Your first year on Brazil's digital nomad visa is ending. Here is how to stay.
You arrived in Brazil as a digital nomad almost a year ago. You built a routine, found a place to live, and kept working remotely for the people who pay you abroad. Slowly, real life took shape here. Now the expiry date is approaching, and one question arrives without warning: what happens when that year runs out?
There is more than one way forward, and each one fits a different moment in your story. One of them simply extends the same visa for another year. The other is more permanent, and it grows out of a decision many nomads are already weighing anyway: buying property in Brazil. This article explains how each path works, based on the rules in force today.
Why the first year has a limit
The digital nomad category exists for people who work remotely, using information and communication technology, for an employer outside Brazil. If you work for an employer based in Brazil, the category does not apply to you. Normative Resolution 45/2021, from Brazil's National Immigration Council under the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, created this category. Its official name is Temporary Visa XIV, or VITEM XIV. It comes with an initial residence term of up to one year, renewable for an equal period. The rule sets no cap on how many times that renewal can happen. What it asks is that you keep meeting the conditions of the category.
To qualify, you need proof of income from a foreign paying source of at least US$ 1,500 per month. Available bank funds of at least US$ 18,000 can stand in for that monthly figure. What the balance cannot do is replace your working relationship abroad, which has to be proven separately. For that, you present a declaration that you work remotely, or your employment contract with the company outside Brazil. If you applied at a consulate, health insurance valid in Brazil was part of that first application too.
That first year is not an obstacle. It works as a checkpoint, designed to confirm that the conditions that brought you here still hold. Those are active remote work, a paying source abroad, and income at or above the minimum. This is exactly where most people in your situation face two options, which are renewing on the same terms, or changing route.
The faster path: renewing the same visa
If your work contract is still in force and your income still meets the minimum, the simplest route is a renewal. It extends the same residence for another year. That choice keeps you in Brazil without changing your immigration category. For the renewal, you present a copy of your CRNM, the national migration card that works as your resident identity document in Brazil. With it goes your employment letter or contract, showing that your digital nomad status still holds.
This route works well if you are still deciding whether Brazil is a destination for the medium term or for life. It solves the coming year, and it can be repeated while your situation stays the same. What it does not do is stand on its own. Every renewal depends on your remote work abroad still being active, and on your income still clearing the minimum.
When the plan is to stay longer: residence through property investment
If you already know you want to build something more lasting in Brazil, there is a route that turns assets into permanence. Normative Resolution 36/2018, later amended by Resolution 46/2021 and Resolution 49/2024, governs this route. It allows you to obtain residence authorization by investing in urban property in Brazil, using your own funds coming from abroad. The 2024 amendment aligned the rules with Law 14,286/2021, which sets how foreign currency enters the country, so proving where the money came from matters.
The minimum amount is BRL 1,000,000. In the North and Northeast regions that floor can be up to 30 percent lower, which brings the minimum to BRL 700,000. The property can be already built or still under construction, and you can combine more than one property to reach the required amount. That gives some flexibility if you are weighing several opportunities at once.
It helps to see this amount not as an extra cost. It is the same capital many nomads would put into a home here if they decided to stay. The difference is that the investment also supports your legal right to remain. One decision covers both the place where you live and the right to stay in it.
This authorization is granted for four years. Once that term ends, it can be changed to an indefinite one, provided the investment conditions still hold and you present the required documents. From there, a further door can open later on. Brazilian law allows a foreign resident to apply for citizenship after at least four years of residence in the country. That period drops to one year in some situations, such as having a Brazilian spouse or child. Those are separate rules, with their own requirements, including being able to communicate in Portuguese. The presence requirement set out in the resolution is short. You need at least fourteen days in Brazil, consecutive or not, in each period of two years. The count starts from the date you register with the Federal Police.
Whoever takes this route gains a much longer horizon, and fourteen days in two years leaves plenty of room for a life spent partly elsewhere. You can assess this option before your current visa expires, which helps you avoid any gap in your immigration status.
How the application works
Requests for residence authorization go to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security through MigranteWeb, its electronic system. The documents proving the investment, the origin of the funds and the ownership of the property are filed within that same request.
Once your request is approved, you register in person with the Federal Police. That office issues the CRNM and formalizes your new status in the country.
Which path fits your moment
There is no single answer for everyone. There is one right question: are you still testing whether Brazil is the right place, or have you already decided that it is? If the answer is still open, renewing the digital nomad visa solves the coming year without asking for a larger commitment. If the decision is made, property investment offers a longer horizon. It trades a yearly check on your work arrangement for something concrete you build for yourself.
Worth remembering: these are not the only residence routes available in Brazil. Family reunion, retirement and other categories also exist, each with its own rules that deserve a specific look at your case.
What to do now
You have already taken the hardest step: choosing to live outside the place where you were born, and building a routine in another country. You do not need to work out alone which path supports that choice from here.
Amorim Global follows this kind of decision closely, reviewing your case and telling you whether residence through investment is the right route for your moment. Talk to our team and find out which path supports the life you have already started building in Brazil.
Sources
Every figure and deadline above comes from the rules themselves. Normative Resolution 45/2021 created the digital nomad category. Normative Resolution 36/2018, as later amended in 2021 and in 2024, governs residence through property investment. Both were issued by Brazil's National Immigration Council, under the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. The visa details follow the official guidance published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The citizenship requirements come from the Migration Law, Law 13,445/2017.
