Marrying in Brazil

In most states in Brazil the cartório (registry) will not accept your application for permission to marry (habilitação de casamento) unless your visa status is regular. If your visa is now expired, how long has your overstay been? If your visa has not expired have you just had a 3 month visit or has it been 6 months? These are crucial questions in order to give you the correct information as to your options.

If your visa HASN'T yet expired, and provided that you have all the necessary documents for marriage ready, then my advice would be to go to the cartório before it does expire and inquire about scheduling a Marriage by Proxy (Casamento por Procuração). This permits a marriage to take place when one or both of the parties is unable to attend in person for any reason. You would submit all the paperwork as normal, the date would be set and you'd name a PROXY (procuador) who will stand in for you at the cerimony and is legally authorized to sign all the necessary documents for the marriage to be legal.

If you do not have all the necessary documentation ready and you've exhausted your 180 days then you would need to leave the country, and as you guessed, would either need to wait for the required period to return for at least a 3 month stay, but preferably 6 months. Using that time to gather the documents you'll need for both the marriage and the VIPER Permanent Visa process that will follow. You could apply for a VITEM-IV Student Visa which would allow you to return at any time since a different category visa is not effected by the 180 day/year VITUR limit. This would shorten the wait time to return significantly so it is a viable option.

If you do decide to check further into the Marriage by Proxy idea at the cartório then send me a private message here on the blog first. I have some additional information that I would really not rather give you on the open forum.

If you aren't sure as to the documents needed for marriage and applying for permanency then see the following topic thread:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=280525

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil & Canada Expert, Expat-blog Team

my visa is also expired but after expiring visa i tried and now i have protocol id and CPF and after one year i will have RNE

Thanks again for your help.

My visa expired over six months ago, so a quick fire marriage seems out of the question.

One more thing to check - is a union estavel possible given my 'status' or do the same rules/principles apply to that of a marriage?