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Brazil to Require U.S., Australian, Canadian, and Japanese Tourists to Obtain a Visa Starting in October

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Brazil reintroduces visa requirements for tourists from US, Australia, Canada, Japan beginning on Oct. 1

Brazil is reintroducing the requirement to obtain tourist visas for citizens of the U.S., Australia, Canada, and Japan starting Oct. 1, the foreign ministry said.

Former president Jair Bolsonaro had scrapped the visa requirements in 2019 to bolster the country’s tourism industry, but the four countries continued to demand visas from Brazilians.

The decision to grant the visa exemptions had represented "a break with the pattern of Brazilian migration policy, historically based on the principles of reciprocity and equal treatment," the foreign ministry said in a statement released quietly late Monday.

"Brazil does not grant unilateral exemption from visiting visas, without reciprocity, to other countries," the ministry said, while noting that the government is ready to negotiate visa waiver agreements on a reciprocal basis.

Before the pandemic hit, Brazil received 6.4 million tourists in 2019, far below Mexico’s 45 million and less than Argentina’s 7.4 million, according to data from the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization. Data from Brazil’s tourism ministry indicates that entries of Americans, Australians, Canadians and Japanese people fell between 2019 and 2021, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro criticized the decision last week on Twitter and some Brazilian business owners who are eager to have more tourists spending money in their establishments have voiced concerns that it will further hurt Brazil's already slumping tourism industry. 

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