His son, Chico Buarque de Holanda is an accomplished singer-songwriter and novelist and his daughter Miúcha was also a famous singer.

He returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1927 and started to work as a columnist of the Jornal do Brasil and as an employee of the United Press Agency.

In 1936, back in Brazil, he worked at the Universidade do Distrito Federal[3] as assistant-teacher to Henri Hauser in the chair of contemporary and modern history.

In 1939, when the Universidade do Distrito Federal was closed, Sergio Buarque de Holanda was invited by Augusto Meyer to be the director of the publishing sector of the Instituto Nacional do Livro [pt].

He traveled to Paris for three academic conferences at the Sorbonne, in 1949 and, in 1952, Buarque de Holanda moved with his family to Italy, where he stayed for two years as visiting professor in the Brazilian Studies Department of University of Rome.

He occupied in 1958, the chair of History of the Brazilian Civilization in the Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas of University of São Paulo (USP), with the thesis Visão do Paraíso – os motivos edênicos no descobrimento e na colonização do Brasil.

From 1963 to 1967, he traveled as visiting professor to universities in Chile and the United States and participated in cultural missions in association with Unesco in Peru and Costa Rica.