IMPORTANT CHANGES IN REGULATIONS CONCERNING TO INVESTOR'S VISAS IN BRAZIL.

I – INTRODUCTION
Along the years, foreigners from all over the world have settled in Brazil their permanent residence by means of an investor visa.
The investment visa was regulated by Nomative Ruling 60 of the National Council of Immigration, granting the permanent visa to individual foreign investors that had invested at least US$ 50,000 in Brazil company as a shareholder. Also, the Brazilian Government made an exception, allowing people who had invested less than US$ 50,000 but retained the minimum of ten Brazilian employees in their company to be eligible for a visa.
However, in 2009 the Brazilian authority has severely changed the rules by the Normative Ruling 84 of the National Council of Immigration, including new requirements and procedures for the issuance and renewal of the investor's visa.

II – REQUIREMENTS FOR INVESTMENT VISA

II.1.Eligibility
Since February 13th, 2009 as per the issuance of Normative Ruling 84, the investor's visa may only be issued in two cases:

(i)foreign investors who have invested at least 150.000,00 reais (one hundred and fifty thousand reais) in a Brazilian productive company; or
(ii)individuals who have invested less than 150.000,00 reais, upon the presentation of an investment plan that creates job opportunities in Brazil.

II.2 Requirements
The main alteration on the regulations is that rather than the objective criteria previously existing, now the authorities shall take in consideration the social interest of the investment on the following aspects: (i) creation of job opportunities; (ii) increase of productivity; (iii) transference of technology; (iv) cooptation of resources to special economic sectors.
Moreover, in what concerns to the visa applications for those that invest less than 150.000,00 reais, in addition to the points highlighted above the following requirements are now ruling: (i) presentation of a businessprogram containing an annual plan for generation of jobs to Brazilians; (ii) amount of the investment; and(iii) area of the country in which the resources shall be applied.

III – VALIDITY OF VISA
Since February 2009, the validity of investment visa's changed from five years to three years. The renewal of the visa requires that all investment conditions remains and (if applicable) the business program is being fulfilled by the Brazilian company.

IV – CONCLUSION
In view of the above, the main alteration is that instead of the compliance with objective criteria for the eligibility for a investor's visa, the new regulations have included the analysis of subjective criteria under discretion of the authorities.
Considering that the new regulation has just been issued, it is yet early to know how the subjective criteria shall be applied by the authorities, so that a specialzed assistance of an experienced Brazilian attorney with is recommendable.
Costa Barros Advogados Assocciado is a law firm with great experince with foreign investment in different scales and business areas. Our team of attorneys specialized in this area of law will be glad to support our current and new clients to handle the new regulation on the investor's visa.