Residency Under the Mercosur Residence Agreement
This replaces the general rule for you
Argentine, Paraguayan, Uruguayan and Bolivian Nationals: Signatories of the Agreement Brazil Promulgated
Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia signed the Mercosur Residence Agreement in Brasilia in December 2002 alongside Brazil and Chile, and their nationals are covered by the text Brazil actually promulgated rather than by any later accession. That distinction matters here in a way it does not in Argentina or Paraguay: Brazil's promulgating decree carries the treaty as signed by six states and contains no accession clause, so for these four countries the chain from signature to Brazilian domestic law is complete and checkable. The route gives two years on documents alone, then permanent residence on proof of lawful means of subsistence. Bolivia signed as an associated state, not as a full member, which is a reminder that the agreement's own definition of a party covers both.
Venezuelan Nationals Are Outside the Mercosur Route, and Have Their Own
Brazil does not treat Venezuelans under the Mercosur Residence Agreement. It treats them under a separate residence authorisation for nationals of a neighbouring country where that agreement is not in force, which the Federal Police publishes with its own service code and its own document list. The practical terms are deliberately gentler than the Mercosur route in one specific way: an identity card or passport is accepted even if it has expired, which matters for a population whose consular services stopped functioning. The structure is the same two stages - a temporary authorisation first, converted to an indefinite one later, on proof of means of subsistence.
Brazil is one of the six states that signed the Mercosur Residence Agreement in Brasilia in 2002, and the agreement has bound Brazil since 28 July 2009. It gives a national of a party a two-year residence on documents alone - identity, birth certificate, police certificates and a fee - with no income test at that stage, and it works from inside Brazil whatever migratory status you arrived in, waiving the fines that would otherwise apply. Proof of lawful means of subsistence is asked for only at the second stage, when the two years are converted into permanent residence, and that application has to be made in the ninety days before the temporary permit expires. The agreement's own definition of a party is broader than the trade bloc's: it says a party is a member state or an associated country of Mercosur, so full membership is not the test.
At a glance
- Temporary residence
- Up to two years
- Income test at the temporary stage
- None
Paragraph 1 of article 4 of the Residence Agreement, quoted here, grants the temporary residence and the document list under it asks for nothing about money. The one economic test in the agreement is alinea d of article 5, which belongs to the permanent stage.
- Conversion to permanent residence
- Applied for in the 90 days before expiry
Article 5, paragraph 1 of the Agreement, which requires the holder to appear before the migration authority of the receiving country ninety days before the temporary residence expires.
- Income test at the permanent stage
- Lawful means of subsistence for the applicant and household
- Naturalised nationals of a party
- Qualify five years after naturalisation
- Applying from inside Brazil
- Allowed whatever status you entered on, and fines are waived
- Signatories of the text Brazil promulgated
- Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile
- In force for Brazil since
- 28 July 2009
The recitals of Decreto nº 6.975, de 7 de outubro de 2009, which record the Agreement as having entered into force for Brazil on the external legal plane on 28 July 2009 - ten weeks before the decree that promulgated it internally.
- Processing fee
- R$ 168,13
- Residence card fee
- R$ 204,77
Requirements
- Nationality of a state party to the agreement - held from birth, or acquired by naturalisation at least five years earlier
- A valid passport, identity card or certificate of nationality, plus a birth certificate and proof of civil status
- Police or judicial record certificates from the country of origin and from anywhere lived in the last five years
- A sworn declaration of no international criminal or police record
- A police record certificate from Brazil where the application is made from inside the country
- Payment of the service fee
- For the conversion to permanent residence: an application in the ninety days before the temporary permit expires, and proof of lawful means of subsistence for the applicant and their household
In detail
Who counts as a party is not who counts as a member
The text Brazil promulgated was signed by six states: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay as members, and Bolivia and Chile as associates. Its own definitions article then says a state party means a member state or an associated country of Mercosur, so the agreement never rests on full membership. Peru, Ecuador and Colombia are commonly listed as covered, and the Federal Police applies it to them, but the accessions are not in the text that Brazil promulgated and we found no Brazilian decree promulgating them.
The countries the agreement does not reach
Brazil runs a separate residence route, with its own Federal Police service code, for nationals of a neighbouring country where the Mercosur Residence Agreement is not in force. The page that publishes it names those countries in its own title: Venezuela, Suriname and Guyana. Being a South American neighbour, and even being an associated state of Mercosur, is not the same as being covered by this agreement.
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.
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
Argentine, Paraguayan, Uruguayan and Bolivian Nationals: Signatories of the Agreement Brazil Promulgated
Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia signed the Mercosur Residence Agreement in Brasilia in December 2002 alongside Brazil and Chile, and their nationals are covered by the text Brazil actually promulgated rather than by any later accession. That distinction matters here in a way it does not in Argentina or Paraguay: Brazil's promulgating decree carries the treaty as signed by six states and contains no accession clause, so for these four countries the chain from signature to Brazilian domestic law is complete and checkable. The route gives two years on documents alone, then permanent residence on proof of lawful means of subsistence. Bolivia signed as an associated state, not as a full member, which is a reminder that the agreement's own definition of a party covers both.
- Nationality of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay or Bolivia, held from birth or acquired by naturalisation at least five years earlier
- Identity and nationality documents, birth certificate, police record certificates
- For the second stage, an application in the ninety days before the two years expire, with proof of lawful means of subsistence
Venezuelan Nationals Are Outside the Mercosur Route, and Have Their Own
Brazil does not treat Venezuelans under the Mercosur Residence Agreement. It treats them under a separate residence authorisation for nationals of a neighbouring country where that agreement is not in force, which the Federal Police publishes with its own service code and its own document list. The practical terms are deliberately gentler than the Mercosur route in one specific way: an identity card or passport is accepted even if it has expired, which matters for a population whose consular services stopped functioning. The structure is the same two stages - a temporary authorisation first, converted to an indefinite one later, on proof of means of subsistence.
- An identity card or passport, accepted even where the validity date has expired
- A birth or marriage certificate, or a consular certificate, where the identity document does not show parentage
- A sworn declaration of no criminal record in Brazil or abroad in the last five years
- The processing fee and the residence card fee
- For the conversion to an indefinite term: proof of means of subsistence and Brazilian criminal record certificates
What the law says
«''Estados Partes'': Estados membros e Países
Associados do MERCOSUL;»Our translation - not official
"States Parties": member states and Associated Countries of MERCOSUR;
The agreement defines a state party as a member state or an associated country. The distinction between full members and associates, which is a real distinction in the trade bloc, is not a distinction this agreement draws. The doubled apostrophes are the publisher's transcription of the quotation marks in the treaty text and are kept.
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«''Nacionais de uma Parte'': são as pessoas que possuem
a nacionalidade originária de um dos Estados Partes ou a nacionalidade adquirida
por naturalização há pelo menos cinco anos;»Our translation - not official
"Nationals of a Party": persons who hold the original nationality of one of the States Parties or nationality acquired by naturalisation at least five years earlier;
The five-year wait after naturalisation is a condition of the agreement itself and is almost never reported. A person naturalised in Argentina last year is not yet a national of a party for this purpose.
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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.
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«O procedimento previsto no parágrafo 2 aplicar-se-á
independente da condição migratória em que houver ingressado o peticionante no
território do país de recepção e implicará a isenção de multas e outras sanções»Our translation - not official
The procedure provided for in paragraph 2 shall apply regardless of the migratory status under which the applicant entered the territory of the receiving country and shall carry exemption from fines and other sanctions
The sentence continues "administrativas mais gravosas" on the next line. This is the clause that makes the route a regularisation and not merely an immigration permit.
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«a representação consular ou os serviços de
migração correspondentes, segundo seja o caso, poderá outorgar uma residência
temporária de até dois anos»Our translation - not official
the consular representation or the corresponding migration services, as the case may be, may grant a temporary residence of up to two years
Up to two years, and the document list that follows contains no income requirement at all.
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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.
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«A residência temporária poderá ser transformada em
permanente, mediante a apresentação do peticionante, perante a autoridade
migratória do país de recepção, 90 (noventa) dias antes do vencimento da mesma»Our translation - not official
The temporary residence may be transformed into permanent residence by the applicant presenting themselves before the migration authority of the receiving country 90 (ninety) days before its expiry
Ninety days before expiry, not within ninety days after. Article 6 puts anyone who misses it back under ordinary domestic migration law.
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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.
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«Comprovação de meios de vida lícitos que permitam a
subsistência do peticionante e de seu grupo familiar de convívio;»Our translation - not official
Proof of lawful means of living that allow the subsistence of the applicant and of their household family group;
The only economic test in the agreement, and it appears at the second stage rather than the first. No figure is set; it is left to the receiving state.
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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.
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«O
presente Acordo será aplicado sem prejuízo de normas ou dispositivos internos de
cada Estado Parte que sejam mais favoráveis aos imigrantes.»Our translation - not official
This Agreement shall be applied without prejudice to internal rules or provisions of each State Party that are more favourable to immigrants.
Where Brazilian law offers something better - and after 2017 it often does, since residence can be applied for on many grounds regardless of migratory status - the agreement does not cut it off.
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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.
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«Considerando que o Acordo entrou em vigor para o
Brasil, no plano jurídico externo, em 28 de julho de 2009;»Our translation - not official
Whereas the Agreement entered into force for Brazil, in the external legal order, on 28 July 2009;
The agreement was signed in 2002, approved by Congress in 2005, ratified in 2005 and only came into force in 2009, because article 14 required all six signatories to notify Paraguay first.
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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.
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«seja beneficiária de tratado em matéria de residência e livre circulação;»Our translation - not official
is a beneficiary of a treaty on residence and free movement;
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.
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«A autorização de residência poderá ser concedida à pessoa beneficiada por tratado em matéria de residência e livre circulação.»Our translation - not official
A residence authorisation may be granted to a person benefiting from a treaty on residence and free movement.
The following paragraph sends the reader back to the treaty for the substance and treats the regulation as subsidiary, which is why the agreement rather than the decree carries the requirements.
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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.
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«| Processamento e avaliação de pedidos de autorização de residência | R$ 168,13 |»Our translation - not official
| Processing and assessment of residence authorisation applications | R$ 168.13 |
The fee is set in the annex to the regulation and has not moved since 2017. The Federal Police charges the same amount under revenue code 140066.
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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
«| Emissão de cédula de identidade de imigrante | R$ 204,77 |»Our translation - not official
| Issue of immigrant identity card | R$ 204.77 |
The card is charged separately from the application, under revenue code 140120, and is payable even where the processing fee is waived.
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
Family members who are not nationals of a party get a residence of the same duration as the person they depend on, but where their own nationality needs a visa they have to go through a consulate.
The ministry of justice's page for this route asks only for criminal record certificates "under the terms of the Agreement or Treaty" and other documents required by its text. It does not name the countries covered.
The Federal Police page that does name the eight countries it applies the agreement to returned an authentication wall when we tried to read it on 27 September 2026, so we have not been able to store or quote it.
- consolidatesDecreto nº 6.975, de 7 de outubro de 2009 - Acordo sobre Residência do Mercosul
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
- 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
- administersPolícia Federal - Autorização de residência para nacional de país fronteiriço fora do Acordo do Mercosul
Polícia Federal
About this source
Registers immigrants, issues the residence card, extends visitor stays and collects the fees.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Several of its pages are behind authentication and return a login wall rather than content, including the one page that names every nationality the Mercosur agreement covers. Its fee page misdates Decreto 6.771 to 2005 when the decree is of 2009, so its citations need checking against the consolidator before use.
We re-read it every 90 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