So what if I overstay my Tourist Visa in Brazil anyway?

A citizen from another South American country may well be able to cross at certain border entry points without too much difficulty, however us gringos who stick out like a sore thumb aren't quite that fortunate. You will most certainly be required to produce a passport and visa no matter where, when and how you try to enter Brazil. On top of that little problem, even if you were magically able to enter by some twist of fate if you were caught, under the present circumstances of having already been "invited" to leave the country voluntarily, you would most certainly be detained again and this time they wouldn't make it a request - they'd just start a deportation process. If you know the Federal Police here then you know only too well that they don't take kindly to people trying to jerk them around or put one over on them.

You can't do ANYTHING here in Brazil unless you are in a "regular" migratory situation. Without being within your valid visa stay, you virtually can't sign in to use a public toilet - REALLY. So, if you're "irregular" you can't do anything that requires you do deal with a Cartório or civil laws, much less enter the permanency process. If you haven't already noticed Brazil is really big on documents. You are required by law to carry your identifying documents and at the very least a certified copy of your passport ID page and visa pages with you at all times in order to prove that you are "regular". It is a police state, if a police officer requests you produce your identification you are required to do so, without any exception, othewise you are detained until you are identified. For example, if you're in a bar and a fight breaks out, the police will ID everybody in the bar and not just those participating in the brawl. At that point it's game over for anybody here who doesn't produce ID or is "irregular".

Trust me, if there was ANY other way for you to come back into the country before waiting out your time I would have told you so. The only options you have are to wait or try to obtain some other category of visa. There really is no use in trying to invent different scenarios to slip past the Feds, it just won't work. If you don't want to listen to my advise that's up to you, but please I can only tell you what I have already told you and this is becoming rather tiresome.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

I'm not telling you not to ask any more questions. Just not about coming back now, since it is not possible no matter what you do or dream up. I've given you the only options available. You must trust me, if there was anything else I certainly would have told you.

If you need any OTHER information about Brazil please feel free to ask and I will be as eager to respond with all the information I can as I did with this issue.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

I have a friend in Brazil whose 180 days runs out in Feb. He was going to leave and spend 6 months in Argentina but now has a girlfriend (typical right?). He has a ticket back to South Africa in August and wants wants to stay. His question is regarding the ugly red stamp. Is it just a stamp or is there a digital record of it? The reason being his passport expires just after he gets home and he will then get a new one. Would he then be able to enter Brazil (this time on a work visa) with no record of his past transgressions?
Thanks so much,
Jim

Hi Jim,

The overstay will be registered by both a big ugly overstay stamp on his passport and electronically in the system of the Polícia Federal, which I would presume they share with other immigrations authorities as many nations do.

As far as re-entering Brazil other than being required to pay the overstay fine, and make no mistake about it, they will keep it on record under passport number and name/biometric data so even with a new passport it's going to show up. If he doesn't pay then he would not be permitted to re-enter regardless of what type of visa he has or the new passport. If the fine is paid there will be no problems of any kind with Brazil.

Where the real problems in the future may come is if he should require a visa for some other nation. If they have access to the Brazilian overstay data that could scuttle any chance of getting a visa.

My advice to everyone who asks is to obey all immigrations regulations, regardless of where. You never know when not doing so is going to come back and bite you in the ass later. Many nations will use the overstay here in order to justify refusal of a visa to enter their country.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

Thanks for the response, I'll let him know.

Hello,
Overstayed in brasil, passport expired during overstay.
Do you know what the best process is for me to take to
rectify?

First of all you have to obtain a new passport which you should be able to do through the US Embassy or Consulate here in Brazil. Once you've done that then you simply show up at the airport  about 2 or 3 hours before your scheduled flight back home, present your old passport (if you still have it) along with the new one and your original Entry Card to the Federal Police agent. They will note the overstay in you new passport with a big ugly stamp, will tell you how much of a fine you must pay R$8,25 or thereabouts per day up to a maximum of 100 days and you can pay that before leaving or upon returning to Brazil. Other than the ugly stamp which will remain in your new passport until it too expires, and may sabotage any chances you have to obtain visas for other countries, there will be absolutely no problems here in Brazil.

So, if some point in the future you get a super job offer in Kuwait, with a big fat juicy salary.... you can likely kiss it goodbye. For the life of me I really don't know what motivates people to overstay their visa and run the risks it involves in other countries?

Be advised, the US Embassy prioritize lost passports over, expired passports. You should ask for an emergency passport to avoid the ugly stamp. If you get the stamp it will most certainly affect your chances for visas to other countries... Emergency passports are good for entry and then seized by CBP in states.

To James point, overstaying a visa is illegal in the US, and most countries as well. It results in forceful deportation in 95% of all cases. Why would you risk something in a country like Brazil - It really is not a game.

Dear William,
I am currently overstaying my 3 month VWP stay, waiting for the cartório to finish all the paperwork for the marriage between me and my girlfriend. I decided to overstay after an attendant at the federal police said I could do so, and then when we are married I can pay the fee for the overstayed days and apply for permanent visa. However, I read in this thread that you can't begin the permanency process as long as you are staying illegally in the country. So this information that I received is wrong?

If you have already applied for the marriage and submitted all the documents to the Cartório de Pessoas Naturais and have the wedding date set then you're fine.

Get married as planned and once married, visa or not you are permitted to remain in Brazil. You can apply for the VIPER Permanent Visa immediately following receipt of the Marriage Certificate without any trouble at all. You will probably need to pay the small overstay fine as your Federal Police person mentioned, but that's it.

Where the problem lies is trying to arrange a marriage if your visa is expired.... that can be a real tough nut to crack or as they say here "um osso difícil de roer".

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

Excellent, then that's a relief! All the paperwork is finished and the date is set. Thank you.

Also, let me thank you for this very informative thread. As you mention, it's very difficult to find good information here in Brazil, you have to keep ask several people until you get the same answer several times, and then you can only be slightly sure! So this helps.

You got that right!!! You ask 10 people (all of whom are authorities and SUPPOSED to know the answer) and you're guaranteed to get 10 completely different answers here in Brazil. Worse still the chances are better at winning a lottery than the chances that one of those ten answers is actually correct. Welcome to the brutal reality of Brazil my friend.

Thank you! Well, at least I finally learned that it is like this, so I know what to expect. The worst part is that each and every one of them sound completely sure about it. Anyway, good thing the country does have its good parts too

Unfortunately, things don't always go as we want... The previously mentioned marriage is off, so my current situation is that I'm overstaying with no way to legally extend my stay. I was thinking about just going back home, but it would just feel terrible to go back now, when I just started to build something here (even though my engagement is out of the picture). I really like this country, and feel that it still has more to give me.

I would like to stay, even if it means some limitations. The damage for overstaying is already done, no matter what I do I will still get that big ugly stamp in my passport, and will have to pay the fine.

But before making my final decision, I want to have all the facts, so here goes:

One concern is the health care system. Do I understand it correctly that the general health care (not private) is free for citizens and foreigners alike, even when it comes to spending several days in a hospital?
Should I get a health insurance, and is it even possible in my current situation?
If I get sick, will I get in trouble (having to leave the country) if I go to a hospital or posto de saude?

Also... If I decided to go back to my home country, and perhaps find another way to get an extended visa, would I have to stay outside for six months, or for how long? Let's say that my total stay was 5 months.

Thanks...

Yes, you're correct. SUS is free for all users, Brazilians and foreigners alike. However the consults in the Posto de Saúde Clinics take months to schedule and you're lucky if the doctor even spends five minutes with you. How they can make any kind of diagnosis is beyond me.

The treatment in UPAs (Unidade de Pronto Atendimento) or Pronto Socorros as they are commonly called is reasonably good. Emergeny hospital admissions are free and treatment in Emergency Wards of most hospitals is acceptable.

I was hospitalized from the Emergency Ward of Odilon Behrins Hospital in Belo Horizonte - MG for a week with a suspected infarction. I left the hospital, was given medications to take home, was surprised when I awoke in the ER, thinking it was a truly "first world" facility. The treatment I received was world class, not because I was a foreigner, because they treated EVERYBODY exactly the same. I was so impressed by the fact that in the ER bed beside me an elderly Brazilian gentleman who had fallen and struck his head was treated with tender loving care, despite the fact that he was comatose. Nurses and doctors who treated him spoke directly to him as if he were still conscious and the treated him with such respect that I made a point to tell his daughter when she came to visit so she could rest assured that he was in very good and affectionate hands with the staff there.

I would still recommend private health insurance if you can afford it, since that provides much quicker access to non-emergency medical care. But I've never had private insurance I really have no major complaints. I have rarely found it necessary to pay for treatment by going to a private hospital and when I did the fees were really not that expensive.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

tenrai wrote:

Unfortunately, things don't always go as we want... The previously mentioned marriage is off, so my current situation is that I'm overstaying with no way to legally extend my stay. I was thinking about just going back home, but it would just feel terrible to go back now, when I just started to build something here (even though my engagement is out of the picture). I really like this country, and feel that it still has more to give me.

Sorry to hear this. I like to think everything happens for a reason.

Dear William,

Thanks for your response. Though I'm still wondering how (and if) my current status as overstaying my visa will affect my ability to take part of the public health care system. Do you know anything about this?

Thanks usmc_mv, I think the same.

Hi tenrai,

It won't have any effect at all. You only need to have some kind of proof that you live in the area of the Posto de Saude if you're going to a clinic. You may need to produce some kind of ID so your passport if you don't have anything in the way of Brazilian ID, but they couldn't care less about your visa.

Great, thanks!

If you stay longer than your 90 tourist Visa, you pay a fine of $8.00(brasilian real) per day with a max penalty of $800. This needs to be paid prior to departure at a bank.

Actually you can pay it before departure or at the latest on arrival for your next visit to Brazil, they don't get too bent out of shape about it. If you arrive and it hasn't already been paid then a Federal Police agent will accompany you to the Bank of Brasil at the airport where you pay the fine, return to the immigrations counter to get your stamped passport and collect your baggage.... then you're on your way. Nooooooooooo problems!!!

Hey everyone, I have a few questions. I came to Rio on a tourist visa and have stayed here for about 8 months now and am going to be leaving soon. My flight leaves late at night, do I need to be there at any specific time to deal with my overstay fee? Is there an option of waiting to renter to pay my fee? How does that all work? Also, if I do have to pay my fee before my exit, rather than arrival back to brazil, can I do this for any flight on any day or will I have to arrange to do this on a day when a certain office is open or can I go on any day at any time to pay and leave. For instance, if I wanted to leave 2 days from now on a Sunday night, would I be stuck at the airport rescheduling everything and waiting to pay my fine or would I be good to pay? If waiting to renter to pay my fee is an option, I would like to know more about that too.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I've never been in an overstay situation so don't know about the time involved at the airport. I'm sure if that were a big hassle somebody would have mentioned that by now. So, I'd say if you normally arrive at the airport two hours before an international flight to deal with delays in check-in calmly then you should also be able to get the overstay fine all dealt with at the same time.

You can pay the fine on returning yes, but you still must present yourself to the Federal Police Agents at the airport to deal with the overstay.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

I left Brazil on dec. 11, 2013 on an overstayed tourist visa. They gave me a fine of 850 reis and told me i could pay it upon re-entry. Back in New York i applied for a VII section visa and was accepted. The consulate will issue my new visa on March 18, 2014 and i plan to re-enter on the 20th. Is it possible to pay the fine at the airport? I fly into Rio and have a 1/12 layover until my next flight. Do you have any suggestions for me?  thanks.

When you go through customs and present your passport the computer will most likely have your overstay recorded. I had this experience in December.   You will be escorted to an office and they will print out the fine then escort you downstairs to the first bank/exchange to pay the fine.  I recommend you have cash available to pay the fine just in case your bank card doesn't work with their system and they do not take credit cards.  I had a "moment" when my bank card went down at the precise moment I needed it. Fortunately it worked out in a short time.   They will not let you in the country(at least in Rio) without paying the fine. 

Good luck!!   BTW  they were very polite and professional while I took care of this.

Set37, Thank you for that information, very helpful indeed. Can you remember how long it took to get through the process of paying the fine? I will be sure to have cash, but I only have and hour and a half until my connection. Im wondering if I should risk it or try to get a different flight.

As far as I am aware if you over stay you need to stay out of brasil for a certain  amount of time before you can re enter no? But if not it shouldn't take very long to process the payment etc.. Just give yourself enough time as the cues might be long .hope it goes well for you

If everything worked as planned I don't think it will  take you very long to process.  The agent will call a PF and that shouldn't take very long. It was about five minutes for me.  You go to their office which is right there and print out the fine then about a three minute walk to the banks.  Pay the fine and get receipted then back up to the office and they clear you out of the fine in the computer.    Paying the fine removes that time out of the computer.

You do have a pretty tight window though!!

   Another thought is perhaps you can pull it up and pay online or maybe if you are in NYC you can check out paying it at the Banco do Brasil office in Manhattan.  I have no clue whether that can or cannot be done.

Good luck!!  Let us know how you made out.

@Set37.. thanks for that tip, I did call that bank in New York and it turns out that maybe you could pay the re-entry fine if you had and account with banco do brazil, which i do not. So with all o this i felt ok to just wing it and hope or the best but i remembered that in brazil, banks don't open until 9am and I am arriving at 6:30am and the connection is at 7:30. Do you remember what time of day it was when you went through? I may just have to change the flight!  thanks again.

I went through about 10:30AM  and the bank I was escorted to was open.

Good Afternoon Everyone... Im back for more advice... I went ahead and had my fine paid by a friend in Brazil and I have the receipts from the Banco do Brasil  and my receipt from the fine. Does anyone know what my process will be like when I re-enter brazil? Surely I will not need to go to the bank now that the fine has been paid... but has anyone ever paid their re-entry fine in this way?

You won't have any problem at all re-entering Brazil. If you've got the receipt in hand at the time you check in at the Policia Federal Immigrations checkpoint you'll breeze right through as if their had never been an overstay. The fine is the only thing they're interested in and other than that the overstay really has absolutely no effect here in Brazil since it is only an infraction.

thank you very much wjwoodward

Hi im new here and need some help. I have a 1 year visa in brazil which is about to expire april 16. I am applying for a civil union visa with my partner however we have hit a road block. I stupidly forgot to get my documents verified at the Brazilian consulate before I got them sent to brazil. Does anyone know of anyway i can get them verified here in brazil? l Im obviously running out of time. My other option is to overstay... My biggest concern is health care. I see it was mentioned in this thread earlier but i was hoping someone could elaborate. If im illegally overstaying, can i have access to free public health? Or is it possible for me to get private insurance and be covered?

My last concern with overstaying is that I want to travel to the uk in 2015. Does anyone know if this will affect my ability to get a visa to the uk?

Thank you

Hi D Larks,

First of all, obviously, with a 1 year visa it's not just a VITUR Tourist Visa that allows a maximum stay of 180 days per year. You must have some type of VITEM Temporary Visa (work or study, etc.) and they are subject to different rules. I would think the penalties for overstaying one of them would be considerably more severe than for a VITUR, so I would recommend against doing so.

If you have a VITEM-IV Student Visa for example you should enroll in another qualifying course which would earn you a visa extension. That would be far preferrable than the alternative, which is being "invited" by the Federal Police to withdraw from the country within 8 days or face deportation proceedings. If you have a VITEM-V Work Visa then your employer could apply for an extension on the basis that your services are still required.

Regarding legalization of foreign documents there are no alternatives, they MUST be legalized by the Consulado-Geral do Brasil in the country (and city that has jurisdiction) where they were issued. The only option you have would be to send them off to the Consulado by Express Mail (SEDEX here in Brazil) or by some private courier service like FEDEX or DHL, with a pre-paid return envelope from the same courier service. Then hope for the best that they'd get back to you in time.

Just remember one very important point, that applying for a VIPER Permanent Visa com base em União Estável, DOES NOT carry with it the same right to obtain a work permit and work in Brazil while the visa is being processed that comes with an application based on marriage or on having a Brazilian child. With "Stable Union" applications you may only be issued a Carteira de Trabalho and work legally once the VIPER has actually been granted. So depending on your personal situation the VIPER application for Stable Union may not be the "silver bullet" you are looking for.

If time runs out and you've got something other than a VITUR Tourist Visa, that doesn't carry really serious penalties for overstay I would be very careful as to how I would proceed if I were you. If you end up being requested to leave you have no choice, other than being deported which has serious consequences, like not being permitted to re-enter Brazil in the future.

Hope this helps you a bit in trying to find some resolution to the problem you're in.

Regarding access to the public healthcare system SUS you can do that independent of your visa or anything else. You just have to prove that you live in the area served by the particular clinic (Posto da Saúde). In emergency hospitals or UPAs emergency clinics you needn't worry either.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

Thanks for the quick reply! I currently have what is called a Working holiday visa. I cant find any info about overstay on this visa. I assumed it just had the same penalties as the R$8 like a normal tourist visa.

Do you know anything about this visa?

Here you can't make any assumptions at all, because an error can have very serious consequences. With VITEM Temporary Visas the stay length is extremely rigid and there have been numerous cases of students on VITEM-IV and workers on VITEM-V visas being ordered to leave the country within 8 days. Should that happen and the individual refuse to comply then the Federal Police routinely bring on an application for a Deportation Order. These visas ARE NOT treated in any way like VITUR Tourist Visas.

If you have no way to apply for a visa extension, or the Federal Police won't grant one then the only viable option is to comply with their request to leave Brazil, failure to do so will surely result in deportation and there is no coming back after that.

Even if you were to be in a position where it is necessary to incur the extra costs of leaving the country and waiting until you can return for a (minimum) 90 day stay as a tourist that would be advisable.

Have you actually applied for the VIPER? Have the Federal Police accepted the application and given you time to produce the "legalized" documents? If not then you're just barking up the wrong tree. If they have already accepted your application, then there is the remote chance that they will grant you a visa extension based on the application, but even that is not certain.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team