Flávio Bolsonaro reportedly left Brazil via Argentina after election defeat, media report

What happened

Former senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost the runoff to incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has left Brazil and is heading to the United States, according to several media outlets. US officials told CNN and Reuters about his departure, as did supporters of the Bolsonaro family in an interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo; Euronews notes that, according to available information, the US State Department is prepared to issue visas to him and his family. According to the Brazilian magazine Metrópoles, the final destination is Miami; he is accompanied on the trip by his wife and two daughters.

Route through Argentina

The Argentine outlet Infobae reportedthat the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro arrived in the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazú in the province of Misiones at 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday, presented his national identity card, and was preparing to continue his journey to the US on a private flight. The aircraft in question is a Gulfstream G400 with registration number LV-JQW, owned by the company Baires Fly SA, which requested customs clearance for four passengers and three crew members; the plane flew from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazú on Monday at 10:20 p.m. Since early Tuesday morning, the politician's allies have been trying to contact him, but without success, reports UOL columnist Letícia Casado.

Verification and denials

Brazil's Federal Police (PF) has been in contact with the Argentine authorities since Tuesday morningto verify whether Bolsonaro left through an Argentine airport. PF sources cited by Metrópolesclaim that he did not pass through any official migration control point in Brazil, but allow for the possibility that he crossed the border without inspection. A police source told AFP that the politician's passports have been annulled and there is no official record of his departure from the country. His campaign coordinator Rogério Marinho told Metrópoles: 'He has not left.' The office of Argentine President Javier Milei told Bloomberg that Bolsonaro did not enter the country. The politician's brother Eduardo, who has lived in the US since 2025 following the Supreme Federal Court verdict in the case over his father's attempts to overturn the results of the 2022 elections, responded ironically to a question about the flight: 'Yes. And Elon Musk launches the rocket.'

Context: passports and reaction to the defeat

Reports of a possible departure emerged hours after Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered all of Bolsonaro's passports, including documents of other citizenships, to be handed over to the federal police. He agreed with his defense to surrender the documents on Tuesday morning, but by evening had not done so — after which the passports were annulled. Bolsonaro himself said on social media on Monday that he was barred from leaving Brazil and had been served with a demand to surrender his passports. Initially, he refused to acknowledge Lula's victory, calling the result 'impossible' to accept and demanding the annulment of the elections, then said he would 'organize the opposition.' US President Donald Trump on Monday called the Brazilian elections 'suspiciously rigged,' without providing evidence. Notably, on Friday, two days before the runoff, Eduardo Bolsonaro publicly advised his brother to leave Brazil in the event of defeat.