My experience: Obtaining Residency During Covid-19 (Feb 20'-June 21')

I'm sharing in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation and needs guidance. I'll be brief where information on a topic is straightforward of easily available.

I arrive on a 90-day tourist visa and married shortly thereafter. That process required hiring a translator to translate documents in English to Portuguese and who also acted as our marriage officiant, as well as several trips to the local public office, the Cadastro, in Portuguese. Process took 1-2 months.
The forms you'll require are listed in a checklist called: Documentos Necessarios Para Dar Entrada Em Casamento. Make sure you have the current year edition of that form. If I am correct it can be found here:
http://www.pf.gov.br/servicos-pf/imigracao  or
here https://servicos.dpf.gov.br/agenda-web/acessar
On the checklist you'll see and need to print the following electronically available forms:
Declaracao de Endereco Eletronico e Demais Meios de Contato
Declaração da Testemunha de União Estável
Certificado de Antecedentes Criminais
Cedula de Identidade de Estrangeiro declaracao Ausencia de Antecedentes Criminais
Formulario de Requisiao de Visto
Certidão De Casamento

The next step is getting fingerprinted at your local federal policia station. When you register online for a resident visa with the federal policia, you are required to choose the location nearest you. I'm American, so I printed 7 sheets of the fingerprint card from the FBI's website, got my prints done at the federal policia station, then, because there is no authorized company in Brazil to scan and mail these to the US for use in obtaining a federal background criminal report, I had to DHL them directly to the FBI in the US (https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ident … ary-checks) which as of lately, processes your request as fast as an expensive FBI-authorized third-party at a fraction of the cost (about $8). The FBI will submit your results electronically and or by post to a US address only. GET YOUR BACKGROUND REPORT APOSTILLIZED by the US State Department. Do not take the chance that your Federal Policia station will simply be satisfied with an electronic copy or the official copy without an apostille seal. Also know that the seal is so faint as to not show up well in a scan (the brightness will have to be turned down quite a bit and a high resolution is recommended, if you want an electronic copy while the official copy is in transit).

If you are instructed to make an appointment with the federal policia online on a given day during a given time, and are told that appointments are available on a "lottery basis," but their website crashes, goes offline, or fail to get an appointment visa their lottery process after numerous weekly attempts, assume that process is broken and visit the federal policia in-person to explain that your tourist visa is expiring and you've done as instructed but time is running out. They may make you an appointment for later as they did me.  Unfortunately this cost me much time and my tourist visa continued to expire.

You can typically extend your 90 day tourist visa in-country at the Federal Policia station but during Covid-19 this service was unavailable. The Federal Policia station also closed for weeks to visitors on two occasions during my station. Something to keep in mind if the state continues to wax between closures and re-openings.

In my experience, due to Covid-19, it took 80 days to obtain my apostille seal because the State Department was closed to visitors, does not have a publicly available email for access, does not answer phone calls but has a voicemail box. Waiting for this document resulting in my tourist visa expiring.

Lastly, if your tourist visa expires and you begin to overstay due to delays in your residence visa process, i.e. waiting for an apostille, etc., the daily cost of overstay significantly increased as of 2021. It's no longer something to brush off and dish out. That said, when I expressed my concern of overstay to the local Federal Policia immigration officers they explained that I need not worry and do not need to pay the overstay because I overstayed on my US passport, but once I receive my Residence Permit I'll be using this document to depart and enter Brail, rending the overstay fees null, in a way. From the day I had my temporary residence permit (a regular piece of paper) until the day I return to pickup the official version of the document, is 2 months. I was told I could travel abroad with this temporary version but I have not confirmed that.

Keep in mind, the Federal Policia at your local and those at the airport will and sometimes do, contradict each others interpretations of regulations and policy. So it is a good idea to email the airport ( estrangeiros.viracopos@pf.gov.br ) with any questions pertaining to your visa before arriving at the airport.

Hope this helps someone.

Best,
Jason