Dear Bob,
the surest safest and fastest way to obtain your permanent residence is through an investment program visa but some may argue that it would be better for you to obtain a retirement visa.
The forth would require an investment of U$D70,000 (not U$D50K like most unprofessionals are posting all over the net) and to open up a Brazilian registered company with min. 6-10 employees. However, I have seen certain types of companies have no employees. This would be a very long subject and I will only discuss it by messenger or skype.
Our skype user name is : brazilrealestate
The latter would require you to prove a U$D3,000 monthly income to qualify and be of 55yrs of age. However, again I have seen persons of under 47 retire in Brazil and obtain their permanent residency card.
Both situation will give you a min of 5 yrs and a right to renew for 5 more yrs afterwhich you have a right to become a citizen, if you should decide it is important to you.
These new requirements came into effect in the first quarter of 2009. They were altered due to steady U$Dollar currency devaluation.
There are about 12 different types of permanent residency visas available.
Each one is different for different type of person and sitaution.
Some of the Federal regulations can be stretched in special sitautions depending on what kind of connections you obtain in this country.
It is very important to know the right persons here since this country, under the democracy that it says, is still super social in some aspects.
With the correct party you can obtain a permanent visa in 4 months or les and with the incorrect one it can take up to 1-4yrs. The fees fluctuate very much and we have noticed that the larger attorney firms or companies tend to take longer in obtaining results than the "little guys".
Also, their customer service response seems to be questionable.
We can refer you to very dependable services if necessary but first ask yourself if this is really what you want to do?
Ask around, do some research, visit the country (few different regions) etc....
Martin Gajewski Jr.
Offshore Investment Consultant &
International Property Broker
Author & Founder of:
http://groups.google.com/group/investinbrazil