Moving to Brazil .. working advice.

04/11/23 @sshearing.  Welcome!  My suggestion would be to have all the documents that you'd need to get married updated and apostilled before you leave the UK and bring them with you.  Make up your minds around the end of your first 90 days whether or not you two want to tie the knot.  If you do, you'll have everything with you that you need, and enough time during your extension to get it done.  If you don't, no harm no foul.  Getting married in Brazil can take 30 - 60 days, so it's not viable as a last minute decision.

If you don't qualify for a Digital Nomad visa, it will be pretty much impossible for you to come to Brazil on anything but a tourist visa, and you can't get a legal job with that.

@abthree thanks so much for that advice that’s really useful! I will make sure that I get all those documents ready for before I go

@sshearing Whatever abthree says make that your first task.

I left Brazil to get a FBI Background check in Miami (has to be done in the USA) and had an impossible time getting back into Brazil. Study Expat.Com posts, there are several things you should do before you come here, that would be difficult to do once your in Brazil. One suggestion is to come here financially set. Either you have the money or the job. Finding it while your here is a big problem. Brazil is almost 100% Portuguese language and if you did not have the work or had to find it when you get here it would be a big problem between the bureaucracy and the language.

My profession was radio advertising, but after I retired I did many remote jobs. Here are a few you might look into (Remember with the exchange rate you don't have to make a lot in dollars or euros to live comfortably in Brazil.)

• On-Line English Instructor (i worked for Cambly and taught students in China, Turkey, Brazil etc.) to speak English. I was paid every week on PayPal.
• IT instructor. One of my Cambly students taught IT on-line from Sao Paulo.
• Many years ago doing the census, one of my calls was to a lady who made big money doing Social Media Marketing on-line from her home.
• When I worked for WASH-FM in Washington, D.C. one of the people I worked with was Delilah, who did a national night-time radio show from her farm.

"There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you truly love; there's only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen".

Roddie in Retirement

Hey sshearing, I highly recommend you do as abthree says regarding getting all of your documents before you arrive. I had nothing but issues when arriving and having to wait for officialised documents arriving in time before my tourist visa expired. This resulted in my being denied entry to the country to finalise my marriage here.

Regarding the job side of things. I would say your only real option is to have a job lined up that allows you to do remote work. You won't be able to get a job locally without a workers permit which you won't get without the permanent residency, which in turn you won't get without the stable union/marriage. Even then, with little to no Portuguese, you'll likely not find any jobs here that you'd be suitable for and on the off chance you did find one, prepare yourself for the market rates for said work. It's very little when comparing to the UK (I think that's a given, but just in case).

I think its quite a difficult thing to move here without that type of job lined up already where you'll not have to worry about trying to find work once in Brazil but I do wish you the best of luck with it. If you had any questions, I am happy to try and answer from a UK person who has already done what you are planning.

04/11/23 @abthree thanks so much for that advice that’s really useful! I will make sure that I get all those documents ready for before I go
-@sshearing

You're very welcome.  Good advice from English Penguin and roddiesho, and I want to highlight one suggestion that roddiesho made in particular.  You don't have to know a lot about computers to qualify for a Digital Nomad visa; if you teach English online, or teach anything else you know online, as long as your students aren't in Brazil and you're being paid abroad, you can qualify. 

Something to consider.  Good luck!

@roddiesho you are sounding like an old pro Rod!

@KenAquarius I am learning from the best. Thanx!

Hello sshearing,

Roddieshow pointed out Cambly as a remote English teaching gig.  I've done some research on them and found they pay about $10/hr USD while you're working.  As I understand, they pay by the minute, so if someone comes on a chat session with you then leaves before an hour is up, you'll be paid for time worked by minute.  Its quite flexible as you can work anytime and set your schedule. They also pay weekly via Paypal.  They don't require a college degree or teaching certificate, so it's quite accessible for native English speakers.

If teaching English remotely is not your preference, you may want to search "work from anywhere jobs" and find corresponding job posting sites. Here is one example where I have already filtered to marketing jobs:

https://www.flexjobs.com/remote-jobs/world/Anywhere?search=&location=&categories_unpacked=true&category%5B%5D=49&location_page=true&nous=1

I had a friend who worked for a web hosting company based in Canada, in a marketing role.  The company offered "work from anywhere jobs".  He lived in Texas, and told me a story of how they hired someone from Argentina, also for a marketing role. They paid $40k USD, and that person just worked from home, in Argentina.  Remote work jobs are definitely out there...

On the topic of the Digital Nomad visa, Abthree gave a great response in a very recent post you may want to check out here:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1025553

Finally, I'll echo everyone's comments about getting your paperwork in order prior to leaving in the event you do get married. You don't want to have to leave then try to come back, especially if you're out of time on a tourist visa.

@BRBC All very true.  I just want to add that with Cambly, the largest customer base is from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Brazil. The added benefit is that if you need more insight after you read Expat.com, Cambly will set you up with live conversations with real Brazilians. (i included my Brazilian background in the profile section and my video to filter a heavy dose of Brazilian students).

Roddie in Retirement

@roddiesho thank you so much! I had thought about teaching English and it’s good to have a recommendation! I

@English Penguin thanks so much! It would be great to chat! I am so confused about everything!

@sshearing !

” I am so confused about everything!”

Welcome to Brazil!! 😄😄😄

@English Penguin thanks so much! It would be great to chat! I am so confused about everything!
-@sshearing

And you have not yet dealt with DETRAN or taxes! Just wait, it will not get better

Also, "a lady of leisure on a tourist visa for six months" might look into Portuguese language classes. Better than being sent around the bend anyway!

In what part of the country will you be living?

@rraypo ooo don’t .. I know! I’ve got it all to come! One step at a time 😂

@Viajanete  yeah allready on my 105 day streak of Duolingo 😂 I will be starting off in Belo Horizonte, then will move where my partner is stationed after that.

Assuming that you can legally work there, you're gonna face a lot of challenges and adversity. As someone who has worked there for 8 years, I'm going to lay down the real stuff for you. Apologies to my BR readers in advance.

First, the economy is in the toilet, with very high unemployment. Given how nepotistic Brazilian companies are, getting a job is hard and the salary is pretty low. It is both low in comparison to the cost of living in the major cities and in comparison to your home country, so if you have student loans or something expect to be forking over a hefty slice of your paycheck to keep up.

Secondly, if you do have permission to legally work in Brazil, many companies either won't know how to deal with hiring foreigners or assume your documents are falsified.

Thirdly, Brazilians don't really like hiring gringoes. Brazil has a national inferiority complex, the complexo de vira-lata, which means that Brazilians revere but often feel threatened by foreigners. Even if one person hires you, you will probably have a coworker who go out of their way to make life difficult for you, up to and including sabotaging your work or destroying your reputation to get you fired. You won't get a lot of support from your coworkers when this happens, because many people will think you deserve it because you're a foreigner. There's also a marked difference between the respect they give to foreigners who visit and foreigners who live in the country.

Fourthly, Brazilian office culture is both inefficient and zero-sum. A boss with a team of 50 people who goof off is better than a boss with 10 people who do everything. Goals can change by the month, so yesterday's mission-critical project becomes today's cash sink, and of course those people may get fired. There's not much in the way of cooperation - Brazilians tend to think that someone else winning means they lose. The only way to guarantee stability is to be part of the small boys club that runs everything. They are easy to recognize, as they're usually a group of white, upper-middle-class men who get away with saying any number of racist, homophobic, sexist things to other people in the office, especially women and Afro-Brazilians. Yeah, casual racism is another thing - every time an office wants to lay people off, it's always the women and Afro-Brazilians who are first to go.

Finally, if you are qualified, the market just isn't that sophisticated. There just isn't much of a demand for high-level skills, as most companies have so many problems getting even basic things done. As such, qualifications which may make you competitive in North America and Europe become a hinderance in Brazil. Brazilian offices tend to prefer well-connected paraprofessionals. In Brazilian culture, people don't really consider someone who worked hard and did what they were told successful. They have much more respect for people who cut corners and cheat, and they are going to prefer less competent people who they can blame whenever anything goes wrong.

I hate to be this real with you, but I spent years banging my head against the wall with the Brazilian job market, and these things did not change even though my Portuguese got better and I became more comfortable with the culture. They only changed when I started outsourcing for US companies and eventually went back.  Brazil, or at least its ruling elites, have a vested interest in keeping the status quo, and one gringo isn't going to change this.  I am in a way glad I had this experience, though, since it made me much more appreciative of the US and helped me handle adversity much better.

@sshearing you might look at Upwork and Fiverr for temporary online work in English. Good luck.