CPF, Documents & Legalization in Brazil for Foreigners

The CPF — Brazil's individual taxpayer number — is the key that opens everything: property purchases, bank accounts, phone plans, utility contracts, even some online purchases. Foreigners can obtain one without residence, and non-residents routinely need one before any transaction. It's also where errors are cheapest to make and most expensive to discover, because a CPF registered with a mistranscribed name will quietly poison every registry entry built on it later.

Above the CPF sits the legalization layer. Brazil joined the Hague Apostille Convention in 2016, which simplified things — foreign public documents need an apostille from the issuing country, then a sworn translation (tradução juramentada) by a Brazil-certified translator. Not a notarized translation, not a certified translation from your country: a Brazilian sworn translator. Using the wrong kind is the single most common reason files bounce.

We run this layer as a service: obtaining CPFs (including by power of attorney for non-residents), coordinating apostilles in your country, commissioning sworn translations, pulling Brazilian certificates (birth, marriage, property, corporate, criminal) from the registries that hold them, and fixing the name-divergence problems that international lives accumulate — the maiden name on one document, the missing middle name on another — through administrative or judicial rectification.

What We Handle

Inside this practice area.

01 CPF for non-residents Obtaining, reactivating, or correcting CPF registrations — in person or by power of attorney.

02 Apostille coordination Which documents need apostilles, where to get them in your country, and verification before couriering.

03 Sworn translations Brazil-certified tradução juramentada, commissioned and quality-checked for registry acceptance.

04 Brazilian certificates Birth, marriage, property (matrícula), corporate, and criminal certificates pulled from any Brazilian registry.

05 Name & record rectification Fixing divergent names and registry errors that block transactions — administratively where possible.

06 Powers of attorney Drafting POAs that Brazilian notaries and registries accept, with consular or apostille execution paths.

Process

How a typical engagement runs.

1

Document audit

Against your goal (purchase, marriage, visa…), exactly which documents you need, in which form, from which country.

Day 1-3

2

Sourcing

Apostilles run in your country, certificates pulled in Brazil, translations commissioned — in parallel.

2-5 weeks

3

Verification

Every document checked against the receiving registry's requirements before it's submitted anywhere.

Before filing

4

Delivery & filing

The complete, accepted package — used in your transaction or handed to you for whatever comes next.

Done once, done right

Common Questions

Documents & CPF questions we hear most.

Can I get a CPF without coming to Brazil?

Yes — through Brazilian consulates abroad or by power of attorney to someone in Brazil (us, for instance). Non-resident CPFs are routine for property buyers and investors. The critical part is getting the name registered exactly as your passport shows it.

My country isn't in the Apostille Convention. Now what?

Then your documents take the older consular-legalization route: certification in your country, then legalization by the Brazilian consulate there, then sworn translation in Brazil. Slower and fussier, but well-trodden — we map the exact chain for your country.

Why was my translation rejected when it was certified?

Because Brazil only accepts translations by tradutores juramentados — translators certified by Brazilian state boards of trade. A certified translation from your home country, however good, doesn't qualify. It's an arbitrary-feeling rule that costs people weeks; now you know it in advance.

The document layer of Brazilian life, handled.