Interest on fines for overstaying?

08/25/21

Padir,

According to the Receita Federal website, the usual formula that the Federal Government uses for late payments is 0.33% per day of delay, to a maximum of 20%.  The Federal Police have some leeway here, but if you arrive prepared to pay your fine plus 20% for each year or part of a year that you're late, you should be ready for anything.

Thanks for the quick reply. So in theory I should pay around $700? That’s not too bad.

I will send my documents to a friend of mine, she’s going to go to a PF station and will give me the updates.

08/25/21

Padir wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply. So in theory I should pay around $700? That’s not too bad.

I will send my documents to a friend of mine, she’s going to go to a PF station and will give me the updates.

As I said, the PF has some leeway here.  If your friend can convince them that there really was something "accidental" about your overstay, they may be willing to waive the interest, with a Brazilian asking. 

It's worth a try.   

Thank, I will tell her. But it’s a small difference, basically the same fine as before when the Real was not as weak as today.

I’m theory she should have no problem paying the fine for me, no?

I would check to see if a third party may pay on your behalf. It has been a while since I was in the GRU PF, but they do ask questions to the party as to overstay and review your passport,

So in case you guys are interested. My fine was $400 Reais originally. Now they added $166,52 in interest. That’s over almost 3 years. My friend can pay it for me. So all good.

Thanks. This is good information

08/26/21

Padir,

Good to know; you're not the only one who'll be in this situation,  so it's good data.  Glad it worked out.  Make sure that your friend sends you an image of the receipt.   

My boyfriend was visiting me 4 years ago in SP when hurricane Irma destroyed the island of St. Maarten where he lived.  He lost everything.  We hired a lawyer and for 1.5 years tried to get him a humanitarian visa.  There was no movement with the PF or Brasilia.  Eventually he left and they told him he had to pay a $10,000 multa plus interest if he wanted to return to Brazil within 5 years.  We provided all of the paperwork about his situation, hundreds of pages documenting our legitimate attempt at a humanitarian visa.  They laughed and gave it all back.  What a waste.  We paid over $20,000 for lawyers.

09/06/21

Airlegs123* wrote:

My boyfriend was visiting me 4 years ago in SP when hurricane Irma destroyed the island of St. Maarten where he lived.  He lost everything.  We hired a lawyer and for 1.5 years tried to get him a humanitarian visa.  There was no movement with the PF or Brasilia.  Eventually he left and they told him he had to pay a $10,000 multa plus interest if he wanted to return to Brazil within 5 years.  We provided all of the paperwork about his situation, hundreds of pages documenting our legitimate attempt at a humanitarian visa.  They laughed and gave it all back.  What a waste.  We paid over $20,000 for lawyers.

A most unfortunate experience for your friend, but not an unexpected one.  In the event of a natural disaster in a Dutch (or British, or French, or American) dependency in the Caribbean, the Brazilian authorities would quite naturally look to the much richer sovereign of the person involved to come to their citizen's/resident's aid.  Your attorneys should have realized this upfront and not kept soaking you for fees for a year and a half:  shame on them.

Yes, it was unfortunate.  He couldn’t return to the island  because the airport was damaged and the airline, Copa, didn’t resume flights for a very long time.  Both the French Embassy and the PF encouraged us to apply for a humanitarian visa.  The lawyers assured us all would be finalized within a few months but this was 2017 when the immigration laws were changing in Brazil and the new laws/information was so unclear to all.  We made the best of his time here, he even worked sem carteira.  But without being legal it didn’t make sense to stay because the process, while open, was never answered.  We gave up.  That said , he’s back on Island and I am living in the US, just finishing up business in BR now.  It worked out better in the end though at great expense.  Never trust lawyers here.  That’s my take away.  Blood suckers.

Hello all, thought I’d update this thread. I entered Brazil without any problems. I proactively told the friendly migration checkpoint guy about the fine and the payment. He then went to the PF station and came back with the following information: I will always need to keep the payment slip when I enter and exit Brazil, because their system doesn’t show the payment, so I’d always be accused of having not paid. After that he quickly stamped my passport and I was on my way.

Padir wrote:

Hello all, thought I’d update this thread. I entered Brazil without any problems. I proactively told the friendly migration checkpoint guy about the fine and the payment. He then went to the PF station and came back with the following information: I will always need to keep the payment slip when I enter and exit Brazil, because their system doesn’t show the payment, so I’d always be accused of having not paid. After that he quickly stamped my passport and I was on my way.

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That's nice to hear.  I have always been treated well when entering or leaving Brazil.  Which airport did you enter?

I entered the country via Guarulhos!

Padir wrote:

I entered the country via Guarulhos!

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Thank you for your reply, that is usually where I come in and out of.

Another and last update: I left Brazil today (also via Guarulhos).

The agent scanned my passport and then said that he'll be right back so I told him about the fine. He wandered off to some back office.

Then he came back and told me he updated my info in the system now so it shouldn't show up in the future.

But there can always be system problems so it's good if I have it on me on future trips. Basically the same info I got when I entered Brazil.