Brazil closed the year by signalling that 2026 will mark a decisive turn toward fully digital borders across Latin America. In an interview with Travel and Tour World published on 26 December 2025, senior officials at Brazil’s Ministry of Tourism confirmed that the country will use the experience gained from re-introducing the electronic visitor visa (e-Visa) for travellers from Australia, Canada and the United States in April to expand e-visas to other nationalities and to integrate them with a regional biometric travel platform.
The announcement was made jointly with Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, whose migration authorities have formed a working group—co-ordinated by Brazil—that is piloting a shared API standard for electronic visa issuance, biometric enrolment and advance passenger information. The goal is to allow travellers to store a single digital travel credential on their smartphones and reuse it across participating countries, dramatically shortening airport queues and providing governments with earlier data for risk assessment.
For travellers and corporate mobility managers keen to navigate Brazil’s evolving e-Visa landscape, VisaHQ offers a streamlined, fully online application process with real-time status tracking and document review. Its dedicated Brazil page (https://www.visahq.com/brazil/) consolidates the latest requirements, fees and timelines, ensuring that applicants stay ahead of upcoming QR-code and biometric enhancements while minimising administrative hassle.
![Brazil pushes regional switch to e-visas and biometrics in 2026 border-modernisation drive]()
Brazilian officials said the first concrete deliverable will be a mobile “cross-border wallet” that combines the Brazil e-Visa QR-code with a selfie-biometric validated against the federal police database. The wallet is scheduled to enter beta testing with selected corporate travellers in the second quarter of 2026, just before the country hosts the UNFCCC COP30 climate summit in Belém. Airlines operating at São Paulo/Guarulhos and Rio/Galeão will install dedicated e-gates capable of reading the credential, and the Ministry of Justice is drafting a new portaria that would make acceptance of the credential mandatory at all of Brazil’s international airports by December 2026.
From a corporate-mobility perspective, a region-wide e-visa and biometric platform could slash lead times for assignment launches, reduce document-handling costs and give compliance teams real-time visibility of employee travel patterns. However, data-privacy lawyers warn that companies will need to review consent language in assignment letters because biometric templates will be shared with multiple governments. The authorities emphasise that participation will remain optional and that paper passports will continue to be accepted.
The move positions Brazil as the digital-border trend-setter in South America and could put competitive pressure on Argentina—currently outside the working group—to modernise its own visa infrastructure. Multinationals are advised to engage with travel-management providers early in 2026 to make sure their booking tools and duty-of-care platforms can ingest the new QR and biometric data fields once they go live.
The announcement was made jointly with Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, whose migration authorities have formed a working group—co-ordinated by Brazil—that is piloting a shared API standard for electronic visa issuance, biometric enrolment and advance passenger information. The goal is to allow travellers to store a single digital travel credential on their smartphones and reuse it across participating countries, dramatically shortening airport queues and providing governments with earlier data for risk assessment.
For travellers and corporate mobility managers keen to navigate Brazil’s evolving e-Visa landscape, VisaHQ offers a streamlined, fully online application process with real-time status tracking and document review. Its dedicated Brazil page (https://www.visahq.com/brazil/) consolidates the latest requirements, fees and timelines, ensuring that applicants stay ahead of upcoming QR-code and biometric enhancements while minimising administrative hassle.
Brazilian officials said the first concrete deliverable will be a mobile “cross-border wallet” that combines the Brazil e-Visa QR-code with a selfie-biometric validated against the federal police database. The wallet is scheduled to enter beta testing with selected corporate travellers in the second quarter of 2026, just before the country hosts the UNFCCC COP30 climate summit in Belém. Airlines operating at São Paulo/Guarulhos and Rio/Galeão will install dedicated e-gates capable of reading the credential, and the Ministry of Justice is drafting a new portaria that would make acceptance of the credential mandatory at all of Brazil’s international airports by December 2026.
From a corporate-mobility perspective, a region-wide e-visa and biometric platform could slash lead times for assignment launches, reduce document-handling costs and give compliance teams real-time visibility of employee travel patterns. However, data-privacy lawyers warn that companies will need to review consent language in assignment letters because biometric templates will be shared with multiple governments. The authorities emphasise that participation will remain optional and that paper passports will continue to be accepted.
The move positions Brazil as the digital-border trend-setter in South America and could put competitive pressure on Argentina—currently outside the working group—to modernise its own visa infrastructure. Multinationals are advised to engage with travel-management providers early in 2026 to make sure their booking tools and duty-of-care platforms can ingest the new QR and biometric data fields once they go live.
