Lula resumes visa requirement for US and three countries – 03/08/2023 – Panel

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) decided to resume the visa requirement for tourists from the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan to enter Brazil.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is already communicating the representations of these countries that their citizens will be charged the same rules determined for Brazilians.

As the Panel anticipated, the government had already been studying the impact of the measure on tourism, with the possibility of resuming the principle of reciprocity, historically adopted by Itamaraty.

The folder compared the year 2019, in which the visa requirement was withdrawn, with the previous year and with 2022, when restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic had already been eliminated.

In the case of the United States, the increase in the number of tourists from 2018 to 2019 was 12%, from 391 thousand to 439 thousand. In 2022, 355,000 Americans came, below the pre-pandemic level.

In Japan, there was a decrease of 4% between 2018 and 2019, from 59 thousand to 56 thousand. In 2022, there were 16,800 tourists.

Former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) announced the revocation of the visa requirement in March 2019, on the eve of his trip to the United States to meet the then President, Donald Trump.

The visa waiver applied to those traveling to Brazil for tourism, business, transit and artistic and sports activities. It also extended to persons “in exceptional circumstances in the national interest”.

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