Period of staying in my country?

Ansar,

The best plan would be to go back to your country to get your background check after you complete your year.  I did that, and didn't have any problem.  As you probably recall, you are required to list all of the periods you have been out of Brazil on your Naturalization Petition.   Short absences don't seem to be a problem, if you've completed a continuous year.

Have you taken and passed the CelpeBras exam?  If not, you need to, or your Petition will be rejected again.

thanks you so much Mr. abthree for the quick response!
i did not completed one year here in brazil, my entry date 23 september 2019.

Tomorrow when I have access to my computer,  I'll check my Petition (which was approved) and post how I handled the absences.

I want to stress once more the importance of CelpeBras.  Without that, your Petition will be rejected, and your trip will be wasted.

abthree wrote:

Ansar,

The best plan would be to go back to your country to get your background check after you complete your year.  I did that, and didn't have any problem.  As you probably recall, you are required to list all of the periods you have been out of Brazil on your Naturalization Petition.   Short absences don't seem to be a problem, if you've completed a continuous year.

Have you taken and passed the CelpeBras exam?  If not, you need to, or your Petition will be rejected again.

Just out of curiosity, will a leave of around 2 months in that 1 qualifying year will be OK?

For instance, say a guy is in Brazil from 1 January, he goes abroad for a period of around 2 months (departs in Aug and return in late Sep), will he able to apply naturalization on 1 January the next year?

Probably not.

He might get away with it by applying after March 1 (12 months in-country out of 14), but the Federal Police could easily find that that was just too cute.

Ansar,

I checked my Petition.

I applied for naturalization on April 15, 2019.  At that time, I had lived in Brazil one year and five months, having arrived on November 1, 2017.  I left the country for about a month on December 12, 2018:  I had already been in Brazil for one continuous year before I left, and did not receive any questions on it from the Federal Police.  I did show the correct dates for that absence (they can check their own Immigration records, so the dates need to match) and the reason for the absence.

Unlike some countries, Brazil doesn't consider Permanent Residency to be just a step on the way to citizenship for a resident foreigner:  it can be and often is a truly permanent status.  I have a dear friend who's been a permanent resident for over 40 years; she's never felt a need or a desire to become naturalized, and her status hasn't complicated her life, either personally or professionally.  Some of our friends here on the site are the same.

In light of this, it's worthwhile to understand that, while Brazil doesn't actively discourage naturalization, it doesn't do much to encourage it, either.  If you're already a permanent resident, they don't see the point.   The Federal Police won't try to stop you, and they will answer all of your questions, but they won't bend the rules, and if they find anything wrong with your Petition, they're much more likely to simply reject it and tell you to start over than to give you a chance to fix it.  If there are two or three things wrong, they'll reject it based on the first thing they find, and not look any further, so the remaining errors will result in more rejections if you don't find them and fix them on your own.  Naturalization is harder than getting permanent residency, and it's necessary to approach it like you would an application for a job you really want:  check, double-check, and triple-check everything, make sure that you satisfy all the requirements, make sure that you have every document on the list that applies to your case, and make sure that all the ones that need to be current, legalized, and translated, are.

For those interested in naturalization,  the one time in 2020 that the CelpeBras exam will be offered has been announced.   I've posted full information here:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=899915

abthree wrote:

For those interested in naturalization,  the one time in 2020 that the CelpeBras exam will be offered has been announced.   I've posted full information here:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=899915

If for naturalization, Isn't Celpebras too tough a choice as now a days you have the option of just completing a Portuguese for Foreigners course at an institute accredited with MEC ?

stevewaugh786 wrote:

If for naturalization, Isn't Celpebras too tough a choice as now a days you have the option of just completing a Portuguese for Foreigners course at an institute accredited with MEC ?

I have seen notices from a few courses that seem to claim (the wording is always vague) that certificates from their courses will be accepted by the Federal Police as sufficient for naturalization.   I have never yet seen confirmation of that from the Federal Police, though, and I've looked.

If I were taking a Portuguese course for naturalization purposes, I would ask for an upfront guarantee that the Federal Police would accept the result as equivalent to CelpeBras before enrolling and paying.   I would also only take a course at a public university.