Brazil grants 30-day visa-free entry to Chinese ordinary passport holders from May 11. Searches for flights to Rio jump 200%, Beijing-Rio route up 680% week-on-week.
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According to a communiqué issued by Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, citizens of the People's Republic of China holding ordinary passports are eligible for short-term visa-free entry, with a maximum stay of 30 days per entry, according to Xinhua.
The move will help attract more Chinese tourists and investment, further promoting trade, economic, and people-to-people exchanges, and reflects Brazil's greater emphasis on strengthening bilateral economic ties with China through institutional facilitation measures, injecting stronger momentum into the development of bilateral relations, a Chinese expert said.
Travel heats up
Right after the announcement of the visa-free policy, a surge in interest in travel to Brazil was reflected on several Chinese travel platforms.
The Qunar travel index showed that the news drove a surge in searches for flights to Brazil within an hour. The travel platform told the Global Times on Thursday that as of 8:30 pm, searches for flights to Rio de Janeiro doubled compared with the previous hour and nearly tripled compared with a week earlier. Searches for flights to Brasília increased twofold compared with the previous hour and surged 4.5 times week-on-week, according to the Qunar travel index.
The top five departure cities for Brazil-bound flight searches were Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province, Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province, and Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Searches for the Beijing-Rio de Janeiro route jumped 6.8 times compared with the previous hour, while searches for flights from Shanghai and Chengdu to Brasília each rose more than 10 times compared with a week earlier, according to data from Qunar.
Yang Han, a researcher at Qunar's Big Data Research Institute, told the Global Times on Thursday that Brazil, known for its vibrancy and diversity, has become one of the fastest-growing long-haul outbound travel destinations in recent years.
Data from Tongcheng Travel also shows that within 30 minutes after the announcement, keyword searches related to "Brazil" on the platform surged by more than 200 percent compared with the previous period, the platform told the Global Times. The three most popular destinations in terms of search and interest were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília.
As the summer travel peak approaches, combined with the effects of the US-Canada-Mexico World Cup, Chinese outbound tourism to the Americas is expected to see a new wave of growth, according to Tongcheng Travel.
Brazil's move underscores the Latin American country's hopes of attracting more Chinese tourists and investment through visa-free measures, thereby promoting trade, economic, and people-to-people exchanges, Tang Jie, an expert at the Institute of American and Oceanian Studies at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Before the latest visa move, Brazil had granted visa facilitation for service passport holders starting in June 2024, which enhanced exchanges among government, academic and research institutions, and senior business executives between the two countries.
China implemented a unilateral visa-free policy for Brazil on a trial basis from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026. Brazilian citizens holding ordinary passports may enter China visa-free for business, tourism, family visits, exchanges and visits, or transit, for stays of no more than 30 days.
New momentum
Tang said that Brazil's announcement of visa-free access to ordinary Chinese citizens is expected to increase people-to-people mobility and also have a much broader effect. "As a major economy in Latin America, Brazil's move sends a positive signal, helping to reduce travel costs, improve efficiency in trade and services exchanges, and boost tourism and investment growth, which will be beneficial to the Latin American country's own development," Tang said.
Recently, bilateral economic and trade ties have been further strengthened. A rise in Chinese investment to Brazil helped the South American country to reclaim the top spot globally for investment from China in 2025, according to Reuters, citing a report released on Thursday by the Brazil-China Business Council (CEBC).
In 2025, Brazil attracted 10.9 percent of total outbound capital from China, followed by the US and Guyana, with 6.8 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively, the CEBC report said.
According to the CEBC report, Brazil received $6.1 billion in Chinese investment across dozens of projects, a 45-percent increase in capital compared to 2024, as Chinese companies worked to diversify their presence in Latin America's largest economy and increase their stake in the country's clean energy and mining sectors.
Over the past five years, Brazil has ranked between first and fifth among the world's top destinations for Chinese investment, having claimed the top spot in 2021, CEBC said.
Meanwhile, bilateral trade ties have strengthened despite global uncertainty. Last year, China-Brazil trade reached $171 billion, up 8.2 percent year-on-year, with China remaining Brazil's largest trading partner for the 17th consecutive year, according to official website of China's Ministry of Commerce, citing data from Brazil's government data.
The latest decision to provide visa-free access for Chinese citizens is just one of many factors driving bilateral economic and trade growth. More importantly, Tang said it reflects Brazil's greater emphasis on strengthening economic and trade ties with China through institutional facilitation measures, which is expected to inject stronger momentum into bilateral relations.