hornyfrog

I moved to Rio on an investor visa. I bought an existing business (from a retiring local) and an apartment in Ipanema — each one was over the R$ 1 million threshold needed (R$ 700,000 in NE Brazil) for the investor visa — and I used the business to qualify for the investor visa. But I most definitely could’ve used the property purchase, it just needs to be structured as a business purchase (creating an LLC like structure in Brazil for yourself and that company making the property purchase that way, same way you would with a business). It’s definitely best to use a local knowledgeable lawyer in Brazil, because there are a lot of steps. If you need a referral, feel free to send me a private message. More of my expat friends here have done either the retirement visa, the investor visa, or the marriage / family visa, and converted them later to permanent residency. There are a few others here I know who are here on digital nomad visas, but those are temporary (a year, renewable for 1 more), student visas or are here on work visas with international companies (none of these are permanent and immigration status has to be adjusted to stay after expiration). I know a couple of foreigners here on arts or sports visas, but those are rare and usually require documented lauded skills. I will also add that being in your 40s may sound young to do this, and for a retirement or investor visa it surely is, but most of the digital nomads and student visa recipients here are younger than that. So, it’s not completely out of the ordinary. One of the foreigners I know here on a retirement pension visa did it right before 50, another on an investor visa is about 50, too.

Never, ever, under any circumstances, go to the residence of a GP that you do not know well.

In São Paulo (city and state), the minimum age for free public transit is only 60.

USA, Canada and Australia — the only 3 countries whose citizens are required by Brazil to obtain an e-Visa for entry for tourism, business, or transit purposes — make up only 14% of its total international tourists, and its tourism economy. Citizens of over 100 countries, including the EU, UK, most South American countries, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, and Singapore, enjoy visa-free entry to Brazil for up to 90 days. The rest do traditional visa through their Brazilian consulates or embassies in their respective countries. Meanehile, Brazil’s tourism has had 48% surge in international arrivals and a 62% increase in tourism arrivals compared to 2022. Brazil’s doing quite alright on tourism — with or without the 3 countries whose citizens are slightly inconvenienced by the e-visa process.

Even if you’ve seen a GP around for years or hired him before, don’t assume that means zero risk. The less time you spend here, the less you’ll know. I know of both tourists and residents who let their guards down and ended up robbed, threatened, drugged, or even injured in their apartments in Brazil. It’s not super-common — and it’s reported less here when it’s two men involved than when a woman garota de programa robs a male client — but it happens enough to stay alert. Filing a police report, an arrest, or even a sauna ban doesn’t always make someone vanish — the same faces can reappear later. Saunas at least provide some accountability. Outside of that, lock up your valuables and never assume that past good encounters guarantee the next one will be safe.

When a CPF number or an ID number is “sunk” (dirty) in the Brazilian banking system (overdrawn, reported or suspected fraud, sometimes even theft), any Pix with that CPF number are suspended. Any deposits into that person’s account immediately go towards paying off the debt. Brazilians who ask for this are usually in this kind of situation. It’s best not to get involved at all. But there’s always the client who wants to be seen as Santa.

You can also do this with Mercado Pago. It requires a minimum pre-loaded balance of 1000 reais.

I’m not trying to sound like a gatekeeper here, but most GPs want to get paid immediately after the service ends, unless they know you well and trust you enough that they will get paid soon enough. As a non-Brazilian resident, if you’re using Pix through Wise, Remitly or another remittance transfer service. It can take hours to even a day for the transfer to complete… and the first time you send to someone, you need to have a whole lot of info on that recipient in Brazil — full name, residential address, CPF, banking info, sometimes the address of bank — the exact Pix code the receiver uses (CPF, mobile number, or email) for the bank account to deposit it into. If you already have a Brazilian bank account, Pix is very fast and reliable. The speed is NOT reliable if you’re remitting it from an international bank. Most of these working guys do not have hours to wait for their couple of hundred reais from you — especially not from a tourist that could skip town the next day without payment (yes, that happens!). Also, there are times when certain garotos can’t access their Pix or their bank accounts are blocked, and they need to get paid in cold hard cash. It’s no guarantee who this will be, so you had better know this upfront before booking the date! Don’t assume everyone accepts Pix at all times. As a Brazilian resident with a bank account here, I use Pix, Wise and Remitly almost all the time — but when I wasn’t a resident, its reliability and speed of arrival was a lot less predictable.

Wow. Well, I’m glad to see the term still being used, because I only heard it in the UK a few decades ago — and thought it sounded much more refined and less derogatory than other nicknames more popular on the other side of the pond — like john or trick. Although here in Brazil, it’s just a simple “cliente”.

Sorry, I’m not sure if you took offense to my comment or not. But if you did, I didn’t mean to offend.

My Brazilian immigration attorney here just told me that there is no indication in available sources that a vote is scheduled in the Chamber of Deputies regarding the revocation of the visa reinstatement. All recent reports here indicate the bill has stalled after passage in the lower house, the Senate. There is resistance in the Chamber of Deputies due to the US tariffs issue, and allies of Chamber Speaker Motta have indicated in the Brazilian press that the bill is unlikely to come to a vote there soon.

My point is that they could very well know the difference — but not care. You as a US citizen think a millionaire is poor compared to a billionaire. To a working-class (or poor) Brazilian, it’s all relative. To be in the top 1% of income earners in Brazil in 2024, an individual needs only a monthly minimum income of approximately R$35,000 - R$45,000, which is around $6,480 - $8,300 USD a month. The average monthly income for a salaried individual in Brazil is around only 3,343 BRL ($620 USD) and the minimum monthly wage (of which 1/3 to 1/2 of all Brazilians receive less than) is only R$ 1,518, or $280 USD, per month. So, after a certain threshold, those pedantic numbers about millionaires and billionaires in the USA that you’re posting would not even matter to the overwhelming number of Brazilians. Still, there are enough Brazilians (some of them are garotos) who associate wealth (and class) — at the very least, lots of disposable income or credit — with anyone from certain countries like the USA. “Trailer park trash”, “house and car poor”, and “nouveau riche” are not concepts that they are vert culturally familiar with. When Calvin Klein visited 117 and Lagoa he was generous to the boys as well as to the house, but it’s not like he was paying in proportion to his net worth. Which was the point of my previous post. if Geffen were to come to Brazil for his boy toys (and who’s to say that he did not?) , he most certainly would not pay $10,000 USD (R$ 54,000 BRL) on Garoto com Local. Yes, word gets around who the clients (whether local and visiting) who are very well-off, and who the pretenders and the stingy, are.

Slightly off-topic, but possibly interesting nonetheless: I haven’t heard that term “punter” used to mean “a man who hires sex workers” outside of United Kingdom ever, and not in maybe 30 years.

I don’t think you’re understanding. The point is that to many Brazilians, there is no difference between billionaire David Geffen and an American schlub who works in a cubicle. That average-to above-average earning cubicle supervisor at a paper clip company could be a 1%(a milionário) in Brazil. Try telling a favelado in Jacaré that you as a traveling gringo staying in Zona Sul are not rich.

Be careful if your point is that clients should proportionally pay according to how much they are worth. Because in Brazil. many regular, average American, Canadian and Western European income earners would place at or near the top 1%. So, using a sliding scale, that garoto de programa who charges a Brazilian client R$ 150 should charge a US client 5 times that much!