - Lei de Migração
Presidência da República - Portal da Legislação (Planalto)
About 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
- administersMinistério da Justiça e Segurança Pública - Autorização de Residência
Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública
About 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