Until mid-2015, it had never occurred to Patrícia Martins to leave Brazil. Divorced and with two teenage children, she led a stable life in São Paulo, where she worked for one of the largest technology companies in the country. Then came the serious political and economic crisis that would culminate, at that moment, in the impeachment of then-president Dilma Rousseff.
“I realized that everything was going downhill. That was when I started to become interested in the possibility of migrating abroad after I retired”, he says.
As soon as desire became a concrete plan, Portugal also became a coherent alternative: it fit in its income, it did not require the command of another language and, above all, it was known for being a safe place.
A year later, already retired, she was on the plane with a one-way ticket to Lisbon. “Those who saw me in São Paulo, riding in a luxury car, don’t recognize me when they arrive here. It’s a much more dignified life,” he explains. “I’m not coming back to Brazil.”
It is a starting point similar to that of Telma Facina, 71, from Rio. Retired from the former Electricity Company of the State of Rio de Janeiro (CERJ) since the late 1990s, she did not think about living outside Brazil until 2016, when she had to rush to Europe because of a case of illness in her family.
As Portugal was the only one that offered a special visa for retirees, the country was, at the time, more of a solution than a project — a relationship that changed over the years.
“I had gone to a meeting with the Portuguese consul in Rio de Janeiro and he had done a wonderful advertisement about living retirement here,” she says from her home in Almada, across the River Tagus, Lisbon’s postcard . “When I needed it, I saw that it was, in fact, the easiest visa”, he adds.
After the difficult family moment, she found a way to bring the family together again: she took her daughter and grandson to live with her on Portuguese soil. About to receive citizenship of the country, she does not want to return.
Facina and Martins express a recent migratory phenomenon in Portugal. Once a destination for Brazilian students and young professionals attracted by a European experience and a better quality of life, the country now lives with a wave of people who definitely leave Brazil to enjoy their retirement years in Portuguese territory — or who arrive there with just a few years to retire.
“It is a phenomenon with a different profile: they are older people, generally with good income, and who do not always have plans to return”, explains researcher Nilcelene Biasutti, who has just defended a master’s thesis on the subject at the University of Lisbon.
Data from the Portuguese Government’s Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) illustrate this situation well: until 2014, the proportion of people who disembarked in Portugal requesting a D7 visa — mainly intended for retirees — was around 2% among all Brazilian arrivals. Four years later, this rate was already 10.9%.
The Covid-19 pandemic, which caused intercontinental flights to be restricted for months, dampened that demand until early 2021, when it came back with a vengeance.
“Today, the majority profile of our clients is once again those who want to spend their retirement here”, says the lawyer André Pacheco, who works from one of the Portuguese branches of the law firm Hofstaetter Tramujas and Castelo Branco, a specialist in migration processes.
He says that there are still cases of Brazilians who, contrary to the common profile, need to supplement their income to have their residence accepted.
According to local rules, those who apply for the D7 visa must move around R$ 52,000 — the equivalent of one year of the minimum wage in Portugal (665 euros) — in a bank account in the country, an amount that rises to R$ 78,000 if the change is made with a spouse. If the children are also on the application, each of them represents a 30% increase in the requirement.
During his research, Biasutti also came across other situations, such as undocumented people who returned to Brazil to retire and then applied for a Portuguese visa; or of those who lost income and needed to return to work already in Portugal to supplement it.
“This happened to a lot of people who rented a property and migrated. When the real depreciated, they had to work again, because the cost of living got much higher.”
Both Telma Facina and Patrícia Martins have felt the effects of the exchange rate. In the case of the first, mainly because it only has retirement income.
“I had to completely stop traveling around Europe,” says Facina.
This is also why, according to Pacheco, despite the demand, even people with greater purchasing power have given up on the project of retiring in Portugal this year.
From January 2020 until now, the euro has climbed 44%. In mid-November, the currency was quoted at R$ 6.51. “This made this possibility more restricted to those who already have a high income in Brazil and want to leave the country anyway”, observes the specialist in migration processes.
Claudney Neves, 49, from Rio de Janeiro, is one of them. Retired from the army a month ago, he has everything ready to move to Portugal with his wife since 2017, when his retirement was close to being completed.
“At that time, our accounts showed that my income would allow us to live comfortably there,” he says.
Encouraged, the couple traveled to the European country two years ago to enter documents and open a bank account — to deposit the amount needed for the D7 visa.
They even decided where they would live: Espinho, a small town with 31,000 inhabitants near Porto.
Then came the pandemic and then the escalation of the European currency, which postponed the plans indefinitely.
“Today, making the same calculation, it is not possible to live as we wanted. We would have to supplement the income by getting there.”
work to retire
If many Brazilians arrive already retired, there is another contingent that arrives in Portuguese territory precisely with the plan to retire there.
To do this, they are supported by a social security agreement signed between Brazil and Portugal in 1995 which, among other things, allows working time both there and here to be jointly accounted for at the time of retirement.
According to the rules, the candidate must have contributed for at least 15 years of his/her working life. In this case, he will receive the amount proportional to this period paid by the Portuguese government.
Luís Eduardo Afonso, professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administration at the University of São Paulo (FEA-USP), observes, however, that the contribution time, by itself, should not guide the decision to retire in Portugal.
“It is necessary to pay attention to the rules of their pension system, which are different from ours. This is the case of retirement age and the contribution period, for example.”
Under Portuguese law, a person must be at least 66 years and 6 months old to qualify for retirement. In Brazil, there are several rules, although the most common base is 62 years for men and 57 for women.
According to lawyer Miranda Ferreira, who also helps migrants seeking to settle in Portugal, differences in the law are generally favorable to the Brazilian social security system, which pays better values and has a more flexible system.
According to the bilateral agreement, when it comes time to retire, the rule that applies is that of the country where the person is. In other words: a Brazilian who has completed the contribution requirements there is also retired within the Portuguese pension system — even receiving it in local currency and having the same rights as a citizen of the country.
Afonso also warns against the impossibility of retiring just for the contribution period, as was possible in Brazil until the most recent social security reform.
In 2019, a change in legislation (Constitutional Amendment 103/2019) defined that Brazilian retirement also depends on the contribution period and a minimum age requirement — just as in Portugal.
“The fundamental point is that there is a right. It is recognized by the person who migrated. The details of it, however, depend a lot on each social security agreement”, he explains.
On the other hand, there is a way to retire on Portuguese soil only based on age — that is, without the minimum contribution time of 15 years. This is, in fact, the modality with the most beneficiaries in the country’s system.
Called there the old-age social pension, it requires that the person has recognized residence in the country and has at least 66 years and 6 months. The benefit floor is 275 euros (about R$1,780).
Why retire in Portugal?
When she began researching the phenomenon of retirees in Portugal, Nilcelene Biasutti realized that, in the Portuguese press, the issue was always treated from the perspective of public insecurity in Brazil.
“There was this stereotype that people couldn’t wear their jewelry in Rio de Janeiro and, therefore, they changed.” As soon as he went into the field, however, he discovered different motivations.
In fact, the Brazilian presence has attracted the attention of the Portuguese for years. No wonder: in the last SEF report, from 2020, for example, Brazil dominates practically all the statistics — it represents the largest community abroad on Portuguese soil (184,000 people), the one that received the most citizenships (20,800 ) and, on the contrary, the one that registered the most expulsions throughout the year (160).
According to the data, 28% of the foreign population in Portugal today comes from Brazil.
According to Biasutti, most of the cases concern separated families who decide to return to live close together, as in the case of Telma Facina.
They are children who study or work in Europe and attract their retired parents to the continent, for example. As they don’t speak another language, they decide to settle in Portuguese territory.
In the SEF 2020 report, 47% of Brazilians who arrived fall into this category — called family reunification.
There are still many people for whom the Portuguese country was not the first option.
“I heard many Brazilians who wanted to retire and go to Miami, in the USA, or else to Canada. However, as the income that these countries demand is higher, Portugal was where I could go”, he reveals.
Lawyer André Pacheco points out that, even with the tax benefits — some types of visas offer tax exemption — and with the law of equality between citizens, the security factor weighs heavily in the decision to migrate.
“These are people who want to grow old in a less dangerous place than Brazilian cities. Portugal is, in fact, a very safe country”, he explains.
That was what weighed in Claudney Neves’ decision, even before her retirement.
“Rio de Janeiro is a war. I’ve been mugged, my friends have gone, people have died in the street at home. It’s no longer possible,” he vents.
While the exchange rate does not ease, he remains on hold, making plans for his old age in Portugal.
“All of a sudden, we try again in 2022”.
.
