Scholarships in Brazil for International Students 2026/2027

Brazil offers international students something almost no other large country does: a government programme that places you in a tuition-free undergraduate degree at a public university, and a postgraduate programme that pays a monthly stipend at some of Latin America’s strongest research universities. The two flagship routes are PEC-G (undergraduate) and PEC-PG (postgraduate), both run by Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) with the Ministry of Education (MEC), CAPES and CNPq. Alongside them, CAPES and CNPq research grants fund thousands of master’s and PhD students inside Brazilian graduate programmes every year. But Brazil also demands honesty about two things that glossy “fully funded Brazil” videos skip: PEC-G covers your tuition, not your living costs — you must prove a financial guarantor — and almost all teaching is in Portuguese, with the official Celpe-Bras exam as the gatekeeper. This guide gives you the verified rules for the 2026/2027 cycles: eligibility country lists, the exact stipend values from the official calls, the PEC-PG 2027 calendar published by the MRE, the documents, the application routes, and a realistic plan for the language requirement.

Who is this for? PEC-G is open to citizens of the programme’s participating countries — 74 countries in the current framework, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nigeria — aged roughly 18 to 25 with secondary school completed outside Brazil. A necessary honesty note for two of our core audiences: Nepal and Indonesia do not appear on the PEC-G participating-country list in the 2026/2027 call notice (the Asian list is Bangladesh, China, South Korea, India, Iran, Lebanon, Mongolia, Pakistan, Syria, Thailand and East Timor), and the list can change between calls — so if your country is not listed, check the current notice before planning around PEC-G, and look at the PEC-PG and university routes below and our wider scholarship directory instead. As a Lusophone alternative worth comparing, see our guide to scholarships in Portugal.

Brazil Scholarships at a Glance

The Programmes in Detail

PEC-G: the tuition-free undergraduate route

PEC-G (Programa de Estudantes-Convênio de Graduação) is one of the oldest educational cooperation programmes in the world, run jointly by the MRE and MEC with participating higher education institutions (HEIs) across Brazil. Selected students are admitted to a full undergraduate degree without tuition or admission fees — Brazilian public universities do not charge for regular degree study — in fields across all areas of knowledge. What PEC-G does not do is pay you a stipend: the programme’s own rules require you to show a financial guarantor, and the Brazilian missions publish explicit guidance that PEC-G students must be able to maintain themselves in Brazil. In exchange, you receive free admission to the degree, access to medical, dental and pharmaceutical assistance through the SUS (Brazil’s public health system) on the same basis as Brazilians, and free legalisation or apostille of your diploma by the Brazilian embassy or consulate where you applied. Applications are made through the Brazilian embassy or consulate in your country — there is no direct application to universities for PEC-G. The MRE’s official PEC-G programme page is the starting point for the current rules, participating countries and institutions.

PEC-PLE: solve the Portuguese problem first

Every PEC-G student must prove Portuguese proficiency. The standard proof is the Celpe-Bras, Brazil’s official Portuguese proficiency exam for foreigners, administered by INEP. If there is no way to take Celpe-Bras in your country, you can apply for PEC-PLE alongside PEC-G: you spend your first year in Brazil on a free Portuguese language and Brazilian culture course, obtain your Celpe-Bras certificate, and then start your degree as a PEC-G student. For students from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan or Nigeria — where Portuguese is rarely taught in schools — PEC-PLE or an Instituto Guimarães Rosa (IGR) Portuguese course is usually the realistic pathway, and it should be planned a full year ahead.

PEC-PG: the postgraduate scholarship with a real stipend

PEC-PG (Programa de Estudantes-Convênio de Pós-Graduação) is the funded postgraduate counterpart, coordinated by the MRE with CAPES and CNPq. In the most recent completed call — CAPES Call No. 12/2025, for studies beginning in 2026 — the programme offered 650 scholarships: 200 full master’s (up to 24 months), 100 full doctorates (up to 48 months) and 350 sandwich doctorates (6–10 months of research in Brazil for PhD students enrolled abroad), an investment of about R$41 million. The benefits in that call were a monthly stipend of R$2,100 for master’s and R$3,100 for doctoral students, a health insurance allowance of R$400 per month, and return travel to the home country funded by the MRE. Read the exclusions as carefully as the benefits: PEC-PG does not cover your travel to Brazil, settling-in costs, family or dependent allowances, or any academic/administrative fees an HEI might charge. The PEC-PG 2027 selection process has already been announced on the MRE website: the call notice was released on 29 June 2026, HEIs submit proposals until 13 August 2026, the final list of selected HEIs appears in December 2026, and HEIs select candidates and implement scholarships between March 2027 and March 2028 — with the same stipend values (R$2,100 / R$3,100) published in the official benefits list on the MRE’s PEC-PG selection process page.

CAPES and CNPq grants inside graduate programmes

Separate from the PEC agreements, Brazil’s two big research funders — CAPES (Ministry of Education) and CNPq (Ministry of Science and Technology) — distribute grant quotas to accredited graduate programmes, which then award them competitively to their own full-time students, including foreigners admitted to the programme. The standard monthly values are the same R$2,100 (master’s) and R$3,100 (doctorate) figures, typically for up to 24 and 48 months respectively. State foundations (such as FAPESP in São Paulo) run additional schemes with their own values. This route requires you to win admission to a Brazilian graduate programme first — usually by contacting a prospective supervisor and passing the programme’s own selection — and grant availability depends on the programme’s quota that year, so it is a strong parallel track, never a guaranteed one.

Eligibility: Who Can Apply?

PEC-G requirements (2026/2027 call, for 2027 entry)

• Nationality: citizen of a PEC participating country (74 countries). Brazilian citizens — including dual nationals — are prohibited, as are candidates with a Brazilian parent.
• Age: between 18 and 25 years old.
• Education: secondary school (or equivalent) completed in a country other than Brazil; candidates finishing secondary school by the end of 2026 may apply and present the certificate at enrolment if selected. The selection rules set a minimum overall secondary average of 60%.
• Financial guarantee: a named financial sponsor must promise at least US$300 per month for your maintenance, and must prove a net monthly income at least three times the promised amount. This is assessed at selection — it is a real filter, not paperwork theatre.
• Portuguese proficiency: a Celpe-Bras certificate at Intermediate level or above, or an Intermediate certificate from a Portuguese course in the Instituto Guimarães Rosa network. Candidates schooled in Portuguese throughout secondary education have an alternative route (for example, a Portuguese subject average of at least 65%) — the exact alternatives are defined in the call notice.
• Standing: candidates previously dismissed from the programme, or disqualified for fraud or falsified documents, cannot reapply; selected candidates who fail to enrol without justification are also barred.

PEC-PG requirements

• Citizen of a PEC-PG partner country (developing countries with educational cooperation agreements with Brazil, across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and selected European countries); no Brazilian nationality or dual citizenship.
• A bachelor’s degree for master’s applications; a master’s degree for doctoral applications.
• Portuguese proficiency — programmes are taught in Portuguese.
• Acceptance through the selection of a participating Brazilian HEI under the call’s rules; research with military applications is excluded.
• Application is free of charge.

A note on language that applies to every route in this guide: Brazilian degrees are taught in Portuguese. A small number of graduate programmes offer some coursework or supervision in English, but you should plan on studying, writing and defending in Portuguese. Students who treat this as a detail to fix later are the ones who struggle; students who give Portuguese a year of serious study before departure thrive — and often find that Portuguese plus English becomes a distinctive career asset across Latin America, Africa and Portugal. Shortlist institutions through our university directory and track the moving parts of each application with our planning tools.

Benefits and Real Costs: An Honest Budget Picture

Brazil’s value proposition is unusual: your biggest cost — tuition — is zero at public universities on every route in this guide, but your living costs are your own problem on PEC-G and only partly covered on PEC-PG. The PEC-PG stipend (R$2,100 master’s / R$3,100 doctorate, plus the R$400 health allowance in the CAPES call) is designed to cover a modest student life in most Brazilian university cities, and doctoral stipends go further outside São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. PEC-G students, by contrast, must arrive with the guaranteed US$300/month sponsorship as a floor — and in practice should budget more for capital cities, private Portuguese tuition before departure, flights and the first month’s deposits. The SUS public health system covers PEC students’ medical, dental and pharmaceutical assistance, which removes the private insurance bill that students in many countries must carry.

Programmes and Fields of Study

PEC-G places are offered across all fields of knowledge at dozens of participating HEIs — federal universities such as UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro), UFMG (Minas Gerais), UFBA (Bahia), UFRGS (Rio Grande do Sul) and the University of Brasília, alongside state and private participating institutions. Medicine, dentistry, engineering, agronomy, computer science and Brazilian-law programmes are perennially oversubscribed; the selection committee’s published criteria include trying to place at least one suitable candidate at each offering HEI and at least one candidate per country in oversubscribed courses. For PEC-PG and CAPES/CNPq routes, Brazil’s research strengths include agriculture and tropical medicine (institutions such as Fiocruz are world references), engineering, mathematics, computer science, environmental and Amazon-related sciences, public health, and the social sciences. Graduate programmes are graded by CAPES, and a programme’s grade is a useful public signal of research quality when you are choosing where to apply — check it alongside our rankings pages.

How to Apply, Step by Step

PEC-G

1. Confirm your country is on the current participating list in the official call notice (edital) published by the MRE — lists change between cycles.
2. Start Portuguese immediately. Decide your proficiency route: Celpe-Bras at a test centre, an Instituto Guimarães Rosa course, or PEC-PLE if Celpe-Bras is unavailable in your country.
3. Secure your financial guarantor and their income evidence — at least US$300/month promised, with proven income of at least three times that amount.
4. Apply at the Brazilian embassy or consulate in your country during the selection window, choosing your courses and HEIs as the notice instructs. Pre-selection is conducted by the Brazilian mission; final selection weighs your secondary-school record (including your average relative to other candidates from your country) and your language result.
5. If selected, obtain the student visa through the mission, travel, and complete enrolment (matrícula) at your HEI within the required period — failing to enrol without justification bars you from future calls.
6. Register with the Federal Police on arrival and follow your HEI’s PEC-G student obligations to remain in the programme.

PEC-PG

1. Follow the cycle calendar. For PEC-PG 2027: the call notice was released 29 June 2026; HEIs submit proposals until 13 August 2026; the final HEI list is due in December 2026; HEIs then select candidates and implement scholarships from March 2027 to March 2028. (For comparison, the 2025 call for 2026 entry took candidate applications from 14 August to 29 September 2025 for full degrees, and 1 October to 30 December 2025 for sandwich doctorates.)
2. Identify participating HEIs and programmes from the official lists when they are published, and contact programmes early — acceptance by the HEI is the core of the selection.
3. Prepare your research proposal and documents, including degree certificates and Portuguese proficiency evidence.
4. Apply through the official system indicated in the call (application is free; the MRE directs queries for the 2027 process to CNPq) and follow the HEI’s internal selection steps — some universities run their own internal calls with earlier deadlines.
5. If selected, arrange your own travel to Brazil (not covered), complete visa and enrolment, and note the MRE return-aid rules for the end of your scholarship.

Required Documents

• Passport and recent photographs per the call notice.
• Secondary school certificate and full transcript (PEC-G) — apostilled/legalised as instructed; degree certificates and transcripts for PEC-PG (bachelor’s for master’s, master’s for doctorate).
• Birth certificate and identity documents as listed in the notice.
• Portuguese proficiency evidence: Celpe-Bras certificate, IGR intermediate certificate, or the applicable school-record alternative.
• Financial guarantor’s signed commitment and income proof (PEC-G): at least US$300/month promised, income ≥ 3× the promised amount.
• Research proposal, CV and academic references (PEC-PG and CAPES/CNPq programme routes).
• Health documentation and any certificates required by the specific call and by the student-visa process.

Deadlines and Timeline

The strategic lesson of the table: Brazil rewards people who start a full cycle early. Portuguese proficiency, the guarantor paperwork and embassy pre-selection all have their own calendars that do not compress. If you are reading this in late 2026, your realistic targets are the PEC-G 2027-entry selection (if your embassy window is still open) and the PEC-PG 2027 implementation phase — and your Portuguese study should start this week either way. For a parallel Lusophone plan, read our scholarships in Greece and Mexico guides in the same series, and keep deadlines visible with our deadline tracker tools.

How to Improve Your Chances

• Treat Portuguese as the real scholarship exam. A Celpe-Bras result at Upper Intermediate or Advanced strengthens a PEC-G file measurably (it is an explicit classification criterion) and is decisive for graduate study.
• Maximise your relative average. PEC-G classification compares your secondary average against other candidates from your own country — strong grades in a competitive cohort matter more than raw percentages alone.
• Choose courses strategically. Oversubscribed courses in capital cities are the hardest placements; excellent federal universities in smaller cities offer the same tuition-free degree with better odds.
• Make the guarantor file airtight. Income evidence that cleanly satisfies the 3× rule avoids the most bureaucratic rejection in the PEC-G process.
• For PEC-PG, win the supervisor before the scholarship. A research proposal aligned with a programme’s lines of research, and early contact with the programme, is how HEI selections are actually decided.
• Apply through official channels only. PEC applications are free and run through Brazilian missions and the official call systems; no agent can sell you a place.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Believing PEC-G is “fully funded.” It is tuition-free with self-funded living costs and a mandatory financial guarantor. Budget honestly or do not apply.
• Ignoring the country list. If your country is not a PEC participant in the current call — as Nepal and Indonesia were not in the 2026/2027 PEC-G notice — an application cannot succeed; check the current notice first.
• Leaving Portuguese to the last month. Celpe-Bras has fixed editions; missing one can cost you a full year.
• Forgetting the PEC-PG exclusions. Travel to Brazil, settling-in costs, family allowances and HEI fees are not covered — arrive with a buffer.
• Missing your HEI’s internal deadline. In PEC-PG cycles, universities run internal selections that close before the national steps; the national calendar is not the only calendar.
• Assuming rules from an old call. Values, quotas and dates are re-published per call; the 2025 call’s 650 scholarships do not guarantee the same number next cycle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PEC-G really free?

The degree is: PEC-G students pay no tuition or admission fees at participating Brazilian HEIs, receive SUS public health assistance, and get free legalisation of their final diploma from the Brazilian mission. But PEC-G pays no stipend — you must prove a financial guarantor promising at least US$300 per month (with income at least three times that), and you fund your own flights, housing and living costs. “Tuition-free” is accurate; “fully funded” is not.

How much is the PEC-PG stipend?

R$2,100 per month for a full master’s (up to 24 months) and R$3,100 per month for a doctorate (up to 48 months; also the sandwich doctorate rate). The CAPES Call 12/2025 added a health insurance allowance of R$400 per month, and the MRE provides return-to-origin travel aid subject to budget availability. Travel to Brazil, settling-in costs, family allowances and HEI fees are not covered.

Can I study in Brazil without speaking Portuguese?

For degree study, effectively no — Brazilian degrees are taught in Portuguese, and PEC-G requires Celpe-Bras (Intermediate or above), an Instituto Guimarães Rosa intermediate certificate, or the school-record alternative defined in the call. If you cannot take Celpe-Bras in your country, PEC-PLE gives you a free one-year Portuguese and Brazilian culture course in Brazil before your degree. Start learning Portuguese at least a year before you intend to apply.

Which countries are eligible for PEC-G?

Countries with educational, cultural or scientific-technological cooperation agreements with Brazil — 74 participating countries. The 2026/2027 call notice lists countries across Africa (including Nigeria), Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Oceania (including Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) and Europe. Nepal and Indonesia were not on that notice’s list, and the list can change between calls, so always check the current notice on the MRE website.

How do I apply for PEC-G?

Through the Brazilian embassy or consulate in your country, during the selection window in the official call notice — you do not apply to the university directly. The mission conducts pre-selection; final selection considers your secondary-school average relative to candidates from your country and your Portuguese proficiency evidence. You must be 18–25, have completed secondary school outside Brazil with an overall average of at least 60%, and present the financial guarantee.

What is the PEC-PG 2027 timeline?

The MRE published the PEC-PG 2027 selection process calendar as follows: the call notice was released on 29 June 2026; HEIs submit proposals until 13 August 2026; the final list of selected HEIs is published in December 2026; and HEIs select candidates and implement scholarships between March 2027 and March 2028. Candidate-facing steps run through the participating HEIs, so monitor your target universities’ internal calls as well as the national calendar.

Can I get a CAPES or CNPq grant without PEC-PG?

Yes — CAPES and CNPq distribute grant quotas to accredited graduate programmes, which award them competitively to admitted full-time students, including international students, at the standard values of R$2,100 (master’s) and R$3,100 (doctorate) per month. You must first win admission to the programme, and awards depend on the programme’s quota and ranking of candidates, so this route is competitive and never guaranteed.

Does Brazil charge tuition at public universities?

Brazilian public (federal and state) universities do not charge tuition for regular degree programmes, which is the foundation that makes PEC-G possible. Private universities do charge fees; PEC-G placements follow the participating-HEI list in the call, and PEC-PG’s call explicitly excludes any HEI academic or administrative fees from scholarship coverage.

Sources & Verification

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), Brazil — PEC-G: About the Program (official): programme structure, Celpe-Bras and PEC-PLE, 74 participating countries.
• MRE — PEC-G and PEC-PLE Selection Process Notice 2026/2027 (official PDF): eligibility, 60% minimum average, US$300/month guarantor with 3× income rule, participating-country list, proficiency alternatives.
• MRE — PEC-PG Selection Process (official): PEC-PG 2027 calendar (call 29 June 2026; HEI proposals to 13 August 2026; final HEI list December 2026; implementation March 2027–March 2028) and benefits (R$2,100 master’s / R$3,100 doctorate; SUS access; MRE return aid subject to budget).
• CAPES Call No. 12/2025 (PEC-PG), as announced by Brazilian universities including the Federal University of Santa Catarina: 650 scholarships (200 master’s, 100 full doctorate, 350 sandwich doctorate), stipends R$2,100/R$3,100 plus R$400/month health allowance, and the coverage exclusions.
• Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) — PEC-G programme page: tuition-free admission, SUS medical/dental/pharmaceutical assistance, free diploma legalisation.

Disclaimer: Programme rules, stipend values, quotas and country lists are re-published with each call and change between cycles. StudyGraduate is an independent information portal, not an agency and not affiliated with the MRE, MEC, CAPES or CNPq. We never promise selection, admission or visa approval — always confirm the current call notice, deadlines and requirements on the official gov.br websites and with the Brazilian embassy or consulate in your country before you apply, and never pay anyone who guarantees you a scholarship.