Has anyone gotten Brazilian citizenship by investment? If I liquidate my retirement account, I will be able to get enough money.
I went to this website:
http://www.braziliancitizenship.com/
is this website legit? It sounds almost too good to be true. The website claims that if you invest $150,000 us dollars (500,000 brazilian reais), and it can be done 100% remotely, which means that I can talk to the Brazilian consulate in English and get Brazilian residency while in america. This would be great for me, since I just started learning Portuguese, and I don't want to go to brazil and get taken advantage of when trying to do the Brazilian citizenship by investment in brazil, since I don't understand the language. I wouldn't want to get scammed and lose my life's savings.
https://www.expat.com actually links to the first link I provided on this page:
https://www.expat.com/en/guide/south-am … razil.html
it's the last link
1. Is this website legit?:
http://www.braziliancitizenship.com/
2. Has anyone done this? What was your experience like?
3. The website has 2 paragraphs that seem to say different things. The website says,
“We'll open you an exchange account for your legal entity in Brazil, registering you and your investment at Brazil's central bank as foreign direct investment. This will allow you to transfer the investment of R$500 000 BRL which is ~$150 000 USD (or R$ 150 000 BRL if tech investment) into your account in Brazil. You can use this money any way you wish.. (property acquisition, stocks, fixed income.. etc).”
Then, later it says, “Where are the investment monies transferred?
The investment and transferring of funds must be made into the account of your Brazilian Company or another Brazilian company if you wish.”
The first paragraph seems to say that I can just put the money in a brazilian bank and just let it sit, and putting the money in the bank counts as the investment. The second paragraph seems to indicate that I have to invest the money. So can I just put the money in a brazilian bank account and let it sit, or do I actually have to invest in funds? I don't know anything about investing.
4. If the answer to question 3 is that I can just put the money in a bank account, and that's all I have to do, can I use the money? Or do I have to leave it in the bank account untouched.
5. So if I invest my money, can I pull it out after a certain amount of time, or do I lose the money?
6. The website says, “How long is the investor visa valid for?
You get permanent residency status.”
So does that mean my investor visa would last for the rest of my life?
7. So should I get a lawyer to help me do this?
8. If yes to question 6, should I get a lawyer who is originally from brazil who speaks Portuguese?
9. How would I find a lawyer from brazil who speaks Portuguese in America?
10. If I do the investor visa, what happens if the investment goes bad, and all my money is lost, do I still get to keep my investor visa?
11. It seems like the website is saying that 4 years after I get residency, then I can get Brazilian citizenship. Is that correct?
12. Why do different websites say that the investor visa requires different amounts of money? This sounds suspicious.
13. Do you think it sounds weird that the website says that you have to invest $150,000 us dollars which equals 500,000 reais? 500,000 reais equals $134,200 us dollars, not $150,000 us dollars.
14. Is it true that you can do this whole process (get the investor visa) in America? This would circumvent a lot of the problems people have with Brazilian beauracracy.
I have some other rough ideas about getting citizenship in brazil, which I will post about later.
thanks