Brazilians Abroad Split in Runoff Count
Published Sunday, 25 October 2026, 1:58 p.m. ET · Unofficial press tallies of ballot-box reports
Brazilians living abroad voted first in Sunday’s presidential runoff, and their early count is split: Flávio Bolsonaro leads the overseas total, while Lula leads in more countries. These are press tallies, not official results, and the electoral court publishes its first numbers from 4 p.m. ET.
Key Facts
- —Who Brazilians abroad voted first in the runoff between Lula, Brazil’s president, and Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator.
- —Count At 1:42 p.m. ET the early overseas tally gave Flávio Bolsonaro 45,720 votes to Lula’s 41,101 (52.7%), while Lula led in 30 places to 12.
- —Why Japan supplies 62% of Flávio’s votes; without it, Lula would lead the overseas count.
- —Electorate 918,876 registered voters abroad, about 0.6% of the total, 265,437 of them in the United States.
- —Official numbers The electoral court (TSE) publishes results from 4 p.m. ET; the last US and Canadian polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
- —Prediction markets Polymarket puts Flávio Bolsonaro’s chance of winning at 82% and Kalshi at 81% (Lula: 19% and 20%), as of 25 October, 2:20 pm ET; prices are bets, not polls.
- —Power Index Brazil ranks 1st of 14 in The Rio Times Latin America Power Index, with 75.0 points (October 2026 edition).
Live results
Follow Brazil’s runoff count on our results page
Official TSE numbers, state by state, as soon as the electoral court publishes them from 4 p.m. ET.
Exame, a Brazilian business magazine, adds up the ballot-box reports posted from 42 places abroad. Its running count at 1:42 p.m. ET gave Flávio Bolsonaro, the conservative senator for Rio de Janeiro, 45,720 votes (52.66% of valid votes, which exclude blank and spoiled ballots) and Lula, the left-wing president, 41,101 (47.34%).
The overseas vote is a tiny slice of the runoff results guide explains when and where official numbers arrive.
In Plain English
- Runoff: the second round between the top two candidates, held because nobody won more than half of the valid votes on 4 October.
- Ballot-box report: the results sheet each voting machine prints when its polls close, which news sites add up before any official count.
- TSE: the Superior Electoral Court, Brazil’s election authority, which publishes the official results.
Where Brazilians Voted First
Voting abroad runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time, so Asia and Oceania finish first and Europe follows hours later. Brazilians in the United States and Canada vote last: the final polls in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vancouver close at 9 p.m. in Brasília, which is 8 p.m. ET.
The Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Brazil’s election authority, counts 918,876 registered voters abroad in 186 cities. The United States is the largest bloc with 265,437 (28.9%), followed by Portugal (134,797), Japan (88,366), Canada (46,488) and Germany (41,551).
What the Early Polling-Station Tallies Show
Japan decides the early sum. Metrópoles, a Brasília news site, counts 28,538 votes for Flávio Bolsonaro and 7,098 for Lula there (80.08% to 19.92%), from ballot-box reports posted in Japan.
Japan’s 28,538 votes make up 62% of everything Flávio Bolsonaro has collected abroad so far, Exame calculates. Without Japan, Exame says, Lula would lead the overseas count.
Exame reports Lula ahead in 30 places and Flávio Bolsonaro in 12. Metrópoles reports Flávio ahead in Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines, and Lula ahead in Australia and China; Exame adds Lula ahead in Singapore. Terra also lists Flávio ahead in Israel, Indonesia and South Africa.
In Europe, Exame lists Lula ahead in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Finland. Terra, a Brazilian news portal, gives him 85.06% in Denmark and 78.26% in Sweden, while Flávio Bolsonaro won Greece with 311 votes to 255 (54.95%).
The gap has narrowed as more places reported. Metrópoles’ count at 1:29 p.m. ET, covering 37 countries, gave Flávio Bolsonaro 58.43% of 66,131 valid votes; Exame’s count 13 minutes later, with 86,821 valid votes, gave him 52.66%. Exame also says Malaysia, which Lula won on 4 October, went to Flávio this time.
We could not find reported counts for Portugal, the second-largest overseas bloc, or for the United Kingdom. Germany and France were only partly counted in the tallies we saw.
Why Overseas Votes Are Not a Forecast
Brazilians abroad are about 0.6% of the roughly 158.7 million voters, so even a lopsided overseas result moves the national total very little. The count is also lumpy: one country, Japan, outweighs dozens of smaller ones, and each country leans differently.
The overseas sum can also change quickly while ballot-box reports are still coming in. Treat every figure here as a snapshot of a press tally, not a projection of who wins; see our Who Is Who
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, is Brazil’s president since 2023 and the candidate of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT). Flávio Bolsonaro is a senator for Rio de Janeiro state and the candidate of the conservative Liberal Party (PL); his father, Jair Bolsonaro, was president from 2019 to 2022. Only these two remain in the race after the first round on 4 October. Whoever wins more than half of the valid votes across Brazil becomes president. About 265,000 Brazilians in the United States can vote, the largest overseas group, and their polls close at 8 p.m. ET. Read US and Brazilian stock markets are closed on Sunday, so the first market reaction to the national result comes on Monday 26 October. That day Brazil’s central bank is due to publish its weekly Focus survey, in which economists forecast inflation, interest rates and growth. Overseas tallies are too small to move the real or Brazilian shares, so investors should wait for the electoral court’s count on the What Prediction Markets Say
On Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market, traders put Flávio Bolsonaro’s chance of winning the presidency at 82.5% and Lula’s at 17.5% at 1:40 p.m. ET on Sunday 25 October, with about US$199 million traded. On Kalshi, a prediction market regulated in the US by the CFTC (the Commodity Futures Trading Commission), the prices were 81% and 20%, which add to slightly more than 100% because of the spread between buy and sell prices. These prices are bets, not polls and not results. Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them. Prediction markets · who wins the runoff Implied chance of winning Brazil’s presidency on 25 October, from traders’ prices. Polymarket Flávio Bolsonaro 81.7% · Lula 18.5% (US$199 million traded) Kalshi (regulated in the US by the CFTC) Flávio Bolsonaro 81% · Lula 20% As of 25 October, 2:20 pm ET (18:20 Lisbon), updated every 20 minutes. Prices are bets, not polls, and can move fast. Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them. The figures are news sites’ sums of ballot-box reports, and their totals differ by the time of the count. Nothing here is confirmed by the electoral court, and results from Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States are not in the tallies we found. It is also not known how overseas turnout compares with the first round. The national result comes only after polls in Brazil close at 4 p.m. ET (5 p.m. in Brasília). Flávio Bolsonaro leads the early overseas tally with 52.66% of valid votes, driven by Japan, according to Exame. Lula leads in 30 places to 12, and the count is unofficial. Japan has 88,366 registered voters, and Flávio Bolsonaro won 28,538 votes to 7,098 there. Exame says that is 62% of all his overseas votes, and Lula would lead without Japan. No. Brazilians abroad are about 0.6% of voters and lean differently by country. The national result comes from the electoral court’s count of the vote inside Brazil. The last US and Canadian polls, in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vancouver, close at 9 p.m. in Brasília, which is 8 p.m. ET. About 265,437 Brazilians are registered to vote in the United States. Sources: Exame, who is winning abroad in the runoff, 25 October 2026, Metrópoles, partial overseas vote, 25 October 2026, Terra, overseas results by country, TSE, voters abroad, Polymarket, Brazil Presidential Election. Opened on Sunday 25 October 2026. Figures are unofficial. This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-ChiefWhat It Means for US Readers
What Is Not Known
Frequently Asked Questions
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