Portuguese tourists in Brazil rise 25% (and are the main tourists in Europe)

“ ANDbetween January and July 2026, the country received 5,874,981 foreign tourists”, and of these “177,956 came from Portugal, a growth of 24.9%” compared to the same period of 2025, Bruno Reis told Lusa, in the margins of an TAP event.

The flag airline celebrates in 2026 the 60 years of the first regular flight to Brazil, between Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, a destination that is one of the three most important TAP in that market, alongside São Paulo and Recife, and marked the date, on Wednesday night, in Estoril (Cascais).

“ For the first time, I think that in the last 10 years, from January to July, Portugal is the largest issuing market in Europe for Brazil, again, passing France”, said Embratur – Brazilian Agency for International Tourism Promotion, during the event.

In the margins of the event, the person responsible added to Lusa that performance by July reinforces “the importance of connectivity between the two countries” and is “result of Embratur’s trade strategy, adopted with the Brasis Plan for international marketing and promotion.”.

At the event, TAP’s Chairman of the Board of Directors (‘chairman’) reiterated Brazil’s strategic importance, a destination that the company wants to continue to develop, and where it operates in 15 destinations, 10 states exclusively and is a European leader.

Embratur’s CEO praised “the courage many of the ancestors had” when they opened the first air link to Rio de Janeiro.

“It’s a time for us to inspire ourselves in these 60 years [of partnership between TAP and Brazil] and celebrate this in a very assertive and strategic way,” he said.

Bruno Reis also recalled that Brazil managed to “reposition itself in the international market” in 2025.

“ We've hit numbers never before hit in the history of our country. This is also because of our collaboration with TAP. I comment every time TAP doesn't just call 15 cities. It makes a very strategic and specific connection with six biomes in Brazil. It's the only airline that can connect with all our biomes. And that's very strategic. This is very important to help the tourist destinations,” he said.

TAP’s ‘chairman’, Carlos Oliveira, said that in 2025 more than 2.2 million passengers were transported by TAP between the two continents, between Europe and South America, in particular Brazil.

On June 14, Lusa reported that the Brazilian Government was betting on cultural campaigns to attract Portuguese tourists, in a year in which it expects to receive up to 300,000 visitors from Portugal, a new historical maximum, told Lusa official source.

To sustain this growth, the focus now is to strengthen the promotion strategy based on Brazilian culture, especially in music and audiovisual, transforming them into instruments of tourist attraction.

The number of Portuguese tourists in Brazil in 2025 reached 273,483, the highest recorded since 2007 and a growth of more than 25% compared to 2024.

This figure is only exceeded by 280.438 in 2007, according to Embratur.

Brazil received 9.3 million foreign tourists in 2025, a record number and 37.1% higher than 2024.

In addition to significantly surpassing the 6.8 million foreign tourists received in 2024, which were a record, Brazil also managed to far exceed the target (6.9 million) of visitors set for 2025.