For a large share of the foreigners researching a move abroad, particularly Americans, Canadians, and Northern Europeans, the decision usually narrows down to a shortlist of Portuguese-speaking or culturally familiar options: Portugal, Spain, and, less obviously to most people at first, Brazil. All three offer warm climates, a lower cost of living than the researcher’s home country, and a real path to long-term residency. But the immigration landscape in Europe has shifted meaningfully in the past two years, and Brazil’s position on this list has quietly gotten stronger as a result.
The headline change: Spain and Portugal have both moved away from real estate
If your research is more than a year or two old, the single most important update is this: Spain abolished its property-based Golden Visa entirely on April 3, 2025, with no direct investment-based replacement introduced. Buying real estate in Spain no longer leads to residency by itself. Portugal’s Golden Visa remains active but no longer accepts real estate as a qualifying investment, since a 2023 reform, it’s limited to routes like qualifying investment funds (commonly cited around €500,000) or job-creating capital investment, not property purchases.
Brazil, by contrast, still runs a straightforward real estate investor residency program: R$1,000,000 in urban property nationally, reduced to R$700,000 in the North and Northeast regions. For anyone whose plan specifically involved “buy a place, get residency,” Brazil is now one of the more direct paths left among these three countries.
Passive income and retirement routes
Brazil’s retirement/pensioner visa requires demonstrating and transferring at least USD 2,000 per month in qualifying pension or benefit income, a relatively high monthly bar compared to the other two countries, but with no lump-sum investment required at all.
Portugal’s D7 visa, the main passive-income route since the golden visa’s real estate option closed, requires a considerably lower monthly income, pegged to Portugal’s minimum wage, roughly €920 per month as of 2026, making it one of the most accessible income-based European residency routes available. The trade-off is that Portugal expects D7 holders to actually reside in the country for the majority of the year, rather than treating it as a flexible, occasional-presence arrangement.
Spain, having eliminated its golden visa, now relies on its own non-lucrative visa (broadly comparable to Portugal’s D7) for passive-income applicants, generally requiring proof of considerably higher recurring income or savings than Portugal’s threshold, reflecting Spain’s higher cost-of-living baseline in its major cities.
Business and investment routes
Brazil’s business investor residency requires a minimum of R$500,000 invested in a Brazilian company (reducible to R$150,000 for qualifying priority investments), a route that remains open, straightforward, and tied to an actual operating business rather than a passive fund.
Portugal’s remaining golden visa routes now center on regulated investment funds and job-creation-linked capital, generally starting around €500,000, comparable in headline size to Brazil’s business route, but structured as a passive fund investment rather than direct business ownership or operation.
Spain no longer offers an investment-based residency route of this kind at all following the 2025 abolition.
Cost of living: where the money actually goes further
This is where Brazil, and particularly Brazil’s Northeast, separates itself most clearly from both European options. Portugal and Spain, while cheaper than the US, UK, or much of Northern Europe, have seen significant cost-of-living increases in their most popular expat destinations (Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve, Barcelona, Valencia) as relocation demand has driven up housing costs specifically in those areas. Brazil’s Northeast coast, João Pessoa, Natal, Fortaleza, remains considerably cheaper across rent, dining, and services than either country’s popular coastal regions, without requiring the more remote or rural trade-offs that “cheap Europe” options increasingly involve.
Language and cultural distance
For an English speaker, none of the three offers an English-first environment outside tourist zones, but the practical distance differs. Portuguese is Brazil’s and Portugal’s shared language (with meaningful accent and vocabulary differences, but full mutual intelligibility), while Spain requires Spanish specifically. For anyone who has already invested time learning Portuguese with Portugal in mind, Brazil is a smaller linguistic adjustment than it might first appear, and vice versa.
Path to citizenship
Brazil’s ordinary naturalization requires four years of residency, reduced to one year for a Brazilian spouse, child, or CPLP nationality, with a Portuguese-language requirement. Portugal’s naturalization traditionally requires five years of legal residency, without requiring the applicant to have resided continuously and physically for that full period in the same way some other countries demand, plus a basic Portuguese-language test. Spain generally requires ten years of residency for standard naturalization (reduced for nationals of certain Latin American countries and a few other categories, reflecting Spain’s historical ties), with Spanish-language and cultural knowledge requirements, the longest standard timeline of the three.
Which factor should actually drive the decision
For someone prioritizing a still-active, straightforward real estate path to residency, Brazil is now more directly comparable to what Spain and Portugal used to offer before their 2023 and 2025 reforms, respectively. For someone prioritizing the lowest possible monthly income threshold, Portugal’s D7 currently has the edge over Brazil’s retirement visa. For someone prioritizing overall cost of living relative to quality of life, Brazil’s Northeast coast is difficult to match against either European option at this point. And for someone who has already built a life, language skills, or family ties in one of these three places, that existing connection will usually outweigh any of the above on paper.
FAQ
Is it easier to get residency in Brazil or Portugal in 2026? It depends on the route, Brazil’s real estate and business investor paths remain more direct than Portugal’s post-2023 golden visa (which no longer accepts real estate), while Portugal’s D7 has a lower income bar than Brazil’s retirement visa.
Can I hold residency in more than one of these countries at once? In principle, yes, since none of the three requires giving up other residencies to qualify, though maintaining multiple residency statuses brings its own tax and presence-requirement complexity worth planning for separately.
Has Spain’s golden visa abolition affected other Spanish visa categories? No, Spain’s non-lucrative visa and other standard residency categories remain unaffected; it was specifically the investment-based golden visa that was eliminated.
Does Brazil have anything comparable to Portugal’s D7 visa? Brazil’s retirement/pensioner visa is the closest equivalent, though its monthly income threshold (USD 2,000) is considerably higher than the D7’s.
Which of the three has the fastest path to citizenship? On paper, Brazil’s standard four-year timeline (or one year with qualifying family ties) is shorter than Portugal’s five years or Spain’s ten, though actual processing times and language requirements affect the real-world timeline in each country.
Weighing Brazil against Portugal or Spain for your move? Souza & Santos Advocacia helps foreign nationals evaluate Brazil’s current visa and residency options against what’s actually still available elsewhere. Contact us in English or Portuguese:
Souza & Santos Advocacia
Av. Gov. Flávio Ribeiro Coutinho, 500, Sala 927, Manaíra, CEP 58037-005, João Pessoa – PB, Brazil
contato@souzaesantosadvocacia.com.br · +55 83 99644-2180
Avenida Paulista, 1471 – Conj 512, Bela Vista – São Paulo/SP
+55 11 98849-4224