Does Brazil Have an Arrival Card? What You Fill In

Two authorities meet every arrival, and the decree adds the health ministry when the case calls for it — visitors routinely merge them into one.

The card was real, and the law that required it is gone

Article 24 of Law 6,815/1980, the Foreigners' Statute, was unambiguous: no foreigner could leave the inspection point sem que o seu documento de viagem e o cartão de entrada e saída hajam sido visados — without travel document and entry-and-exit card being stamped. Article 89 of Decree 86,715/1981 added the exit half: you presented both again on the way out.

Both are dead. Article 124 of the Migration Act, Law 13,445/2017, repeals the 1980 statute outright, and the Act, published on May 25, 2017, took effect 180 days later, on November 21, 2017. Decree 9,757 of April 11, 2019 swept up the 1981 regulation.

Nothing replaced it, and that is measurable

The tempting assumption is that a newer act created a newer card. It did not. We downloaded the consolidated Migration Act and Decree 9,199/2017 on September 24, 2026 and searched both: cartão appears zero times in each.

What the Act says instead is short. Article 38 gives border control to the Federal Police; article 39 sets the traveller's only duty — wait em área de fiscalização, in the inspection area, until your travel document is verified. Verified, not stamped, and no form named near it.

What the Federal Police may ask instead

A card asks everyone the same questions in writing. Brazilian border control asks selectively, out loud, and only when it wants to. Article 170 of Decree 9,199/2017 lists what poderão ser exigidos, what may be required, on entry: proof of onward transport out of the country, proof of means of subsistence matching the length and purpose of the trip, and documents attesting to what you will do here.

So there is nothing to prepare beyond having the answers. Whether you needed a visa was settled before boarding: the general rule, the American case, the British one, or a connection that never leaves transit.

The customs form is a different agency

The form travellers remember is real, and it is not an arrival card. Decree 9,199/2017 has the Federal Police doing migration control sem prejuízo — without prejudice to — separate checks by Receita Federal, the tax authority. Receita's guide, updated August 14, 2026, puts the rule in one line: o viajante que tiver bens a declarar é obrigado a preencher a Declaração Eletrônica de Bens de Viajantes, then pick a channel, Nada a Declarar or Bens a Declarar.

Read the condition. The e-DBV is filed by the traveller who has something to declare, not by every arrival. What counts as declarable and how much cash you may bring are separate guides.

The one time Brazil did hand arrivals a form

There is a reason some people are certain they filled something in. Interministerial Ordinance 666 of January 20, 2022 made air passengers show the airline, before boarding, proof of having completed the Declaração de Saúde do Viajante — the Traveller's Health Declaration — no more than twenty-four hours ahead.

It lasted ten weeks. Ordinance 670 of April 1, 2022 revoked it without carrying the declaration over, and the phrase appears nowhere in that act nor in the September 2022 one that followed. A Diário Oficial full-text search on September 24, 2026 finds sixteen acts with the phrase, the newest from January 21, 2022.

Sources

All read on September 24, 2026.

• Migration Act, Law 13,445/2017, arts. 38, 39, 109, 124 and 125. planalto.gov.br. ⚠️ Planalto serves ISO-8859-1: forcing UTF-8 mangles the text
• Decree 9,199/2017, arts. 165, 166 and 170. planalto.gov.br
• The card itself: art. 24 of the 1980 statute and arts. 48 and 89 of its regulation, repealed by art. 1, LV of Decree 9,757/2019
• Receita Federal, goods to declare, updated August 14, 2026. gov.br/receitafederal
• Interministerial Ordinances 666 and 670, Diário Oficial
• Federal Police, migration control and FAQ — neither names an arrival card

Method on how we research; Jeff Bruno writes from Curitiba. Next door: the customs declaration, what a CPF is, bags on a São Paulo connection, Terminal 3, documents and visas, all guides.

What we could not verify

• Whether every arrival still gets a passport stamp. Practice says yes. But the Act asks only that the document be verified, and no act we found requires a stamp.
• What the Federal Police tells arrivals in its own words. Its migration control section, last updated June 29, 2023, carries six items — visas, children travelling abroad, a carrier form, paying fines — and none covers the arrivals desk.
• The leaflet Receita Federal promises. Its entry index links an item named Entrada no Brasil por via aérea — informativo. The page behind it, published March 8, 2023, is empty — no text, no image — fetched directly and rendered by a headless browser abroad.
• Whether the covid-era entry ordinances were ever formally repealed. We traced the health declaration to its revocation and no further; the later acts concern proof shown to an airline before boarding.