Brazil to Require Visas for Americans Starting October 1, 2023

Brazil will again require travelers from the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan to complete an entry visa for travel to the country. The renewed requirement will go into effect from October 1, 2023.

The move to suspend visa requirements took place in 2019 by then-president Jair Bolsonaro in order to facilitate tourism; however, the aforementioned countries continued to require visas from Brazilians for travel into each. Reuters reports that “the 2019 decision to lift visa requirements had weakened Brazil’s ability to negotiate with those countries.” In addition, likely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the move did not prove to boost tourism.

In fact, U.S. tourist arrivals to Brazil in 2022 were below that of 2018, according to the Reuters report. AP News adds that before the pandemic, Brazil received 6.4 million tourists in 2019, which trails Argentina in South America and is significantly lower than Mexico’s 45 million (data from the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization). Separate data from Brazil’s tourism ministry indicates that entries of Americans, Australians, Canadians and Japanese people fell between 2019 and 2021.

From the date of entry into force of the measure, the Brazilian government will adopt the electronic visa modality, which was in use before the exemption.