Reports say Flávio Bolsonaro is heading to the United States after election defeat

Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly left Brazil for the United States after his defeat in Sunday’s presidential election, although Brazilian authorities have not confirmed that he has departed, Euronews reports. The account says US officials confirmed the move to CNN and Reuters, while allies of the Bolsonaro family confirmed it to Folha de São Paulo. The US State Department has reportedly said it would issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family.

Euronews says he was expected to arrive in the United States within hours and that Brazilian outlet Metrópoles identified Miami as his destination. He was reportedly travelling with his wife and two daughters. The report also describes conflicting information about his route and whereabouts.

Infobae reported that Bolsonaro had arrived in Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, early Tuesday using his national identity card and was preparing to continue to the United States on a private flight. According to that account, the aircraft was a Gulfstream G400 operated by Baires Fly SA. It had requested clearance for four passengers and three crew, after leaving Buenos Aires for Puerto Iguazú on Monday night.

Those reports were challenged by other sources. A police source told AFP that Bolsonaro’s passports had been “cancelled” after Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him to surrender them, but also said there was “no formal record” of him leaving Brazil. Bolsonaro’s general campaign coordinator, Rogério Marinho, denied that he had left Brazil.

Argentina’s government also rejected the claims. Euronews said it had contacted Brazil’s Federal Police for comment. The passport dispute follows Bolsonaro’s failure to hand over the documents by Tuesday afternoon, despite an agreement with his legal team to comply with the order that morning.

In a social-media video, he said he had been barred from leaving Brazil and served with a notice to surrender his passports. The reports place the uncertainty against the aftermath of the election, which was won by leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. NPR said Bolsonaro’s opposition party accepted Lula’s victory, but that Flávio Bolsonaro had not conceded.

Bolsonaro initially rejected Lula’s victory as impossible to acknowledge and said the election should have been annulled. He later said he would organise the opposition. US President Donald Trump separately called the vote “rigged” without providing evidence, saying it looked bad and that elections should be indisputable.

Euronews also notes that Bolsonaro’s brother Eduardo has lived in the United States since 2025 after Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court sentenced him to prison for coercion in a case involving his father’s attempts to overturn the 2022 election. The current reports leave Flávio Bolsonaro’s precise location unresolved.