The criminal record certificate (certidão de antecedentes criminais) is issued by the Federal Police and by the state Civil Police forces, and you can request it yourself. Antecedentes Criminais Brasil is a private service, not a government agency: we explain the route and help when it gets complicated, with the Hague apostille, sworn translation and issuance for people living abroad.
Quick answer
To check your own criminal record, the route is to request the Federal Police certificate online or to check the corresponding state service. The PF issues a "nada consta" ("nothing on record") certificate, not a full file. To look up someone else's criminal file by CPF (Brazilian taxpayer number), no official public service for that purpose was found.
Summary table
| What you want | What to do | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Check your own federal record | Request the criminal record certificate | Federal Police portal on gov.br | Free issuance by the agency |
| Check state records | Identify the certificate or attestation required | Civil Police or the competent state court | Information not found in the official content consulted; confirm with the responsible agency |
| Find out what "folha corrida" is | Identify which certificate was requested | The issuing agency named by whoever requires the document | Depends on the document; PF is free |
| Verify a PF certificate already issued | Use validation, do not request another search | Federal Police validation service | Confirm on the agency portal |
| Look up another person's file by CPF | Do not assume a public search exists; ask the person for the relevant document | No general official CPF service found | No search cost to report |
| Get private help with the request | Ask for a case review | Antecedentes Criminais Brasil | Assisted issuance from R$ 30 |
Checking your own situation
When the question is "how do I check my criminal record?", the first step is to define which document you really need. For the federal check for civil purposes, the procedure the Federal Police describes is issuing a criminal record certificate. That means checking, in this context, is not logging into a database and viewing every entry: it is requesting the document that the PF makes available through its own service.
You can reach it through the service Emitir Certidão de Antecedentes Criminais (Issue Criminal Record Certificate) on gov.br. Federal issuance is free and, when the system manages to complete the request normally, service is immediate. The certificate issued by the PF is valid for 90 days. That period corresponds to the federal document as described by the agency; it should not be automatically attributed to any state certificate or court certificate.
How to check through the Federal Police
If your goal is to present your own situation, use the following sequence as a reference:
- Confirm that the federal certificate is the one requested. If whoever will receive the document mentioned the Civil Police, a court of justice or the Federal Courts, check that requirement before starting the request.
- Open the PF issuance service on gov.br. This is the route to request your own federal certificate, without hiring an intermediary.
- Follow the portal's instructions and watch the system's response. The service issues a "nada consta" certificate, but may generate a protocol number in specific situations.
- If the certificate is issued, check the document and whether validation is needed. Issuing and validating are different operations, explained further below.
- If you receive a protocol number, follow the PF's guidance to continue the service. Do not replace this step with another search on the internet.
For an explanation focused on the document, read the Brazilian criminal record certificate. For the request procedure itself, see how to get a Brazilian criminal record certificate. The aim here is to distinguish checking your own record, attempting to check third parties, and verifying a document already presented.
What does "nada consta" mean on the federal certificate?
On the PF online service, the documentary result available is the "nada consta" certificate. The agency explains that a "consta" ("something on record") certificate is not issued on this service: that information depends on in-person confirmation with the Federal Police, especially because of people with the same name (homonyms). So failure to get online issuance should not be turned, on your own, into a conclusion about a person.
The federal certificate for civil purposes should also not be confused with a full history of investigations or cases. The information the PF considers in this document follows art. 6 of Law 12.037/2009, which prevents mentioning the criminal identification of a person under investigation in criminal record certificates or in information not intended for the criminal court before the conviction becomes final (trânsito em julgado). As a result, the PF certificate for civil purposes considers convictions that became final, in the terms explained by the service itself.
A protocol number appeared: what changes?
The PF reports that, in cases of a homonym or a CPF mismatch with the Federal Revenue database, the system may generate a protocol number. That protocol must be taken by the citizen, or by an attorney-in-fact (procurador), to a decentralized unit of the Federal Police. After this stage, the certificate can take up to 15 days to be ready, according to the service's guidance.
Does the federal certificate replace state documents?
Not necessarily. The PF itself reports that the SINIC (National Criminal Information System), the system used for federal records, receives Individual Criminal Reports and necessarily includes information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the PF and the Federal Courts. However, data from the State Courts and the Civil Police are incorporated only partially, according to existing agreements; that coverage does not correspond to all the information held by those bodies.
For that reason, you may need to request documents from different agencies, including each federative entity relevant to the requirement you received. Do not conclude that a federal certificate covers all state records, or that a state certificate is automatically equivalent to the federal one. The name of the document and the issuing agency must match what was actually requested.
As for state court certificates of criminal distribution and criminal execution, no single national rule was found standardizing all services. Each court of justice defines its own. One documented example is the Santa Catarina Court of Justice: there, the criminal certificate can be requested online and received by email, at no cost, according to the court's own information. This is a state example, not a rule that extends to all states.
"Ficha criminal", "folha corrida" and certificate: are they the same?
The expressions appear together in questions from people who want to check criminal records, but it is important not to treat all the documents as interchangeable. "Folha corrida" ("running sheet") is a popular name for the criminal record certificate, according to the Santa Catarina Court of Justice. So someone asking where to get a folha corrida online may in practice be looking for the certificate required by a company or another institution.
"Ficha criminal" ("criminal file"), on the other hand, is an expression used in questions such as "pull a criminal file", "criminal file online" and "criminal file by CPF". On its own, this expression does not identify a specific public service or define which agency would have to issue the document. To guide the request correctly, you need to translate the informal expression into a concrete demand: a PF certificate, a Civil Police certificate or a court certificate, as the case may be.
Folha corrida online: which document should you ask for?
If you are starting with the meaning of the terms, see what antecedentes criminais means. If you have already been asked to present a certificate, go back to the name of the agency indicated in the request before choosing where to issue it.
A police certificate and a criminal court certificate are different
The criminal record certificate issued by the Federal Police is not the same document as the federal court criminal certificate (certidão criminal da Justiça Federal). CJF Resolution No. 680/2020 describes the federal criminal court certificate as a document that reports pending cases in the criminal classes and archived cases with a conviction that became final, until the sentence is recorded as served or extinguished.
The same rule sets out an important distinction: the criminal court certificate will only be positive when there is a conviction that became final in a case of a class listed in Annex II. So it is not correct to assume that the mere mention of a pending case makes the court certificate positive under this rule. This precision helps avoid improper readings of legal terms.
Can you check another person's file by CPF?
No official service was found for checking another person's "ficha criminal" by CPF. This records the limits of the official content examined and does not state that no public search exists at any agency.
It is essential to distinguish issuing your own certificate from trying to obtain information about third parties. The federal service cited in this guide explains how a person requests their own criminal record document. It should not be presented as a tool for typing in the CPF of a neighbor, candidate, tenant or anyone else and accessing a complete criminal file.
Why is a certificate not the same as a full file?
Article 6 of Law 12.037/2009 prevents the criminal identification of a person under investigation from appearing in criminal record certificates or in information not intended for the criminal court before a conviction becomes final. This limits the content disclosed in certificates for civil purposes, regardless of the wishes of whoever is trying to run a check.
Article 202 of the Penal Execution Law (Lei de Execução Penal) adds another protection: once the sentence is served or extinguished, news or references to the conviction must not appear in the folha corrida, attestations or certificates supplied by a police authority or by auxiliaries of the Courts, except in the situations set out in the law itself, such as the investigation of a case about a new criminal offense.
Article 748 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that prior convictions must not be mentioned on the record sheet of a rehabilitated person or in a certificate taken from the court's books, except when requested by a criminal judge. These are rules with their own hypotheses and limits. They should not be reduced to the idea that any interested party can reconstruct a criminal history from a CPF.
I am an employer, a landlord, or I need to verify someone's information. What should I do?
If the need is documentary, ask the person themselves for the certificate or attestation relevant to the stated purpose, instead of looking for a generic tool to "pull a criminal file by CPF". Clarify which document you are requesting: federal, state or court, without assuming that all three contain exactly the same information.
Checking is not validating
Checking criminal records, in the sense of your own federal situation, means requesting issuance of a certificate. Validating criminal records means verifying a document that has already been issued. The difference matters for anyone who received a file and wants to know whether it corresponds to a certificate issued by the agency named. In that case, repeating an issuance request is not the same operation as verifying the certificate presented.
The Federal Police provides a validation service for the criminal record certificate issued by the PF itself. For that reason, before looking for a validation page, identify the issuer of the document. A state certificate should not be automatically treated as a federal certificate just because both mention criminal records.
I received a PF certificate: what is the next step?
If you already have the federal document, the goal becomes verifying its validity on the proper service. For guidance focused on that task, see how to verify a Brazilian criminal record certificate. Validation answers the question about the issued document, not the question "what facts exist in a particular person's file?".
There are also state services for this purpose. In São Paulo, for example, validation of the Civil Police criminal record certificate checks the authenticity of the information and has no fee for the citizen, according to the description of the state service. This specific fact should not be projected onto all states: the agency that issued the certificate is the starting point for identifying the applicable procedure.
What to ask for if you need to prove criminal records (employer or institution)
People who receive documents from candidates, service providers or others often run into different names for similar requests: "folha corrida", "ficha criminal", "nada consta" or "criminal record certificate". The first step is to make clear which document will be accepted as proof, naming the issuing agency and the intended scope. Informal language does not clarify that on its own.
Can any company require criminal records for any job?
In the official content consulted for this guide, no general rule was found making the presentation of criminal records mandatory for every job. That finding should not be turned into an absolute authorization or prohibition for all situations. If there is a specific requirement, you need to identify its basis and the document actually requested, without generalizing.
The same care applies to declarations of your own. No rule was found obliging every institution to accept a personal declaration in place of the certificate or attestation. So it is not appropriate to state that a declaration is enough in every context. Ask the institution which document it requires and check the portal of the agency responsible for issuance.
Is a federal document enough for every institution?
If the requirement mentions a state certificate, ask for clarification about the state and the agency. If it mentions the Federal Courts, consider the type of court certificate involved. If it only mentions "folha corrida", ask for the intended document to be identified before issuance. This care avoids treating close terms as if they were equivalent documents.
And if I need to present the certificate abroad?
You can request the Brazilian certificate directly from the issuing agency. When the request involves use abroad, additional needs may arise for a Hague apostille or sworn translation. The actual need for each stage and the acceptance of the document must be confirmed with whoever will receive it; there is no general guarantee of acceptance by any institution or consulate.
Antecedentes Criminais Brasil offers private support with assisted issuance from R$ 30, Hague apostille from R$ 95 and sworn translation from R$ 110 per page. Notary office fees and shipping are charged separately. These amounts are not Federal Police issuance fees, whose certificate service is free. Public services and private assistance are different in nature.
If your request is pending, or you need to organize documentation for presentation outside Brazil, leave your contact. We review the case and tell you the time and price before any payment, without promising the outcome of any review by public bodies or receiving institutions.
Sources
- Federal Police, Emitir Certidão de Antecedentes Criminais.
- Penal Execution Law, Law No. 7,210/1984, art. 202.
- Code of Criminal Procedure, Decree-Law No. 3,689/1941, art. 748.
- Santa Catarina Court of Justice, folha corrida and criminal record certificate.
Will you use the certificate abroad, or did your request get stuck? Leave your contact and we will review your case and tell you the time and price before any payment. We are a private service, not a government body; issuance and decisions about the documents are up to the competent agencies.