Iguazu Falls
 

I will be travelling to Iguazu Falls area in November. Will be flying into region and staying in hotel on Argentina side. I am a USA citizen and have received conflicting messages on whether I need a Brasilian visa for day trips into Brasil to see the falls from brasil side. Has anyone been there and knows for sure?<BR>Thanks.

I've never heard such a thing. May be it is a brand new rule? You should contact the Brazilian consulate.

I have friends who traveled to Iguazu as recently as August and who did not need a visa to cross-over into Brazil as part of a tour group......but the previous poster is right, contact the Brazilian consulate....

found this on a travel site from a year 2000 trip:<BR>A warning about the day trip to Brazil that the Buenos Aires travel agent did not mention. If you are US citizen, they say you need a Brazil visa which costs $58 each. We circumvented this extra cost by having the tour bus guide drop us off at a taxi on the Argentine side, and pick us up again in Brazil. That cost $20 for two, instead of $116. Either way it is a headache they don't warn you about! <BR><BR>

i was there in january, the travel agent who set it up told me i (US citizen) needed a passport to stay on the brazil side(hotel and everything were cheaper on that side at the time). When We arrived in Iguazu we found that the remis(private car service) only get checked as they leave argentina and not when they enter brazil so we hired one to take us to the braizl side to see the falls from there! It was fine! tour groups wouldn't allow me to go with them to brazil side because i did not have a passport and they pay a large fine if stopped by border patrol and are found to have people who need visas to enter the country without one!

I originally posted this on Lonely Planet's thorn tree. I used a private taxi during my stay, I'm not sure what happens at immigration if you go with a tour group. e-mail me if you would like more info.<BR><BR>Here my story (from October, 2002): I flew into Puerto Iguazu, Argentina from BA. I was staying on the Brasilian side, so when I took a taxi from the Puerto Iguazu airport we stopped at Brasilian immigration so I could get my passport stamped along with getting the entry form you keep until you leave Brasil. The next day I spent the entire day on the Argentine side of the falls and since I already had my passport stamped and had the entry form, we did not stop at Brasil immigration when coming back into Brasil. However, I brought my passport as it was checked and stamped entering and leaving Argentina. By the way, I am a US citizen with a 5 year multiple entry Brasilian visa so I did not have to pay any additional visa charges. Hope this helpful and makes sense.... :-)<BR>

This depends on your definition of &quot;need&quot;. As several of the posts above have detailed, it is possible to enter and leave Brasil (in the same day) by taxi or hired car without a visa. By possible, I mean that many people have done it without a problem. However, the visa is still a legal requirement, no matter how short your stay, and there are no guarantees you won't be caught if you try to enter without it. You could also be asked for it for whatever reason while you are in the country or when leaving back to Argentina. In addition to a steep fine, it's also fairly standard that you'd also be barred from entering Brasil for 10 years if this happened.<BR><BR>I don't think it is a hassle to obtain the visa, but it is expensive!

The visa fee for Brazil has gone up to $100. We're getting ours directly from the Consulate, and they charge a $10 &quot;processing&quot; fee.<BR><BR>Rosemary

This is the Brazilian Embassy´s website:<BR>http://www.braziltourism.org/visas.shtml<BR><BR>A visa is required to enter Brazil. Now, whether you can still go to Brazil without a visa, that is something I don´t know and I don´t encourage either if it is illegal. <BR>