Brazil has started 2026 by tearing up the patchwork of country-by-country humanitarian visa programmes it has relied on since the Haiti earthquake in 2010. Inter-ministerial Ordinance 60/2025, in force from 1 January 2026, scraps the special pathways that existed for Afghans, Haitians, Syrians and several other nationalities and replaces them with one umbrella regime. Going forward, the Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs will issue joint acts that list (1) the nationalities and (2) the precise circumstances—armed conflict, environmental disaster, political persecution—that justify protection.
While the reform gives Brasília more flexibility to respond quickly to new crises, it also introduces short-term uncertainty. Until the first eligibility list is published, consulates worldwide have paused the issuance of new humanitarian visas and are advising applicants to wait or to convert to another visa class. Organisations that previously sponsored Afghan and Haitian evacuees report that appointments booked for January are already being cancelled.
Amid the confusion, VisaHQ can serve as a rapid-response ally. Through its dedicated Brazil page (https://www.visahq.com/brazil/), the platform tracks regulatory updates in real time, offers document-preparation checklists tailored to each visa class and can coordinate courier, translation and filing services for employers, NGOs and individual travellers—helping applicants hit the ground running once consulates reopen.
![Brazil Consolidates Humanitarian Visas into a Single, Crisis-Driven Framework]()
For global mobility managers, the biggest operational change is the new “hosting-commitment” requirement. Every future applicant must present a sponsorship letter from a Brazilian NGO that has a formal cooperation agreement with the federal government and can prove it has accommodation and integration resources in place. Corporations that used humanitarian visas to transfer at-risk staff—particularly journalists and contractors who worked for foreign missions in conflict zones—will now have to liaise with approved NGOs before travel can be booked.
Legal advisers recommend adapting compliance check-lists immediately. Salary thresholds, work-authorisation rules and access to the public-health system remain the same, but document packs must now include the NGO undertaking and may require updated police-clearance certificates if the pause drags on. Companies with humanitarian-visa holders already in Brazil should remind them that the change does not affect their current residence cards, but any family-reunification or extension applications filed after 1 January will follow the new rules.
The government argues that a single framework will end the ad-hoc improvisation that characterised previous emergencies and allow faster, more predictable responses. Mobility stakeholders, however, will judge success by how rapidly the first eligibility list appears—and by how efficiently NGOs can scale up to meet the new sponsorship demand.
While the reform gives Brasília more flexibility to respond quickly to new crises, it also introduces short-term uncertainty. Until the first eligibility list is published, consulates worldwide have paused the issuance of new humanitarian visas and are advising applicants to wait or to convert to another visa class. Organisations that previously sponsored Afghan and Haitian evacuees report that appointments booked for January are already being cancelled.
Amid the confusion, VisaHQ can serve as a rapid-response ally. Through its dedicated Brazil page (https://www.visahq.com/brazil/), the platform tracks regulatory updates in real time, offers document-preparation checklists tailored to each visa class and can coordinate courier, translation and filing services for employers, NGOs and individual travellers—helping applicants hit the ground running once consulates reopen.
For global mobility managers, the biggest operational change is the new “hosting-commitment” requirement. Every future applicant must present a sponsorship letter from a Brazilian NGO that has a formal cooperation agreement with the federal government and can prove it has accommodation and integration resources in place. Corporations that used humanitarian visas to transfer at-risk staff—particularly journalists and contractors who worked for foreign missions in conflict zones—will now have to liaise with approved NGOs before travel can be booked.
Legal advisers recommend adapting compliance check-lists immediately. Salary thresholds, work-authorisation rules and access to the public-health system remain the same, but document packs must now include the NGO undertaking and may require updated police-clearance certificates if the pause drags on. Companies with humanitarian-visa holders already in Brazil should remind them that the change does not affect their current residence cards, but any family-reunification or extension applications filed after 1 January will follow the new rules.
The government argues that a single framework will end the ad-hoc improvisation that characterised previous emergencies and allow faster, more predictable responses. Mobility stakeholders, however, will judge success by how rapidly the first eligibility list appears—and by how efficiently NGOs can scale up to meet the new sponsorship demand.
