How to get a bank account as foreigner and non-resident in Brazil?

[Bladhark]

I'm currently exploring some affiliate ventures in Brazil and tried to sign up with Amazon (and some other similar programs).

I figured out that it's damn hard to get a bank account there as a foreigner ánd not living there. In the following two screenshots you can see what I mean:

I might have someone living in Brazil who I can work with and in return they get an X % of the money, but that's far from ideal of course.

Does anyone here know a solution to get a Brazilian bank account as foreigner without living there and/or have a different solution to get payments from (in this case) amazon.com.br and shopee.com.br?

Normally I'd just skip over all this hassle and skip this country, but Brazil really looks interesting as a market so in this case it might be worth it.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

You do not speak Portuguese? Not related to your thread but doing non-English SEO requires native level fluency to understand the search intent to do it properly, in my experience. Not discouraging you but just saying you'll have to hire a Portuguese SEO later down the road if you want to optimize the site properly.

As for opening a bank account, I did a quick google and found https://companyformationbrazil.com/open-a-bank-account-in-brazil/ . Would a Brazilian corporation and a Brazilian bank account meet the requirement? Most businesses are located somewhere with a registered agent, which is a local address.

Also, what do you do with the Reals? Just leave it in the Brazilian bank account? Exchange it to a more stable and usable currency like USD or EUR? have you run a foreign business like this before?

I wouldn't mind having some Euros in addition to Dollars...

 

[Bladhark]

You do not speak Portuguese? Not related to your thread but doing non-English SEO requires native level fluency to understand the search intent to do it properly, in my experience. Not discouraging you but just saying you'll have to hire a Portuguese SEO later down the road if you want to optimize the site properly.

As for opening a bank account, I did a quick google and found https://companyformationbrazil.com/open-a-bank-account-in-brazil/ . Would a Brazilian corporation and a Brazilian bank account meet the requirement? Most businesses are located somewhere with a registered agent, which is a local address.

Also, what do you do with the Reals? Just leave it in the Brazilian bank account? Exchange it to a more stable and usable currency like USD or EUR? have you run a foreign business like this before?

I wouldn't mind having some Euros in addition to Dollars...

Thanks I'll check out that link, but to me it looks more about setting up a business in Brazil itself and it requires quite something as you can see here:

I'd like to know if there are other ways without setting up a business.

And no I don't speak Portuguese myself, but don't worry about that.

I have multiple foreign websites already and I don't speak the language myself from most of them either. I obviously hire local writers who do speak and write the language to get the content done (and have that proofread too every now then).

In addition to my first post; Using Wise or Payoneer isn't working either here as they don't offer Brazilian bank account solutions either.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Thanks I'll check out that link, but to me it looks more about setting up a business in Brazil itself and it requires quite something as you can see here: I'd like to know if there are other ways without setting up a business.

Yeah, you can get those documents when you form the Brazil entity and have a registered agent register it for you. The register agent can also be your "duly appointed agent" since most are attorneys or work for attorneys or are paralegals.

IDK what a CNPJ number is but I think that's the Brazil tax number without googling and just guessing. You'll get that when you register a Brazil entity.

So, yeah, if you want to enter the Brazil market with a Brazil site, you gotta drop $1,000 to find a Brazilian attorney to set up your Brazilian entity first and then you can sign up for Amazon Brazil or Shopee.

I am speaking from experience, as I had a Belize company. You can do it all remotely through a local attorney.

As for non-English SEO, it seems like you're only writing and publishing. Do you do content audits? How do you know that your content is competitive to what other people are publishing? Do you further optimize your content once it's published, such as re-write title tags to better optimize for keywords? Or is it set-it-and-forget-it?

As for getting it done with a local writer, I know this process and have done it too. I find it a real difficulty when it is 4 years later and the non-English site now has 4,000 blog posts, for example. The maintenance part of running a non-English website is much harder than the content writing and growth part.

Also, have you sold a non-English site before? What investors (who were not interested in buying but work for the company) said was that, if they company can't maintain the content, that content isn't an asset. We needed content manager in that language if we wanted to run that language long term. I'm guessing it'll be like that too, if you sell, unless you find a local buyer.

 

[Bladhark]

Yeah, you can get those documents when you form the Brazil entity and have a registered agent register it for you. The register agent can also be your "duly appointed agent" since most are attorneys or work for attorneys or are paralegals.

IDK what a CNPJ number is but I think that's the Brazil tax number without googling and just guessing. You'll get that when you register a Brazil entity.

So, yeah, if you want to enter the Brazil market with a Brazil site, you gotta drop $1,000 to find a Brazilian attorney to set up your Brazilian entity first and then you can sign up for Amazon Brazil or Shopee.

I am speaking from experience, as I had a Belize company. You can do it all remotely through a local attorney.

Thanks, yeah this might work indeed, I'll investigate that further.

As for non-English SEO, it seems like you're only writing and publishing. Do you do content audits? How do you know that your content is competitive to what other people are publishing? Do you further optimize your content once it's published, such as re-write title tags to better optimize for keywords? Or is it set-it-and-forget-it?

As for getting it done with a local writer, I know this process and have done it too. I find it a real difficulty when it is 4 years later and the non-English site now has 4,000 blog posts, for example. The maintenance part of running a non-English website is much harder than the content writing and growth part.

Also, have you sold a non-English site before? What investors (who were not interested in buying but work for the company) said was that, if they company can't maintain the content, that content isn't an asset. We needed content manager in that language if we wanted to run that language long term. I'm guessing it'll be like that too, if you sell, unless you find a local buyer.

For this to work it's vital that you don't pick a very complicated niche, it also helps if it's around content that doesn't require much updating. It's indeed more a set and forget but that's more for the surrounding content, the actual products to review etc you do keep up to date but that's no rocket science.

I didn't mention that in the first posts, but these aren't sites that run display ads etc, they are pure affiliate sites based around products (and services).

The selling part is harder indeed, as not many brokers accept foreign sites. On some I did got approached by locals but I never sold them, but it's definitely doable but it's indeed a lot harder than English websites.

But yeah indeed a content manager that speaks the language is vital for these kind of sites, but that's fine as the wages aren't usually that high and (if all goes well) the sites earn of course.

TLDR; Stick with simple niches that aren't content heavy and don't require complicated content.

 

[DarkRed]

Probably really hard (or impossible) to open an account as a foreigner and without a visa/residency. The alternative is to just put a fake address on Amazon and then get paid with a gift card. This way you can test the market. If it's woth it then you can do it properly.

You can probably sell the gift cards in a p2p marketplace if you want. (expect to lose around 15% - 20%)

 

[Bladhark]

Probably really hard (or impossible) to open an account as a foreigner and without a visa/residency. The alternative is just ask put a fake address on Amazon and then get paid with a gift card. This way you can test the market. If it's woth it then you can do it properly.

You can probably sell the gift cards in a p2p marketplace if you want. (expect to lose around 15% - 20%)

Thanks for your reply, but I believe Amazon Brazil doesn't pay out in gift cards. I got that info from an old post though, so it might be changed in the mean time.

https://geniuslink.com/blog/brazil-adds-amazon-associates-program/