How to Look Up Legal Cases in Brazil

How to look up legal cases and court records in Brazil

Trying to find out whether a lawsuit exists in Brazil — against a person, a company, or yourself — is harder than it should be, mostly because Brazil never built a single national “search all cases” website. Once you understand how the system is organized, though, it becomes manageable. This guide explains, in plain English, how Brazilian court records are structured, where to search, what a private tool like JusBrasil can and cannot do, and how to properly confirm whether someone is being sued.

Three things are worth knowing before you start:

  • Almost every case has one standardized number. Since 2010, cases carry a 20-digit “unified number” that itself tells you the branch of justice, the year, and the exact court — so the number is a map.
  • There is no single national portal. Each court runs its own electronic system, so you search court by court.
  • Basic case data is public and free — but full documents, some name searches, and sealed cases are restricted.

Reviewed by Luciano Oliveira, Esq., LL.M — licensed in Brazil, Texas, and California. Last reviewed July 2026.

This page is general information about looking up court records and litigation in Brazil. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Every dispute is different, and only a formal consultation with a lawyer licensed in Brazil, reviewing your specific facts, can tell you how the law applies to your situation.

First, decode the Brazilian case number

Every Brazilian court case filed since 2010 carries a single standardized number set by the National Council of Justice (CNJ). It looks like this:

NNNNNNN-DD.AAAA.J.TR.OOOO

Each block means something, which is what makes it so useful — the number tells you where the case lives:

  • NNNNNNN — the sequential case number (restarts each year).
  • DD — two check digits (so a portal can tell if you mistyped it).
  • AAAA — the year the case was filed.
  • J — the branch of justice (a single digit; see below).
  • TR — the specific court or region within that branch.
  • OOOO — the originating unit (the first-instance court); 0000 means the case started at the tribunal itself.

The J digit is the fastest way to know what kind of case you are dealing with: 1 = Supreme Federal Court (STF) · 3 = Superior Court of Justice (STJ) · 4 = Federal Justice · 5 = Labor Justice · 6 = Electoral Justice · 8 = State Justice · 9 = State Military Justice.

Worked example — 2050728-79.2021.8.26.0000: filed in 2021, in the State justice branch (8), at the São Paulo State Court (26), as a case of the tribunal’s own competence (0000). Once you can read the number, you know exactly which portal to open.

Where cases live — Brazil’s four court systems

“Consulta processual” simply means “case lookup.” The catch is that Brazil runs several different electronic case systems, and which one you use depends on the court:

  • PJe (Processo Judicial Eletrônico) — used across the labor courts, the electoral courts, several superior courts, and many state and federal courts.
  • e-SAJ — used by São Paulo’s state court and several other states.
  • Projudi — used by some state courts (for example, Paraná).
  • eproc — built by the Federal 4th Region and now adopted by a growing family of courts, including São Paulo’s state court in an ongoing migration.

Two practical realities: the portals are in Portuguese, and while basic lookup is free and needs no login, seeing full documents usually requires a Brazilian digital certificate or a gov.br login that non-residents rarely have.

Search by the right court

Because there is no unified search, you have to know which branch holds the case, then use that branch’s portal:

  • State courts (Justiça Estadual) — most everyday disputes: civil, consumer, family, criminal. Each of the 27 states runs its own portal.
  • Federal courts (Justiça Federal) — cases involving the federal government, federal agencies, or federal crimes, across six regional tribunals.
  • Labor courts (Justiça do Trabalho) — employment disputes, all on PJe, with a unified labor case lookup and a separate labor-debt certificate.
  • Superior courts — the STF and STJ each publish their own public case-lookup portals for appeals that reach them.
  • Electoral courts — a single unified electoral case portal covers all three levels.

The official portals. Since December 2024, Brazil has a single national gateway, Jus.br, which lets you run a unified case search across the country’s courts with one gov.br login. Most courts also keep their own free public search — the national PJe (Processo Judicial Eletrônico) navigator, and state portals such as São Paulo’s e-SAJ. All are in Portuguese and organized court by court, which is where most foreigners get stuck.

Can you search by name, or only by case number?

This is where foreigners get tripped up. Brazil’s public-access rules (CNJ Resolution 121/2010) say basic case data — including the parties’ and lawyers’ names — is public, and that ordinary civil portals should let you search by case number, party name, CPF/CNPJ, lawyer name, or OAB number. In practice, on most state civil portals you can search by a person’s or company’s name or tax ID.

But there are real limits:

  • Labor courts only let the public search by case number or lawyer/OAB — not by party name or CPF.
  • Resolved criminal cases collapse to case-number-only search once they have concluded (an anti-stigma rule).
  • Decision and jurisprudence databases generally block searching by a party’s name.

So a clean “search this person everywhere by name” simply is not available through the official portals. That gap is exactly why private aggregators exist.

Private aggregators like JusBrasil — a useful shortcut, not the last word

The tool most people find first is JusBrasil (jusbrasil.com.br). It is worth understanding what it is and what it is not.

JusBrasil is a private company — not a court and not an official source. What it does is reproduce and organize public information pulled from many tribunals and the official gazettes into one searchable place, and — unlike most official portals — it lets you search by a person’s name or CPF/CNPJ, not just by a case number. For a foreigner facing 27 state systems plus the federal, labor, and superior courts, that single name search is genuinely the most useful starting point available.

Use it, but use it with clear eyes:

  • Coverage is not guaranteed or complete. JusBrasil only shows what it has managed to index. If it finds a case, that is a real lead. If it finds nothing, that is not proof that no case exists — plenty of records never make it into the platform.
  • Name and CPF search sit behind a paid plan. Searching by case number is free; searching by a person’s name or tax ID generally requires a subscription.
  • Data can lag, and names can collide. Records may be out of date, and common names produce false matches.
  • People can have their data removed. Under Brazil’s data-protection law, individuals can request that JusBrasil de-identify or take down their information — so a real case may simply be hidden there.
  • It is not authoritative. For anything that matters — a transaction, a dispute, a due-diligence decision — treat JusBrasil as a lead, then confirm on the official court portal and pull an official certificate.

The right way to think about it: JusBrasil helps you find a case number and the court; the official system is what lets you trust the result.

Need to find or check a case in Brazil? We can help.

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What you cannot see — sealed cases and privacy limits

Some cases are simply closed to the public (“segredo de justiça”). By law, that includes family matters (marriage, divorce, custody, support), cases involving children and adolescents, matters touching constitutionally protected privacy, and certain confidential proceedings. Only the parties, their lawyers, and specific officials can see those. Brazil’s data-protection law also restricts mass, bulk, or automated name-sweeping across the courts. In other words, the public tools are for looking up specific cases — not for compiling a dossier on a person.

The proper way to check “is this person or company being sued?”

If your real question is due diligence — before a deal, a partnership, a rental, or a lawsuit — the authoritative instrument is not a portal search but an official certidão (a court-issued certificate). The main ones:

  • State distribution certificate (certidão de distribuição) — issued by each state court, listing civil and criminal cases filed against a person or company in that state. Because it is per-state, thorough due diligence may mean requesting it in more than one state.
  • Federal certificate — the federal justice system issues a unified distribution certificate covering the federal regions (a couple of regions still issue their own separately).
  • Labor debt certificate (CNDT) — issued instantly by the labor courts; it shows whether a person or company is registered as owing an enforceable labor debt.
  • Criminal record certificate — Brazil is rolling out a national criminal certificate; until that is fully in place, state-level criminal certificates still apply.

These certificates — not a JusBrasil screenshot — are what banks, counterparties, and courts actually rely on.

Why this is hard for a foreigner — and how we help

Put it together and the difficulty is obvious: no single search, several incompatible systems, 27 state portals plus federal, labor, and superior courts, Portuguese-only interfaces, digital-certificate walls, name-search restrictions, and privacy rules that block bulk lookups. Doing it right means knowing which courts to check, reading the results correctly, and pulling the official certificates that actually count.

That is what our firm does. We locate cases across the Brazilian court systems, retrieve and translate the records, run proper due diligence on a person or company, and obtain the official certidões — and, when a case turns out to matter, we can act on it. If you need to know what is really on file in Brazil, we can get you a reliable answer.

Related: Litigation & Dispute Resolution in Brazil · Business Litigation · How Long Lawsuits Last in Brazil.

Need to look up a case in Brazil? We can help.

Schedule a Consultation

Or write to [email protected]

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Found a case, or worried one is coming? Here is what to do next:

Frequently asked questions

Are court cases in Brazil public record?

Most are. Basic case information is public and free, and you can view it without an account. The exceptions are sealed cases (segredo de justiça) — family matters, cases involving minors, and other protected proceedings — which only the parties and their lawyers can access.

Can I look someone up by name?

Sometimes. Ordinary civil portals in most states let you search by name or CPF/CNPJ. But labor courts allow only case-number or lawyer searches, concluded criminal cases limit search to the case number, and privacy law blocks bulk name-sweeping. Private tools like JusBrasil offer name search (behind a paid plan), but their coverage is not complete.

How do I read a Brazilian case number?

The 20-digit number is a map: it encodes the year the case was filed, the branch of justice, and the specific court. Once you can read it, you know which portal to open.

How do I find the case number if I do not have one?

Start with a name search on a state civil portal (where allowed) or a private aggregator like JusBrasil to surface a candidate case number, then verify it on the official court portal. If that fails, an official distribution certificate will reveal cases filed against a person or company.

Can I check whether a company is being sued?

Yes — the reliable method is to request distribution certificates (state and federal) plus the labor debt certificate (CNDT) for the company’s CNPJ. That is stronger and more defensible than a portal or JusBrasil search alone.

Is JusBrasil official or reliable?

It is a helpful private aggregator, not an official source. If it finds a case, that is a real lead; if it finds nothing, that does not prove no case exists. Always confirm anything important against the official court record.

What if I do not speak Portuguese?

Every official portal is in Portuguese, and some require a Brazilian digital certificate. If you cannot navigate them — or you need results you can rely on — we can search, retrieve, translate, and certify the records for you.

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