Experience Required- Brazil

My Fiancee and I (I am a UK citizen) are applying for a Fiancee Visa. I was wondering if anybody has experience of this country.
Is it better to apply online or to turn up at the Embassy itself. Sometimes I read on the forum that people turn up in person and get the visa the same day or a few days later.
I would be prepared to fly to Rio to go with my fiancee if that would help. But obvisouly no point if we then have to wait along time to get the result. Also they say you have to collect the visa from the embassy also so that would be two trips for my fiancee (it is almost 1000miles away) and would make it expensive. But if it helps then it is worth it.
I am sure we pass every category - fingers crossed- but will do anything to help (also haven't seen my fiancee for months and months so would be good excuse )

luis2007 wrote:Also they say you have to collect the visa from the embassy also so that would be two trips for my fiancee (it is almost 1000miles away) and would make it expensive. But if it helps then it is worth it.

International relationships = expense.

Visa costs, trips home, adjustment time, crappy job till she/he finds his/her feet, all dents the bank balance.

I don't think folks realise how the costs mount up and dabbling in this field is not for the short of cash unless u want to take serious short cuts and risk early divorce.

Good luck anyway, sorry for highjacking ur thread for a rant! Again!

Steve

No problem

Thank you for your experience. It does seem to be a costly business. I was just preparing my accounts and realising how much money this has cost me already - and haven't even applied yet.

Luis, if you have orkut, have a look in this forum:

http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm= ... 8093206853

One applied by post and got the visa in less than 1 week!

If you apply using Sedex 10, the British Consulate in Rio receives the application next day (it's like the Special Delivery service in the UK). They are processing applications in a few days! Quite fast!

thank you - that was very useful.

I (a Brit) went with my Brazilian Fiance to the Rio consulate in 2006, for a fiancee visa, but there was no point in me being there. I was immaterial to the process. The application form and money had to be handed over through a thick glass screen to a Brazilian employee of the consulate. There was no chance for a special plea to speed things up or anything of that nature.

My fiancee had to wait 7 weeks to get the visa (and I think it was a straight forward case requiring no special background searches).

I believe that they all go into a queue and get dealt with as and when they get to the top of the pile. I did send a couple of emails to the consulate and they replied very courteously each time with an approximate estimate of how long it might take.

I found the process slow but feel we were treated the same as everyone else ..... very professionally and politely.

My fiance went to pick up the visa ... by going to the consulate you can at least remove the worry of something get lost in the post. You also know when the application gets into the queue and the clock starts ticking on the 6,7 or 8 week wait.

I think the one week turn around mentioned in the thread is for non settlement visas. They are always processed. much quicker than settlement visas.

Thank you for this. It is very useful to get information from people who have actually done this process in the same country.