If you’re seeking to relocate abroad and Brazil is on your mind, you might like to learn a little about the investment opportunities available to you. While we know that Brazil has suffered a recent recession and impeachment of its president, the economy itself is on the rise. Thanks to rising commodity prices and the policies of the new president, Brazil is becoming a better option for investment.
Brazilian Foreign Investor Visa Program
Apply for permanent residency through an investment visa by investing a minimum of 500,000 BRL, which translates roughly to $160,000 USD. This investment must be made to an approved Brazilian business, a real estate purchase, or Brazilian government bonds.
You can make an investment with a lower minimum amount of only 150,000 BRL, which translates to just under $50,000 USD if you invest in an approved Brazilian-based tech company or another type of business that would employ at least 10 Brazilians.
Through the investor’s visa, your family is included in the application at no additional cost. Upon approval for this visa, you would receive a Yellow Card to indicate permanent residency status. The Yellow Card allows the investor to be treated as a Brazilian citizen, with no minimum required period of residency. With this Yellow Card, you can also travel throughout South America without need of a passport, and then you can apply for a full Brazilian citizenship after four years of residency status.
Citizenship Through Investment
When applying for citizenship after receiving the Yellow Card, you must meet certain requirements. These include having lived in Brazil for four years, the ability to read and write in Portuguese, and the ability to provide for oneself and family (when applicable).
Natural Resources
Brazil is known for having massive amounts of natural resources that come in the form of gold, uranium, iron, and timber. Most of the country’s agribusiness falls into categories of cattle farming, soybean exports, and the manufacturing of short-fiber timber cellulose. Raw cane and refined sugar are also major exports globally, and Brazil is one of the world’s top producers of chicken and beef.
Brazil has the third largest manufacturing sector in the Americas; it accounts for 28.5 percent of the country’s GDP. Twenty of its large companies have been ranked in the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world’s top 2000 companies in the world. Companies Itau Unibanco, Banco Bardesco, and Banco do Brasil have been listed as the top three, all banking companies.
Brazilian Real Estate Market
Prices are still low in Brazil’s housing market after the last recession, but there is a positive economic outlook now that suggests it’s on the road to recovery. The improvement is showing mostly in the Sao Paulo region of Brazil and real estate activity is up as of 2017. The number of new homes launched in 2017 rose by nine percent, and home units sold increased by 3.4 percent. Housing sales in the greater Sao Paulo area are expected to rise by five percent, despite the country’s high unemployment rate. One of Brazil’s largest developers, Cyrela Brazil Realty SA, reported that the number of units launched in Q2 of 2017 rose over 13 percent from 2016, while sales went up by 35.4 percent. As Brazil exits its recession, there is a positive outlook for the 2018 real estate market, so it might be worth keeping an eye on.
Political Landscape
Before investing in a foreign country, it’s always good to have a realistic outlook on the current political situation. Brazil has seen turmoil in recent years, with the 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the finishing of the term by her vice president, Michel Temer. Protests against this administration began in 2013 and continued until after the impeachment, after proposed strategies to increase the economy’s activities and improve Brazil’s transportation, healthcare, and education policies failed to make the positive difference that the public had been expecting. Temer’s term will finish on January 1, 2019. While he is less popular among the people than his predecessors, the Brazilian people are expecting to see a recovery in their economy soon. The majority of the voting public have been found to express that they believe the country’s economic situation will improve over the next 12 months. Roughly one third of them believe this will be a major improvement. Half of Brazilians who completed college believe the economy will improve, as opposed to 71 percent of those without university degrees who believe it will improve. At least they can all agree on one thing – the economy is on the path to recovery. It will simply take some time and a close eye on the market.
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