Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the presidential candidate for the Liberal Party (PL), holds an early numerical lead over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) in the overseas voting tally for the second round of the Brazilian presidential election on Sunday, October 25, 2026. According to preliminary paper ballot reports released by the Superior Electoral Court (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, or TSE, Brazil’s highest electoral authority), Flávio Bolsonaro accumulated 33,642 votes and secured victories in seven countries by 10:40 a.m. Brasília time. Lula, who is seeking re-election, recorded 15,272 votes and finished first in five nations during the same reporting window.
These initial figures come from physical ballot tallies printed directly from electronic voting machines in 12 countries where time zone differences allowed polling stations to close ahead of South America. Every electronic machine issues a public printed statement of its totals as soon as local voting ends at 5:00 p.m., enabling independent tallies before the central court releases consolidated results. In the early geographical breakdown, Flávio Bolsonaro carried Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. Lula captured the majority of valid votes cast by Brazilian citizens residing in Australia, China, South Korea, and New Zealand.
Breakdown of ballot returns in Asia and Oceania
The wide overall vote margin in favor of Flávio Bolsonaro in the 10:40 a.m. partial count stems largely from Japan, which represents one of the largest electoral colleges for Brazilians living abroad. In the Japanese polling stations tallied by that cutoff, the PL senator captured 28,538 votes, or 80.08% of the valid total, compared to 7,098 votes (19.92%) for Lula. That performance built upon the first round of the 2026 election held earlier in October, when the PL candidate also topped the Japanese polls with 24,601 votes against 5,234 for the PT incumbent.
Additional Asian nations with completed local counts showed split preferences among smaller expatriate communities. In China, Lula won the runoff with 502 votes (65.28%) to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 267 votes (34.72%), expanding on his first-round lead of 367 to 203. South Korea also went to Lula by 148 valid votes (64.35%) to 82 (35.65%), following a 123-to-72 score in the opening round. Conversely, Flávio Bolsonaro edged out the president in Malaysia with 44 votes to 41, won the Philippines with 39 votes against 27, and carried Indonesia by 23 votes (60.53%) to 15 (39.47%).
Across Oceania, the printed machine tallies confirmed solid majorities for the Workers’ Party candidate in both nations with verified counts. In Australia, Lula won the second round with 6,017 votes, representing 63.46% of valid ballots, while Flávio Bolsonaro drew 3,465 votes, or 36.54%. Both contenders saw higher turnout in Australia than in the initial stage of the 2026 race, when Lula collected 4,562 votes and his opponent received 2,579.
New Zealand, which sits 16 hours ahead of Brasília in Wellington and was the first country in the world to close its polling places, also delivered a wide margin for Lula on Sunday (25). The president secured 418 votes (80.54%) there, compared to 101 votes (19.46%) for Flávio Bolsonaro. During the first round of the 2026 vote in New Zealand, Lula had led with 234 ballots to 64 for the PL senator.
Voting patterns from the first round and the 2022 presidential race
The geographic distribution recorded in the closed Asian and Oceanian polling places mirrors the electoral split seen during the 2022 presidential runoff, when Lula faced then-president Jair Bolsonaro. Four years ago, the Japanese expatriate vote ended with 27,640 ballots (83.63%) for Jair Bolsonaro and 5,412 (16.37%) for Lula. In Australia, Lula prevailed in 2022 with 4,321 votes (62.69%) against 2,572 (37.31%), while also taking New Zealand with 389 votes (70.34%) to 164 (29.66%) for his rival.
In the worldwide aggregate of the 2026 first round, Lula finished ahead among overseas voters by winning 64 countries and totaling 157,387 valid votes, or 47.57% of the expatriate electorate. Flávio Bolsonaro placed first in 36 nations during that opening round, gathering 143,900 votes (43.49%). The first-round overseas tally also featured an exact tie in Guinea-Bissau and an overall abstention rate of 62.69% among registered Brazilians living outside their home country.
Electoral rules for expatriates and schedule for official totals
Nearly 1 million Brazilian citizens living abroad—specifically 918,876 registered voters—are eligible to cast ballots solely for president and vice president in this runoff, with polling stations operating across 186 cities in more than 100 countries. This diaspora electorate makes up slightly more than 0.5% of the total national voting roll of over 158 million citizens cleared for the 2026 general election. Nationwide, the electorate comprises more than 136 million citizens subject to mandatory voting rules and just over 22 million people—such as citizens aged 16 and 17 or those over 70—for whom voting is optional.
Under Brazilian electoral law, the TSE only sets up an overseas polling station if a foreign jurisdiction has a minimum of 30 registered Brazilian voters. Because they fell short of that 30-voter threshold, 32 countries held no voting during the first round of 2026: ten in Asia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), two in Europe (Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina), four in the Americas (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, and Saint Lucia), and 16 in Africa (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, the Republic of the Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, Togo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).
Voters and observers tracking the overseas ballot counting process must account for the official benchmarks and times set by the Brazilian electoral court:
- 10:40 a.m. (Brasília time): cutoff for the partial tally of printed machine reports covering 12 countries.
- 5:00 p.m. (Brasília time): close of polling stations across all Brazilian territory and start of the official consolidated results broadcast by the TSE.
- 30 registered voters: minimum legal requirement established by the TSE to open an overseas polling section.
- 186 cities: total number of foreign municipalities hosting active polling places in the second round.
The complete breakdown of the remaining countries that make up the unverified blocks of ballot reports from both the first and second rounds has not yet been confirmed, aside from the audited figures in Asia and Oceania. The TSE will publish the official, consolidated totals from all overseas polling stations on Sunday (25) after 5:00 p.m. Brasília time, immediately following the closure of voting across Brazil.
