Stable Union vs Marriage

In Brazil there is something called "stable union" (união estável), which is best described as a "de facto marriage".

It differs from most European "civil partnerships", in the sense that you do not even need to declare it to some official authority or even sign some contract. You are deemed to be in a stable union, if you live together with your girlfriend or boyfriend, with a longterm perspective with the aim of founding a family - whatever that means in practice...

Recognition of a stable union is either through a judge or through a certificate emitted by a cartório, according to this "instrução normativa" of the CNJ (Conselho Nacional de Justiça).   It tells you essentially the documents you need to bring along to obtain this certificate.

This document seems to be first list of nationwide "objective" criteria of what documents are necessary to prove a stable union!   Before the notion of a stable union was even vaguer...

A notarized "stable union contract" is for example is helpful, BUT NOT ENOUGH to prove the existence of the stable union.   A few people I have to talked seemed to think that such a contract is enough.    It is not!

Being  in a stable union or in a marriage both give you the right to apply for a Brazilian residence/work visa based on family reunion.

But, in practice, if you have a Brazilian partner and you would like to live with her/him in Brazil, it is absolutely NOT advisable to apply for a residency/work visa based on a stable union.

This is the opinion shared by Danielle in her blog, where I first read first-hand how long and excruciating this way to obtain a visa can be.

Until this year the regulations for obtaining a visa based on stable union and marriage were completely different:
for example, the applications based on stable union were decided by the CONIg (Conselho Nacional de Imigração), who meets only once a month and the process for a marriage based visa was decided by the MRE (Ministério das Relações Exteriores), where the process seems to be much more streamlined.

(This seems though to have changed with the Resolução Normativa RN 108/2014 of February this year: Now it seems that the process is the same in both cases, and is taken care of by the MRE.)

Still the the vague juridical nature of the stable union seems to make the visa simply twice as complicated and possibly exponentially longer.   After all the Brazilian authorities, on top of having to decide whether to give you a visa, have to decide if they agree with you whether you are actually in a stable union or not!

So if you have a Brazilian partner and plan to apply for a visa to live with them in Brazil you should definitely consider this!

Marriage and permanent visa

One of things that went very quickly for me, was the permanent residence and the work permit (carteira de trabalho):   The first I obtained within 3 days of arriving in Brazil and the latter I obtained within 7 days.

Background story:   I was working in Europe, went to Brazil in my holidays and married my wife there.   After the holidays we went back to live in Europe.   I then applied in Europe for my Brazilian permanent residence visa (based on my marriage with a Brazilian citizen).

This visa was issued after one month.   With this visa I arrived in Brazil, and on the third day I simply went together with my wife to the Polícia Federal in my city to register.    I was immediately issued a SINCRE protocol with my new condition as permanent resident.   With this protocol I went to the Mnistério do Trabalho e Emprego (MTE) on the same day and applied for my work permit (carteira de trabalho) which was ready for me to collect already in the next week.

The only thing that really seems to take some time is the issuing of the Carteira de Identidade de Estrangeiro (CIE), but this is mostly only a formality and the protocol is a sufficient document for most purposes.

When I married my wife and when we decided to move to Brazil, I found on the internet a lot of discouraging stories (almost "horror" stories) of people waiting for months or for years for their permanent residence.

One advice I found, is the one to apply for your permanent residence visa FROM ABROAD, where you currently living and not to arrive in Brazil (on a tourist visa for example) and then ask for permanent residence.   Asking for permanent residence in Brazil takes just takes awfully longer and there is list is long list of documents you have to chase in from various Brazilian authorities to be able to apply for it.   Also, when you arrive already with your visa from abroad, there seems to be no home visit by the Polícia Federal:   you are simply registered.

I am not sure why this is so, but one explanation might be that Brazil (as any other country in the world probably) prefers to give permanent residency to people whose social and economic condition they understand:   when I applied for my visa from Europe I was asked for paychecks, work contract and other documents.

When a foreigner applies from within Brazil, often she/he is not working yet and it is much more difficult for Brazilian authorities to judge whether this person has the capability to provide financially for himself (or for his family) or if they are just somebody who did not manage to sort their life out in their home country...

Brazil might also want to discourage people coming to Brazil on a tourist visa and then marrying just to continue to be able to remain in Brazil.

In any case, the bottom line is, if you want to avoid hassle, apply for your permanent residency visa (based on "reunião familiar") from your home country.