EB-2 NIW Visa for Brazilians: A Path to Permanent Residence in the U.S.

The EB-2 immigrant visa category is one of the most widely used employment-based pathways to permanent residence for Brazilian professionals. EB-2 National Interest Waiver (NIW) allows certain qualified professionals to self-petition directly with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), without needing a permanent job offer, an employer sponsor, or the labor certification (PERM) process typically required for EB-2 petitions.   

Brazilians are among the main users of employment-based immigration: in 2023, Brazil was the fourth-largest country of origin in that category. For each of those petitions, the outcome depends on how USCIS reads a career built abroad. Stricto sensu degrees, professional council registrations, and work under CLT, as a PJ or as a business owner each need to be presented in terms the officer can evaluate, and the quality of that presentation shapes the entire case. 

Ready To Explore Your EB-2 NIW Eligibility?

Get a Free Profile Evaluation

Evaluate your profile

What the EB-2 NIW Is and Why It Matters to Brazilian Professionals 

The EB-2 NIW is an immigrant petition classification adjudicated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). It belongs to the EB-2 employment-based category, which covers professionals with an advanced degree or exceptional ability. The petition is filed on Form I-140, and its approval is the first step toward permanent residence, the green card, which follows in a later stage. 

NIW stands for National Interest Waiver. The waiver removes two requirements that otherwise apply in the EB-2 category: a permanent job offer from a U.S. employer and the labor certification known as PERM, through which an employer shows the Department of Labor that no U.S. worker was available for the position. USCIS grants the waiver when it concludes that the professional’s proposed work is in the national interest of the United States.  

For that reason, the EB-2 NIW is relevant to professionals with solid training and experience who do not have a U.S. employer willing to sponsor them, or who prefer not to depend on on a single employer. The petition can be filed by the professional directly, from inside or outside the United States. The spouse and unmarried children under 21 are included at the permanent residence stage.  

The criteria currently used for granting the waiver were set in 2016 by the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office in Matter of Dhanasar. Under the Dhanasar framework, USCIS requires the petition to demonstrate three points: 

• The proposed work has substantial merit and national importance, meaning it has value in its field and implications beyond a single employer. 

• The professional is well positioned to advance that work, based on their education, experience, past results and a concrete plan. 

• On balance, waiving the job offer and PERM benefits the United States. 

Before evaluating these three points, USCIS verifies that the professional qualifies for the underlying EB-2 category. For a Brazilian, that verification depends on how degrees and credentials earned in Brazil are presented.  

How Brazilian Credentials Fit the Two EB-2 Paths 

A professional qualifies for the EB-2 category through one of two paths: an advanced degree or exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business.  

Path 1: Advanced degree 

Under 8 CFR 204.5(k)(2), an advanced degree is any academic or professional degree above a bachelor’s, or its foreign equivalent. A bachelor’s degree followed by at least five years of progressive experience in the specialty is also considered an advanced degree for this purpose. The table below shows how long each Brazilian credential takes and how it is usually read in the EB-2 analysis:  

Brazilian credential	Duration	How it is usually evaluated in the U.S.
Bacharelado	3 to 6 years, depending on the course workload (CNE/CES Resolution 2/2007)	Equivalent to a bachelor’s degree
Mestrado (stricto sensu)	Typically 2 years	Comparable to a master’s degree
Doutorado (stricto sensu)	Typically 4 years	Comparable to a Ph.D.
Curso superior de tecnologia (tecnólogo)	1,600 to 2,400 hours, usually 2 to 3 years	In most evaluations, below a bachelor’s degree
Lato sensu graduate program / especialização, including most Brazilian MBAs	From 360 hours (CNE/CES Resolution 1/2018)	Specialization or continuing education, not a master’s degree

The distinction between stricto sensu and lato sensu carries the most weight in this table. In Brazil, master’s and doctoral programs are stricto sensu and are evaluated and accredited by CAPES, the Ministry of Education foundation responsible for graduate education. Specialization courses and most MBAs are lato sensu and do not go through that evaluation.  

As a result, a lato sensu MBA on its own is not read as an advanced degree. In that case, eligibility depends on the bachelor’s degree plus five years of progressive experience, and the petition needs to document both the degree and the growth in responsibilities over that period.  

A credential evaluation by a specialized agency helps present this equivalence, but the USCIS Policy Manual states that such an evaluation is advisory only. The final decision on degree equivalency rests with the officer reviewing the petition.  

Path 2: Exceptional ability 

For professionals without an advanced degree, the second path is to show a degree of expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered in the field. To qualify, petitioners must satisfy at least three of the following six regulatory criteria:   

• An academic record related to the field. 

• At least 10 years of full-time experience, documented by letters from employers. 

• A license or certification to practice the profession. 

• Remuneration that indicates exceptional ability compared with others in the field. 

• Membership in professional associations. 

• Recognition for contributions to the field from peers, government entities or professional organizations. 

In Brazil, some regulated professions require registration with a professional council in order to practice: engineers and agronomists with the Confea/Crea system, physicians with the Regional Councils of Medicine under the CFM, and lawyers with the OAB, among others. That mandatory registration can be presented as evidence of a professional license.  

Many professions, including most in technology and business, have no council, and in those cases the license criterion does not apply. Registration with a council is also distinct from the fifth item, membership in professional associations, which is a separate criterion. 

Meeting three of the six criteria is the first step. USCIS then reviews the evidence as a whole to decide whether it shows the level of expertise the category requires. 

Ready To Explore Your EB-2 NIW Eligibility?

Get a Free Profile Evaluation

Evaluate your profile

CLT, PJ, Partner or Self-Employed: How to Document a Career Built in Brazil 

The EB-2 NIW standard does not change with the type of work arrangement. What changes is the documentation available to prove the experience, and this is where the Brazilian reality differs from the American one.  

In Brazil, qualified work is organized mainly in four forms: formal employment under the Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (CLT), service provision through a legal entity (pessoa jurídica, or PJ), participation as a partner or founder of a company, and self-employment. Each produces a different kind of record. 

CLT employees 

For a professional employed under the CLT, experience is documented mainly through letters from current and former employers describing responsibilities and results. 

The content of those letters is what requires attention. A letter that only confirms the position and dates does not show the progression of responsibilities or the results of the work. For a CLT professional, the petition should therefore include letters that describe what the person led, what changed under their responsibility and what outcomes followed.  

PJ professionals and self-employed workers 

A PJ consultant or a self-employed professional does not have a single employer to attest to their career. The experience is instead reconstructed from the articles of incorporation of the PJ (contrato social), service contracts, invoices, client letters and records of completed projects.  

With those documents, the petition needs to show the same progression an employer letter would show: growth in the complexity of the projects, the size of the clients or the scope of responsibility over time. For this reason, the petition should organize the documents chronologically and pair them with client letters that confirm the role the professional played in each engagement.  

Partners and founders 

For partners and founders, the documentation runs through the company: the articles of incorporation and history of the Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica (CNPJ), financial statements, client contracts and hires made. 

The petition also needs to separate the company’s performance from the professional’s own contributions. The USCIS Policy Manual includes a section on evidence for entrepreneurs, and our article on the EB-2 NIW for startup founders and entrepreneurs covers this profile in detail. For a founder, the petition should therefore document the specific decisions and results attributable to the person, not only the growth of the business. 

In all four cases, the quality and relevance of the documents weigh more than the quantity. No single document proves a career; the evidence as a whole must allow the officer to understand what the professional did, when, and with what result.  

How to Present Awards, Press Coverage, Associations and Salary Earned in Brazil 

For Brazilian professionals across fields, from engineering and medicine to finance and research, recognition and remuneration earned in Brazil can serve as evidence in an EB-2 NIW petition, whether for the exceptional ability criteria or to show that the person is well positioned to advance the proposed work.  

An award, a news article or a salary only carries weight when the USCIS officer, who does not know the Brazilian context, receives enough information to measure it. The petition must supply that context for each item.  

Type of evidence	What the officer needs to know	What the petition should include
Press coverage	Whether the material is about the professional and how far the outlet reaches	The outlet’s circulation or audience, a copy of the article highlighting the section about the professional, and confirmation that the outlet is independent of the professional’s employer
Awards	How selective the award is and who judged it	Eligibility rules, number of entrants, composition of the jury and, when available, previous recipients
Professional associations	What the entity is and what admission requires	A description of the association, its admission criteria and the professional’s role in it
Salary	How the remuneration compares with others in the same field	Sector salary surveys, the pay range for the position in Brazil and the professional’s position within that range, rather than a simple conversion from reais to dollars
Documents in Portuguese	The full content, in English	A complete English translation certified by the translator as accurate, with a statement of the translator’s competence in both languages

The same logic applies to every item in the table. A national award, a profile in a major newspaper or a salary at the top of the sector become useful evidence when the petition also shows the context around them and the standard that had to be met to obtain them.  

From a Career in Brazil to National Importance in the United States 

A career recognized in Brazil can help meet one of the EB-2 NIW criteria: whether the professional is prepared to carry out the work they propose. 

The petition needs to describe a specific endeavor to be carried out in the country, show how the  overall experience prepares the professional for it, and explain why the results extend beyond one employer or one region. Describing the general duties of a position does not meet that standard.  

The cases below, all EB-2 NIW petitions approved by USCIS and handled by Colombo & Hurd, show how Brazilian professionals in different fields built that description from their own careers. 

Cybersecurity professional helping small businesses  

The first case shows that years of experience are not the only way to demonstrate preparation. The client is a Brazilian professional with a master’s degree in computer science earned in the United States and a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, at an early stage of his career. He had worked in large-scale retail and logistics operations, where system reliability and cybersecurity were central to the business.  

The petition described the endeavor as supporting small and medium-sized U.S. businesses in reducing cyber risk through assessments, security improvements, automation and employee training. Because the client had few years of experience, the recommendation letters focused on the measurable results of his earlier work, such as shorter system deployment times and the modernization of dozens of applications to prove his ability to advance the proposed work.  

The complete case study describes how the petition was built. 

Civil engineer advancing transportation infrastructure beyond local projects 

The second case involves a career built over two decades in Brazil. The client is a civil engineer with more than 20 years of experience and a master’s degree in civil engineering with a concentration in transportation. His career was spent leading pavement restoration and quality control programs on Brazilian highways, bridges and airports.  

The petition connected the client’s methods in construction management, cost estimating and sustainable construction to the federal goals of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the U.S. infrastructure investment law. The proposed endeavor included modernizing highways, bridges and airports and training engineering teams, which extended the impact beyond each individual project.   

More details are available in the full case study. 

Financial researcher applying mathematical research to financial risk 

The third case involves work that is little known outside academic circles and shows the final stage of the process. The client is a Brazilian mathematician with a Ph.D., a master’s and a bachelor’s degree in the field and more than 11 years of experience between academia and quantitative finance. After years as a professor and researcher, he began applying information geometry and artificial intelligence to risk modeling and portfolio management as an investment analyst.  

The petition needed to explain abstract mathematical work in practical terms and show that its value extended to the financial sector as a whole. The endeavor was described as the development of data-driven risk models, connected to government priorities in artificial intelligence research and financial innovation, supported by a detailed plan and independent recommendation letters. After the EB-2 NIW approval, the client completed the next stage, Adjustment of Status, and received his green card.  

The case study describes the full path. 

Why these cases are useful to Brazilians applying for EB-2 NIW 

The three cases started from different profiles: a professional early in his career, an engineer with two decades of experience, and a researcher. The evidence also differed in each. What they share is the way they answered the EB-2 NIW’s central questions, describing a specific endeavor in the United States and explaining its relevance at a national level. That reasoning applies to any field or professional. Whether a specific case meets the standard depends on the evidence in the individual case.  

Ready To Explore Your EB-2 NIW Eligibility?

Get a Free Profile Evaluation

Evaluate your profile

Fees, Timelines and the Steps After Approval 

The EB-2 NIW petition is filed with USCIS on Form I-140, whether the professional is in Brazil or in the United States. Government fees are listed in the official USCIS fee schedule, Form G-1055. The amounts below are current as of this article’s publication and change periodically; confirm them in the official source before filing. 

Fee	Current amount	Source
Form I-140	$715 on paper or $665 online	Form G-1055
Asylum Program Fee	$300 for self-petitioners and employers with 25 or fewer full-time employees; $600 in other cases	USCIS guidance on I-140 fees
Premium processing (optional)	$2,965, with USCIS action within 45 business days	USCIS premium processing page

These amounts only reflect the government fees for the first step of the EB-2 NIW process. Processing times vary by stage and can be checked in the USCIS processing times tool. Our article on EB-2 NIW processing time covers each stage in detail. 

Adjustment of Status or Consular Processing 

Approval of the I-140 is not the green card. It confirms that the professional qualifies for the EB-2 NIW, and permanent residence comes in the next stage, which depends on where the person is.  

Those already in the United States in a valid, legal status file for Adjustment of Status, a request to USCIS to go from temporary to permanent status inside the country, without leaving. Those in Brazil go through consular processing: the case passes through the National Visa Center (NVC) first, the Department of State office that collects documents and schedules the interview, and ends with an interview at the U.S. consulate. In Brazil, immigrant visa interviews take place at the U.S. Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro, preceded by a medical exam with a physician approved by the consulate. 

The U.S. issues only a limited number of green cards each year, so applicants often have to wait for their turn to receive one. The Visa Bulletin, a report the Department of State publishes every month, shows how fast that waiting line is moving. Applicants from Brazil look at the column called “All Chargeability Areas.” If EB-2 is marked “Current,” there is no line and the professional can move forward. If a date appears instead, only people whose place in line (their “priority date,” usually the date their case was first filed) is earlier than that date can move forward. The EB-2 category covers both EB-2 PERM and EB-2 NIW. Because the line can speed up or slow down during the year, the Visa Bulletin should be checked every month.  

Frequently Asked Questions 

Do I need a job offer in the United States for the EB-2 NIW? 

No. The waiver of the job offer is what defines the EB-2 NIW. Instead of an employer, the petition needs to describe the work the professional intends to carry out in the United States and demonstrate its importance to the country. 

Can a CLT employee apply for the EB-2 NIW? 

Yes. The type of work arrangement does not change the requirements. A CLT professional has formal records of each position and can obtain employer letters, which need to describe duties, progression and results rather than only confirm dates. 

Does a Brazilian bacharelado count as an advanced degree? 

On its own, no. Under the regulations, a bachelor’s degree followed by at least five years of progressive experience in the specialty is considered equivalent to a master’s degree for EB-2 purposes. In that case, the petition needs to document the growth in responsibilities over the five years, not only the time elapsed. 

Does a lato sensu MBA count as an advanced degree? 

In most cases, no. Lato sensu programs, including most Brazilian MBAs and specialization courses, are evaluated as continuing education rather than as a master’s degree. Professionals with this profile usually qualify for EB-2 through the bachelor’s degree plus five years of progressive experience. 

How much does the EB-2 NIW cost in government fees? 

Currently, the Form I-140 fee is $715 on paper or $665 online, plus the Asylum Program Fee of $300 for self-petitioners and employers with 25 or fewer employees ($600 for larger employers). Optional premium processing costs $2,965. Fees change periodically and should be confirmed in the USCIS fee schedule. 

Where is the immigrant visa interview for applicants in Brazil? 

Immigrant visa interviews in Brazil take place at the U.S. Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro, after the case is processed by the National Visa Center. Applicants already in the United States in an eligible status do not attend a consular interview and instead file for Adjustment of Status. 

Conclusion 

The EB-2 NIW allows a Brazilian professional to petition for immigrant classification in the United States without depending on an employer, based on their background and the work they intend to carry out in the country. Stricto sensu degrees, records of CLT or PJ work, and awards, press coverage, and remuneration earned in Brazil can support that petition, provided they are presented with the context a USCIS officer needs to evaluate them. 

Colombo & Hurd works with professionals from Brazil and other countries on EB-2 NIW petitions, from assessing how Brazilian credentials are evaluated to organizing the evidence and the context an adjudicator needs to evaluate it. To find out where your profile stands, fill out our free profile evaluation form. 

Ready To Explore Your EB-2 NIW Eligibility?

Get a Free Profile Evaluation

Evaluate your profile