One Card for the Permit and the Job, and for the First Year It Only Fits One Trade
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Brazil on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
147 exceptions recorded across 54 countries · none match Brazil to Luxembourg · Residency through work
A third-country national needs a work authorisation to take paid employment, and for most people it arrives inside the residence permit rather than beside it. Article 42 makes the minister grant the residence authorisation and the work authorisation together, after checking four things: that the priority of certain workers under the Labour Code is not prejudiced, that the activity serves the country's economic interests, that the applicant has the professional qualifications, and that there is a contract for a post declared vacant with the employment agency. The resulting card is a single permit valid for at most a year, and article 43 then limits it: for the first year of legal employment the holder may work in one sector and one profession only, with any employer. After that year the renewed permit opens the whole labour market. The application is made from abroad and has to be granted before the applicant enters.
At a glance
- Permit and work authorisation
- Granted together by the minister, and printed on one card
Articles 42(1) and 43(1), which call the card a permis unique.
- First card
- At most one year
Article 43(1), which caps both the title and the work authorisation at a maximum of one year.
- What you may do in the first year
- One sector and one profession, with any employer
Article 43(2). Article 43(3) allows a change on application, after the article 42(1) conditions are checked again.
- Renewal
- Up to three years, if the vacancy condition is still met
Article 43(4), which cuts the renewal back to one year where the holder cannot show actual work or is renewing while on unemployment benefit.
- After the first year
- Any sector and any profession
Article 43(5).
- Decision time
- Four months from a complete application, extendable in exceptional cases
Article 42(3), which also lets the applicant treat silence as a refusal and go to the administrative tribunal.
- Where you apply from
- Outside the country, before you travel
Article 39(1), under which an application introduced after entry is inadmissible.
Requirements
- A work authorisation, unless the Act exempts you from one
- An employment contract for a post declared vacant with the Agence pour le développement de l'emploi
- Professional qualifications for the job
- An activity that serves the country's economic interests and does not prejudice the hiring priority in the Labour Code
- An application made to the minister, and granted, before entering the country
- Suitable housing, before the card itself is issued
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Brazil
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
«Tout ressortissant de pays tiers doit être en possession d’une autorisation de travail afin d’exercer une activité salariée, à moins d’en être dispensé en vertu des dispositions de la présente loi.»The rule stated on its own, inserted by the Act of 7 August 2023 according to the consolidated text's article heading.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
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«4. il est en possession d’un contrat de travail conclu pour un poste déclaré vacant auprès de l’Agence pour le développement de l’emploi dans les formes et conditions prévues par la législation afférente en vigueur.»The condition that makes this an employer-led route: the job must already have been declared vacant with the agency.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Durant la première année de son emploi légal sur le territoire, le détenteur d’un titre de séjour «travailleur salarié» ou d’une autorisation de travail a un accès au marché du travail limité à un seul secteur et une seule profession auprès de tout employeur.»The restriction is on the sector and the profession, not on the employer. Changing employer inside the same trade does not need the article 43(3) permission; changing trade does.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«2. il rapporte la preuve qu’il dispose de ressources adéquates pour l’exercice de l’activité qu’il entend exercer au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg;»For self-employment, which is a separate authorisation in the same chapter.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«3. l’exercice de l’activité visée sert les intérêts du pays qui s’apprécient en termes d’utilité économique»The economic-interest test for self-employment, which the article then spells out at length. A commission created by article 151 checks it, except for activities already authorised by the financial regulator.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«4. l’exercice de l’activité visée nécessite une présence sur le territoire du travailleur indépendant afin d’assurer une gestion journalière effective de l’entreprise.»Added by the Act of 7 August 2023 on the consolidation's own attribution. It rules out a self-employment permit for a business run from somewhere else.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«doit être introduite par le ressortissant d’un pays tiers auprès du ministre et doit être favorablement avisée avant son entrée sur le territoire. La demande doit sous peine d’irrecevabilité être introduite avant l’entrée sur le territoire du ressortissant d’un pays tiers.»The procedural rule that governs every category in article 38 point 1, with the exceptions the paragraph names.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Act carries separate sub-sections for highly qualified employment and the European Blue Card (articles 45 to 45-5), intra-corporate transfer (articles 47 to 47-6), posted work (articles 48 and 49), self-employment and investment (articles 51 to 53quater), sport (article 54), study and training (articles 55 to 62bis), research (articles 63 to 67-3) and job-seeking after study (article 67-4). This record is the ordinary salaried route.
Article 42(5) deals with the case a company director who is also an employee falls into, and conditions it on a genuine relationship of subordination and on the company either belonging to a group that has traded abroad for at least twenty-four months or being genuinely active in Luxembourg.
Nothing here is a statement about the Labour Code. The hiring priority the minister checks is in article L. 622-4 of that Code, which was not read.
- consolidatesLoi du 29 août 2008 sur la libre circulation des personnes et l'immigration, consolidated text applicable from 12 June 2026
Legilux, Journal officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg · consolidated to 2026-06-12
Known to be out of date. A Legilux consolidation is a documentary text; the Journal officiel as published is what has legal force. This manifestation is the PDF, which prints the article text without the change markers and the amending-act headings the HTML manifestation of the same consolidation carries.
About this source
Luxembourg's official legal publisher, run by the Service central de législation. It issues the Journal officiel and, separately, textes coordonnés. Everything is addressed by ELI, and the address that matters is on the data host rather than the site: legilux.public.lu is an Angular single-page application that answers every address with the same 2,118-byte shell, while data.legilux.public.lu serves the documents. The live forms are data.legilux.public.lu/eli/<type>/<yyyy>/<mm>/<dd>/<id>/jo/fr/{html,pdf} for an act as published and .../consolide/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/{html,pdf} for a consolidation, where the date must be an exact consolidation date - any other date answers 404. Codes are addressed differently again, as /eli/etat/leg/code/<name>/<YYYYMMDD>/fr/pdf. The same host answers an Accept: application/rdf+xml request for any ELI with the record's metadata, and there is a SPARQL endpoint at data.legilux.public.lu/sparqlendpoint which is how a consolidation date is found rather than guessed: ?v jolux:isMemberOf <work ELI> ; jolux:dateApplicability ?d returns every consolidation of an act.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidations are documentary. The Journal officiel as published is what has legal force, and the Code de la sécurité sociale prints that on its own notes page. The two manifestations of one consolidation are not the same document: the HTML carries the change markers and the amending-act headings - 'Art. 78. (L du 21 avril 2023)' - and breaks sentences with marker digits like '145 > quinze heures 145 <', while the PDF prints clean article text and drops both the markers and the headings. A quotation has to be taken from whichever one the sentence survives in. The consolidations also carry defects of their own: article 33 of the Act of 29 August 2008 is printed twice over in both manifestations, once as the original single sentence and once again as paragraph (1) with the same words. It cannot be cited for the income tax Act at all - it holds consolidation metadata for the Act of 4 December 1967 up to 1 February 2026 but serves no document for any consolidation after 2011, so the only current coordinated text of it is the tax administration's. Code recueils are PDF-only, and two of them set the publisher's own apparatus inside the text column: the Code de la sécurité sociale prints source references like 'L. 27.7.92' mid-sentence, and the Code de la route prints case-law annotations frozen at 2 September 2013 alongside articles consolidated to 2026. The Legilux record of the loi d'adaptation fiscale of 16 October 1934 tags its expression as French while the text it serves is German from beginning to end.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source