Brazil: ordinary naturalisation

Four years of indefinite residence

The ordinary period is four years, counted from acquiring indefinite residence to application. The period must already be complete when applying. Recognised CONARE refugees have a specific clock from the refugee-status application; that exception does not cover unrecognised or pending asylum applicants.

Actual residence, absences and reduced cohorts

Residence must be evidenced throughout, with at least one document per year. Sporadic foreign trips may total at most one year over the ordinary four-year period. Published reductions include one year for qualifying Brazilian-child, spouse/partner and Portuguese-country-origin cases, and two years for recognised statelessness or assessed service/ability cohorts; shorter periods have proportionately smaller absence allowances.

Portuguese communication and accepted evidence

Portuguese communication ability is required, considering the applicant's circumstances. Celpe-Bras is one accepted proof, not the sole route: specified education, examinations and approved courses also qualify. Portuguese-country-origin applicants need not submit language-ability proof. The cited rules do not assign a CEFR level; course attendance alone is insufficient.

Civil capacity, criminal record and legal effect

Applicants need civil capacity under Brazilian law and no criminal conviction, or legal rehabilitation. Naturalisation takes legal effect after publication of the naturalisation act in the official gazette; meeting a residence period does not itself confer citizenship.

No loss merely for another nationality

Since Constitutional Amendment 131, acquiring another nationality alone no longer causes loss of Brazilian nationality. Loss can follow an express request that does not create statelessness, or judicial cancellation of naturalisation for process-related fraud or an attack on the constitutional order and democratic state. Other countries' retention rules remain separate.

Effective from 2023-10-04