Brazil for Indian Citizens: There Is an e-Visa Built for Indians, and Tourists Cannot Use It

Brazil runs two electronic visa schemes, and Indian travellers sit in an odd gap between them.

The one you have heard of — the online Brazilian visa that requires no consulate visit — exists only for citizens of the United States, Canada and Australia. Those three lost visa-free access on 10 April 2025, and the e-visa was built as the softer landing. Indian passports are not eligible for it and never were.

The one almost nobody writes about was built specifically for Indian nationals. Brazil introduced a dedicated electronic business visa for Indian citizens, expressly to strengthen economic relations and business exchange between the two countries. The whole process is online: you upload everything, including a copy of every page of your passport, and submit through the e-consular platform without going near the Embassy.

The catch is in the name. It is a business visa, and the eligible activities are listed narrowly. If you are going to Rio for Carnival or to Iguaçu for a fortnight, none of this is available to you, and your application is an in-person consular one.

The fee is INR 9,600, whatever you read elsewhere

The Embassy of Brazil in New Delhi publishes its fee table, and the visitor visa for Indian applicants is INR 9,600. Temporary visas in most VITEM categories are INR 12,000. We mention this because a commercial site presenting itself as a Brazil e-visa authority states the visitor visa costs US$80, around INR 6,700 — a figure that is both wrong and lower than the real one, which is an unusual and effective way to make a service fee look like a bargain once it is added on.

It is worth understanding why the number is what it is. Brazil prices visas on reciprocity, so the same table charges Australians INR 14,400, Chinese nationals INR 13,800 and Americans INR 22,200 for the identical visitor visa. There is no single global Brazilian visa fee to benchmark against, which is precisely why a figure quoted in an American or British travel blog tells you nothing about what you will pay.

What the tourist application actually involves

The VIVIS visitor visa covers tourism, family visits, cultural, educational, sporting and recreational activities, media coverage, joining a vessel or aircraft as crew, and certain airport transits where the onward flight is on a separate ticket. Applications are lodged through the e-consular system — not by email — and you book an appointment through the same portal, paying the fee at the final step of the appointment form.

The Embassy’s checklist runs to a familiar shape with a few sharp edges:

• The online application form (RER), signed — and for minors, signed by both parents.
• Your passport and a copy: signed, valid at least six months, with at least two blank pages.
• Proof of financial capability — three months of bank statements, or an ITR, or salary slips. Yours, or a parent’s or sponsor’s.
• An ICAO-compliant photograph taken within the last six months.
• A booked itinerary showing both entry into and exit from Brazil.
• A personal cover letter about you and the intended trip.
• A hotel reservation or equivalent.
• An invitation letter from a company or event organiser, where relevant.
• For minors: a notarised Visa Authorization Form signed by both parents — and if the child is travelling alone in Brazil, a Travel Authorization Form notarised and apostilled by the MEA.

The business e-visa, and who genuinely qualifies

If your trip is actually a business trip, the online route is open and it is a meaningfully better experience — no appointment, no counter, everything uploaded. Brazil lists the qualifying activities tightly:

• Participation in meetings, fairs and business events.
• Prospecting commercial opportunities.
• Signing contracts.
• Conducting audits or consultancies.
• Acting as crew of an aircraft or vessel.
• Providing technical assistance or transferring technology under a contract, cooperation agreement or arrangement between a foreign legal entity and a Brazilian one.

Two practical warnings from the Consulate’s own pages. First, approval is not automatic and the number of electronic slots is limited — applications are scheduled electronically and examined on the scheduled date, so this is not a fast lane so much as a queue you can join from home. Second, the invitation letter from Brazil must be verifiable: either notarised in Brazil with a valid QR code, or digitally signed by the responsible party at the inviting company through Brazil’s official gov.br system. Documents the Consulate cannot verify will not be accepted, and it reserves the right to ask for more paperwork or an in-person interview anyway.

Do not be tempted to reframe a holiday as a business trip to reach the online channel. The category is defined by activity, the invitation has to come from a real Brazilian counterparty and survive verification, and a refused application costs you a non-refundable fee that you paid by bank transfer from your own account.

Yellow fever: not needed to get in, needed to get home

Brazil does not require proof of yellow fever vaccination to enter. The national health regulator is clear on this, and the Consulate repeats it: there is no mandatory vaccination requirement for entry, although the Ministry of Health recommends travellers update their vaccination status, yellow fever included.

The obligation sits on the other side of the trip. Brazil is on the Government of India’s list of yellow fever endemic countries. Travellers arriving in India from a listed country must hold a valid certificate, and those without one can be quarantined for up to six days at a designated facility, with no diplomatic exemption and no substitute medical letter. The certificate becomes valid ten days after vaccination and then lasts for life.

There is a second reason to sort it out. Several of Brazil’s neighbours — Bolivia, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay and Suriname — require proof of vaccination from travellers with recent entries into Brazil. If your South America plan involves more than one country, the certificate stops being about India and becomes about whether you can cross the next border at all. Note also that supplies inside Brazil are limited, so this is a thing to do in India, at least ten days before you fly.

The short version

• Indians cannot use Brazil’s general e-visa. That one is for US, Canadian and Australian passports.
• Brazil does have an e-visa for Indian nationals, but only for listed business activities.
• Tourists apply for a VIVIS through the e-consular portal, with an in-person appointment.
• The fee is INR 9,600, not the US$80 some sites quote. Brazil prices by reciprocity.
• Pay by bank transfer from your own account, in your own name. An agent cannot pay it for you.
• Mumbai handles Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka; New Delhi handles the rest of India.
• Hold a refundable itinerary rather than buying tickets before your scheduled date.
• Ninety days, no paid work, extendable to 180 in a year via the Federal Police.
• Get vaccinated for yellow fever ten days before you fly — you need it to come home.

Brazil is not a difficult visa so much as an old-fashioned one: a real file, a real appointment, and a payment system with no tolerance for shortcuts. The one genuinely modern thing about it was built for Indian business travellers specifically — which is a nice piece of diplomacy, and no help at all if you are going for the beach.