Transcription
Hi, welcome back. In today's video, I'm going to talk about how you can move and retire here in Brazil. So, I'm going to talk about how to get a visa, how much money you need, how to get a property, how to learn the language, and other things as well. So, let's start with the visa.
So, a couple of years ago, the Brazilian government introduced this retirement visa. Now, lots of countries have this, but here in Brazil, it's quite a recent thing. And the key requirement for a person to get this visa is that they no longer work, and they have an income of over $2,000 per month from a pension or retirement plan. Now, this $2,000, it can come from a private pension plan, a public pension plan, uh, Social Security, 401K, annuity, and various others as well. And they even mentioned that if your pension plan pays less than $2,000 per month, they may accept other income sources as well, such as dividends, saving income, um, so it's not guaranteed, but they may accept that, which may help you get over that $2,000 minimum that they, uh, require.
Now, a lot of other countries, they also, um, stipulate how old you have to be. So, you have to be over the age of 60, 65, in order to get a visa like this. But the Brazilian one doesn't say that. So, it's possible that for someone who is below the kind of the normal, uh, retirement age, to still be able to get this visa if they can show that they're no longer working and they have this, uh, pension or retirement income. This is kind of a gray area and all comes down, kind of, to the discretion of the, the immigration officer who handles your case. And that's basically the key requirement. Then you just need to provide other documents like your passport, a birth certificate, criminal records to show that you haven't got any criminal convictions, and also documents showing that you have this pension and it pays over $2,000 a month.
Now, you can apply for this visa outside of Brazil. So, you go to the Brazilian embassy or consulate in your country that you live in. Or you can enter Brazil as a tourist and then apply for this visa once you're in Brazil. Now, some people say it's easier to, to apply for this visa once you've entered Brazil because then you don't need to provide evidence of medical insurance. Because if you apply overseas in the country you live in, then the consulate or the embassy will ask for evidence that you have medical insurance for when you go to Brazil. And this medical insurance can be very expensive. And obviously, you need to pay a fee, um, to request this visa. It depends on which country you're from, but it varies is between $100 and $300, $400. And the processing time can be 2 to 3 months.
Overall, this visa process isn't too complicated. And then I've talked about other visas for like investors where you invest in a business or you buy a property in order to get a visa to Brazil. And with with those, you kind of need to get a lawyer to handle it all because it's complicated. But with this visa process, it's a bit more simple and you probably don't need to involve a lawyer unless obviously you want someone just to handle everything and you don't want to get involved. And once you've been accepted, you then get a visa for 2 years, which is a temporary visa. But then after two years, you're able to convert that into a permanent visa. Obviously, the key thing is that you're still earning the $2,000 per month and you haven't started working or anything, um, because obviously that will be checked when you renew it and convert it to a permanent visa.
And just a couple of other things. So, you don't need to be fluent in Portuguese in order to get this visa. So, they're not going to test your Portuguese. Now, I still recommend that anyone planning to move to Brazil takes Portuguese lessons because you do need to speak Portuguese in order to be able to get around and do things here in Brazil. And you are able to bring your spouse and your dependent children with you. Now, that is an automatic with this visa. So, they will have to apply for a separate visa, a family visa, but you're definitely able to get that. Finally, obviously, you're not able to to work here under this visa because you are retired. Okay, so that's the visa. So, it's, it's pretty good. It's not too complicated. It doesn't take too long to get it, um, so overall, I think it's, it's a very good one to, to apply for if you meet the requirements.
Okay, so once you've managed to get the visa, the next question a lot of people have is how much money do you actually need in order to live here in Brazil? Now, I've done a separate video showing the cost of living for me, and I showed that I live on $2,000 per month here in the south of Brazil. But that's for me, my wife, and my daughter. So, I mean, a retired person or retired couple, I mean, they can easily live on, uh, a pension income of $2,000 per month, that's for sure. Now, I'm not going to go into too much detail, um, I'll leave a link to the video that I did about my cost of living in the description below. But just to say that cost of living here in Brazil is definitely lower than, uh, the states and many countries in Europe as well, in particular housing and rent, uh, food, and also services as well. Certain products, so like electrical appliances, cars as well, and they can be more expensive, but then they're not the things that you're buying on a monthly basis. So, food, rent, and stuff like that in general is cheaper in Brazil.
And just to give you a few examples about rent. So, if we choose Florianópolis, which is a nice city in the south of Brazil, it's got nice beaches there. You can rent a two-bedroom apartment, so you pay between 2,000 and 4,000 Reais per month, which is between $400 and $800 per month. Obviously, how, how much you pay depends on location, the size, and how nice you want the apartment to be. And then obviously, many people want to buy instead. And you can buy a nice two-bedroom apartment in Florianópolis between 500,000 Reais and a million Reais, so between $100,000 and $200,000. Now, I'm talking here about a nice, fairly big city, near the beach. But if you were to look further away from the big cities, some more into the countryside, well, there it's a lot more reasonable. There you could rent a two-bedroom apartment for half that amount. Instead of $400, you could pay just $200 per month. You could easily find a three-bedroom house or a two-bedroom apartment to buy for $100,000, that's for sure. And I've done various videos showing you properties in cities and also out in the countryside that have for sale. So, please have a look at those if you, if you're interested.
Another thing that people ask about is tax and how much tax they have to pay on their pension if they live here in Brazil. So, in general, the income tax rate here in Brazil is lower compared to the states and many countries in Europe. So, the highest tax rate is 27.5% here in Brazil. However, you do reach that tax rate quite quickly here in Brazil. So, you start paying 27.5% on income, which is fairly low compared than what you would do in the states in Europe. So, I did a simple spreadsheet here just to show you kind of approximate numbers. Obviously, to consider lots of things, double taxation relief between your country and Brazil, there are specific rules as well if you're over the age of 65 or not, um, so there's various things. So, these are just approximate numbers. So, this shows that if you're $2,000, which with current exchange rate is 10,920 Reais per month, uh, you then able to deduct some medical expenses, medical insurance, which I've put in here at 1,500 Reais per month. So, that means that your, your net income that you need to pay tax on is 9,400. And below that, I've showing you the various tax rates and the tax calculated on this 9,400. So, in total, you would pay tax of 1,695 Reais, which is $310 per month in tax. Like I said, there are specific rules. So, if you're above the age of 65, then you get some extra tax relief, uh, on your pension income. So, there are some more rules that can mean that you pay even less tax. But just to kind of give you a feeling for, if, if you bring in $2,000, how much tax more or less do you need to pay?
So, so in terms of other things, so I mentioned with the visa that you don't need to show that you're fluent in Portuguese in order to get this visa. But I do recommend you come to Brazil with at least a foundation in Portuguese, which you can then build on as you live here. Because because you will need to speak Portuguese in order to, you know, talk to store workers, um, Uber drivers, taxi drivers, estate agents, uh, handymen, because there are very few areas in Brazil where you can get by speaking English.
Okay, so I hope you found this video useful. So, please leave a like, subscribe. If you got any questions, leave it in the commentary below. So, thanks for watching until next time.