Working in Brazil: the employer opens the file, the digital nomad works for abroad, and the diploma goes past a state university

Yes, you may work in Brazil, but not on the tourist's stamp and not on your own initiative: for employment the employer lodges the file, in Brazil, and only after that approval does the consulate in Amsterdam issue the visa. It costs the employer 168.13 reais in fees and, according to the service, thirty days for a complete file. The pitfall is that almost every other route — working remotely for a foreign client, starting your own business, practising your Dutch profession — has its own counter with its own threshold, and that the Dutch diploma does not count there by itself.

Situation	Route	Threshold or requirement
Job at a Brazilian company	VITEM V; the employer applies for the residência prévia via MigranteWeb	168.13 reais; thirty days, sixty for an incomplete file
Remote work for a foreign client	VITEM XIV for digital nomads	1,500 dollars a month or 18,000 dollars in funds; one year, renewable once
Own business	after the residence permit, with a CNPJ; small as MEI	the business account asks for the CRNM
Regulated profession	revalidação of the diploma by a public university	Lei 9.394, article 48
Partner of an employee	VITEM XI, family reunion	tied to the sponsor

How does the work visa run?

Article 14 of the migration law names "work" as a ground for the temporary visa, and the consulate in Amsterdam lists the categories, from employee of a Brazilian company to scientist with an employment contract. For all categories "the application must first be filed in Brazil by the employer at the Ministry of Justice".

That happens in the system MigranteWeb, says the government service: the employer registers, lodges the request for an autorização de residência para fins laborais and pays the fee of 168.13 reais. A correct file is decided within thirty days; a file that goes "in exigência" gets up to sixty. Resolução Normativa 1/2017 of the immigration council says what is in the file: a valid travel document, the proof of your parentage, the employer's details, the documents of the specific resolution for your category, and for the definitive application a criminal record "from where you have lived in the last five years" plus your own declaration that you have none. Article 5 of that resolution is the sentence that counts: foreign documents "must be apostilled according to the Apostille Convention and translated by a tradutor público juramentado in Brazil". If something is missing, the employer gets thirty days to complete it, otherwise the request is rejected.

Only with the approval in hand do you go to the consulate, with passport, certificate of conduct and apostilled birth certificate. After arrival follows within 90 days the registration, and from the day of arrival you are, according to article 17 of the tax regulation, a tax resident — what that does to your Dutch income is in AOW, pension and tax.

And if my employer stays in the Netherlands?

Then the work route is the wrong door, and the nomad route the right one. The visa for digital nomads is, according to the consulate, for "the migrant without an employment relationship in Brazil, whose professional activity can be carried out remotely": you show a contract or client relationship with a foreign employer or client, a declaration that the work can be done remotely, and 1,500 dollars a month or 18,000 dollars in the bank. The residence routes put the nomad next to the retiree and the investor.

An employer in the Netherlands and a desk in Brazil is a tax question, not a visa question. Whoever works remotely is after 183 days — or with a permanent visa from day one — a tax resident of Brazil and declares the wage there monthly. Which country may tax that wage is regulated by the tax treaty, and the Dutch employer keeps withholding wage tax in the meantime. Have a tax adviser work that out before the move.

May I start my own business?

After the residence permit, yes. The migration law gives in article 4 the migrant "the same labour rights as a Brazilian" and expressly "the right to open a bank account". A business needs a CNPJ in Brazil, the tax number for legal persons, and for a small business there is the MEI, the microempreendedor individual. The central bank's brochure for migrants says that an account as MEI is a business account and that the bank asks for its own documents for it; in practice that is the CRNM. Without a residence permit no CNPJ, and without a CNPJ no invoice: the own business therefore comes after the card, not before. How you get paid there is in bank and payments.

Does my Dutch diploma count?

Not by itself. Article 48 of the education law says that "graduação diplomas issued by foreign universities are revalidated by public universities that have a course of the same level and field". That revalidação is a procedure at a state university, with the diploma and the transcripts apostilled and translated; the deadline and the costs are set by the Ministry of Education and have not been checked at the source here. For a free profession nobody asks for it; for a regulated profession such as doctor, dentist, lawyer or teacher in public education it is the condition for being allowed to work. The apostilles on diploma and transcripts you have put on in the Netherlands, as the article on school describes.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 2 of 5 of the journey, step 2.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Brazil or go straight to step 2.1 in the open plan.