The Policia Federal

whew, I got my extension of my tourist entry card so I can stay my full 5 months intead of just 3 months. In the interest of helping out anyone else who has to do this, here's the info. (anyone not needing to do this can skip this post)

On a typical tourist visa you are allowed up to 180 days per year in Brasil. The "year" is not the calendar year; it's a year that starts on the date of your first arrival in Brazil. Your 180 days can be all consecutive, or a series of separate visits, as long as the total of days in Brasil is not more than 180. When counting your days, include both the day you arrived, and the day you leave.

However, you are usually given just 90 days when you first arrive. Later, while in Brasil, you can ask to have it extended for another 90 days. This involves going to the policia federal and filing a formal request for an extension of stay. It's pretty routine, but here's the nuts & bolts just in case.

When you first arrive in Brasil, you fill out a white piece of paper, and show it to a bored-looking man who will scrawl something on it and hand it back to you. This is your tourist entry card. Do NOT lose it. Check what he scrawled at the bottom for the number of days you can stay. Usually he'll have written 90, but this is not guaranteed. He can use his own discretion. If you are a young guy - a typical untrustworthy young ruffian - he might give you just 45, or 30. Make sure you check, so that you don't accidentally overstay your alloted number of days.

Near the end of your allotted days, book a morning to go to the Policia Federal to ask for the extension. (Lines are much shorter in the morning.) I never could find out when exactly you are supposed to ask for the extension. One tourist website said to do it at least two weeks before your days run out.


1. Bring:
- your passport
- your white tourist entry card
- a credit card, or other proof that you have sufficient funds for your stay in Brazil
- proof of a return flight out of Brazil (a printout of an e-ticket is fine). If you will be leaving Brazil by bus, bring a tidily typed sheet of your whole planned itinerary in South America, and a printout of whatever ticket you have out of South America. Basically they are looking for assurance that you will not be staying in Brazil forever.
- the name, address & phone number of a Brazilian friend for a personal reference
- enough cash for the R$67 fee, and also for a visit to an internet shop to print out a form.
- if you want, you can print out and bring the "GRU" form (to take to the bank with your R$67 fee) before you actually go to the policia federal. But it has to be printed on the same date that you go to the policia. See below.

2. Go to the Policia Federal.
In Rio, they are at Avenida Venezuela 4, in Centro, right next to the Praca Maua. Make sure you are on the Avenida Venezuela side of the building - there is a different entrance on the other side for other things. Go in and say "Turista?" to the woman at the main desk. She will send you to area #2, over to the right. The people sitting in the chairs have usually sorted themselves into a little line, so, take the last chair. One by one they will go in the door for a little interview.

3. Get interviewed.
When your turn comes, go in and talk to the agent. I dealt with two agents, both of whom inspected my passport extremely closely. Expect extra attention if you have had other types of visas in the past, or if you have a series of confusing stamps in the passport. They're always fascinated by the 30-day work visa that I had once, two years ago, for a biology research trip to the Pantanal, and then fascinated again by the jumbled sequence of entry and exit stamps for 4 trips to Brazil that I have made since then.
Even I can't understand my passport stamps any more, so I wrote out a tidy little list of the dates I entered and left, with the total of days for each visit. I keep that little list with my passport and show it to every passport officer that I meet in Brazil. It always seems to smooth things over.

The agent that I talked to gave me a brisk, efficient little interview:
1. Why are you here in Brazil? What are you doing here?
- Playing music.
2. (rapid fire, looking at me closely) What instruments do you play?
- Caixa and surdo. And pandeiro.
3. (rapid fire again) What groups do you play with?
- Bangalafumenga, Monobloco, Mocidade, and Sao Clemente!

I couldn't help smiling as I was listing my four groups, and he immediately relaxed and said brightly "Did you know that the escola of Unidos de Tijuca has rehearsals right here, every week? Right outside, right here on this street, the Avenida Venezuela. Every Thursday night. You should come see it!" Once again - get talking samba with any Brazilian, and doors start opening!

Generally - be nice. Don't get mad at the guy if you have accidentally overstayed your visa - it's not his fault.

Once you've cleared the little interview, he'll give you a form to fill out. This is the Policia Federal form and will go in their files. Then he will send you outside on a internet-and-bank quest.

4. Find an internet place & print a second form to take to the bank.
In Brazil, almost all bills are paid by taking them to any bank. You don't have to have an account at that bank - you just need the money, and a form that tells the bank who you are and where to send the money. This form is a "GRU" form, and, in this case, you need to print it out from the Policia Federal website. (This system has arisen because it's not safe for businesses to do large volumes of cash transactions themselves, and it's not reliable to send anything through the mail. )
You can print this form out before you even go to the Policia Federal, but it has to be printed the same day as your policia trip (or more precisely, the same day that you go to the bank, which you will normally do after the interview).
There is a guy outside the policia station who will be happy to print your form for 5 reais. Or, if you walk a little farther to the Avenida Rio Branco, you can find other places that will do it for 1 real. You can also return home, print it at your leisure and return to the Policia Federal another day.

The form is at the website http://www.dpf.gov.br/
Click on "GRU - Funapol - emissao de guia para pessoas & entidades estrangeiras". Be sure you click the "estrangeiras" one and not the "brasileiras" one.
You'll have to fill out the form online. Fill in name, address, etc.
"Bairro" is "neighborhood". Go ahead and enter something here, even if it's not really part of your address.
For "Unidade Arrecadadora", pick the location of the police station. If you are at the Avenida Venezuela station, it wll be the first "RJ" option, the "Superintendencia Regional" one.
For "Codigo da Receita", enter 140090, which is the code for "Pedido de Prorrogacao de Prazo de Estada", which means, "Request for Extension of Period of Stay". Confirm this number by checking the back of the Policia Federal form or by clicking the little magnifying glass for a list of all the codes.
Fill in the number of reais to be paid. The policia guy will have told you this; it's also on the website in that list of codes (click on that magnifying glass again). Right now (January 2007) it is 67 reais.
The website will create an official-looking form with your name & a barcode. Print this out.


5. Pay the R$67 fee to the bank.
Take the form you just printed out, and R$67, to any of the many nearby banks. There are about 20 banks within a couple blocks of the Policia Federal. Go through the metal-detector revolving door (hint: put your cell phone & keys in the little plexiglass box in the wall first), look for the "Caixa" (cashier) area, get your number, sit & wait....

The bank will give you a receipt.


6. Return to the Policia Federal
...with the bank receipt, your filled-out Policia Federal form, and all your other stuff. You might be re-interviewed. This is also usually when they want to see your credit card and airplane ticket. If all goes well, they'll paste a little white ticket into your passport with a new date, the date by which you have to leave Brasil.


*** If you've accidentally overstayed your visa,
Don't bother trying to bribe the guy; it doesn't work. Bite the bullet and pack your things for a little trip out of Brazil. Brazil is actually fairly lenient about this - much nicer than the US is to Brazilians! Brazilians visiting the US who overstay their visits are prohibited from re-entry for 10 years! But Americans in Brazil who over-stay just have to leave for 1 day and pay a little fine for each day overstayed, and are allowed to come right back in again. I don't know exactly what the fine is but it is something like 2 or 3 reais per day over-stayed, so, even if you've overstayed for months it's only a few hundred reais.

The cheapest option is the bus to Foz da Iguacu, which is the enormous waterfall on Brazil's southern border. It is spectacularly gorgeous, definitely worth a visit in any case, so just enjoy it! It's a long, long bus ride - all day. If you have the money, take an airplane instead. There are zillion hostels on both sides of the border. And by the way - it's worth staying there 2 days to see both sides of the falls. And take the little boat ride too; it's great. Two other excellent options, a bit more expensive, are a visit to the beaches of Uruguay, or a trip to the great city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where you will have the best and cheapest steaks you have ever eaten.

When leaving Brazil, if you are planning to re-enter, always bring proof of your final flight back to your home country, because without proof that you are not going to stay in Brazil forever, the Brazilian border guys may not let you back in. I nearly got stranded in Buenos Aires because of this. They only relented because I looked so pathetic and because it was Christmas Eve.

In theory, you only have to dash across the border for a second and then you can come right back in. But it's safest to spend a day on the other side so that your exit and entry stamps are clearly on two different dates. Also, if you are taking a bus across the border, make sure the guy actually stops so that you get the exit stamp - the Foz da Iguacu border is very lax because people are constantly criss-crossing just for an hour or two just to visit the other side of the waterfall. (so, it's also the best place to sneak into Brazil without a visa at all!) So sometimes the buses don't even bother to stop. Make sure you get an exit stamp, but if you're lucky, they won't bother to look at your tourist entry card and won't charge you the fine! Likewise, be sure you get an entry stamp & new entry card when you re-enter Brazil.

Once you're finally back on the Brazilian side, clean and legal with a new entry card and a new 90 days, don't do what a friend of mine did and accidentally get on the bus to Paraguay instead of to Rio!