Brazil is increasingly becoming a destination for the world’s asylum seekers. Between 2015 and 2024, the country received over 454,000 asylum applications from people of 175 different nationalities. Over 82% came from Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian, and Angolan nationals. The country recorded more than 68,000 new asylum requests in 2024 alone, marking a 16.3% increase compared to the previous year.
With more and more people arriving, it’s important to understand how refugees are – or are not – integrating into the country’s social and economic fabric. While legal recognition has expanded, the lived reality for many refugees remains shaped by precarity, informality, and exclusion.
Brazil’s approach to labour market integration in particular reveals deep contradictions between rights on paper and realities on the ground. This is not unique to refugees, however. This reality is also faced by historically marginalised citizens.
