Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure (Código de Processo Civil): A Comprehensive Guide To Process Serving in Brazil

This guide explains how the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure (Código de Processo Civil — CPC, Lei nº 13.105 of 16 March 2015) governs service of process in the Federative Republic of Brazil, and how documents are served into Brazil from abroad. Two frameworks apply, and they fit together cleanly because Brazil is a civil-law jurisdiction with a single unified national procedural code: the CPC governs how service works inside Brazil, and the Hague Service Convention governs how a U.S. plaintiff (or any other foreign sender from a Convention party) reaches a Brazilian defendant from abroad. The two are connected through Brazil’s auxílio direto framework — the direct-assistance channel under CPC Articles 28-34 that lets foreign Convention requests flow through the Brazilian federal-court system without the STJ (Superior Tribunal de Justiça) exequatur that traditional letters rogatory require.

Brazil acceded to the Hague Service Convention on 29 November 2018, with entry into force on 1 June 2019 — the newest accession in this guide’s country series by a substantial margin. The designated Central Authority is the Department of Assets Recovery and International Legal Cooperation (DRCI), within the National Secretariat of Justice of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública), in Brasília. Read together, Brazil’s filed declarations make this the most restrictive inbound posture in this guide’s country series — fully-closed Article 8, blanket-closed Article 10, formal Article 5(3) Portuguese-translation reservation — and the Article 5 Central-Authority channel through the DRCI is the only inbound route producing recognized service.

What the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure Is

The Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure — Código de Processo Civil, often called the Novo CPC (“New CPC”) — is the single unified national statute governing civil litigation in the Federative Republic of Brazil. It was enacted as Lei nº 13.105 on 16 March 2015 and has been in application since March 2016, replacing the prior Code of Civil Procedure (Lei nº 5.869 of 11 January 1973). The 2015 Code has been amended repeatedly since enactment; the most operationally important amendment for service of process is Lei nº 14.195 of 26 August 2021, which restructured Article 246 to make electronic service (citação por meio eletrônico) the priority modality for most cases.

Brazil is a federation politically — twenty-six states plus the Federal District — but unitary at the procedural-law level. There is one national Civil Procedure Code that applies to civil litigation throughout the country. The states have their own judicial organization laws and operate their own state-court systems, but the procedural rules governing how civil cases are conducted, including how service of process is effected, come from the federal CPC. This distinguishes Brazil from federated common-law jurisdictions like Australia, where civil procedure is distributed across the federal level and eight state and territorial rule-sets, and aligns Brazil with the civil-law unitary-code tradition (Norway, Portugal, Ukraine, and Korea in this guide’s series).

Brazil’s civil-procedure tradition has a specific lineage. The Brazilian legal system descends from the Portuguese civil-law tradition (the Roman-canonical strand of continental European law), with significant German influence on the 20th-century codifications that preceded the 2015 reform. The result is a civil-law system in the strong sense — codified procedural rules, an inquisitorial-leaning court role at the trial level, and a multi-tier judicial structure that distinguishes federal jurisdiction (Justiça Federal de 1ª instância → Regional Federal Courts, or Tribunais Regionais Federais → Superior Tribunal de Justiça for federal/civil matters and Supremo Tribunal Federal for constitutional matters) from state jurisdiction (Justiça Estadual, each state’s own court system).

The Brazilian term for formal service of initial process is citação (literally, “summoning”) — the act by which a defendant is summoned to respond to a civil claim. Citação is the foundational concept under CPC Article 238 and following; the entire framework of how a Brazilian court establishes jurisdiction over a defendant and brings them into the proceeding runs through citação. Subsequent notifications during the case are intimação; pre-litigation or out-of-proceeding notice is notificação. These three terms — citação, intimação, notificação — form the operative service taxonomy under the CPC.

For service of judicial documents originating in the United States or another foreign Hague party, the Hague Service Convention governs (see below). For service across the border between Brazil and another Convention party, Brazilian procedure routes the request through a distinctive mechanism: auxílio direto — direct assistance — under CPC Articles 26 through 41, with Articles 28-34 specifically structuring the direct-assistance channel that Hague Service Convention requests use. Auxílio direto is the operational substance that makes the Article 5 Central-Authority route work in Brazil; it is also the framework that explains why Brazil acceded to the Hague Service Convention in 2018, having operated for decades on the slower carta rogatória (letter rogatory) channel that required STJ exequatur (a Superior Tribunal de Justiça preliminary-approval step) under the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Article 105(I)(i). The Hague Convention plus auxílio direto bypass that exequatur step for treaty-based cooperation.

This guide describes the CPC at framework level. It does not pin per-section verbatim text in the Code or in the Constitution; pre-AXIOM-era references that purported to do so were not primary-source-verified, and the framework-level identification of the Code, the service taxonomy, the auxílio direto channel, and the federal-court execution layer is sufficient for explaining how service into Brazil actually works.

How Service Works Under the CPC: Citação, Intimação, Notificação

Once a civil case is filed before a Brazilian court, the court arranges service — citação for initial process, intimação for subsequent in-case notifications — under the Code of Civil Procedure and related rules. The court is the actor responsible for getting documents into the defendant’s hands, recording the act, and filing the return of service into the case file. The plaintiff initiates the case; the court drives service.

At category level, the CPC recognizes the following modalities of citação:

• Citação por meio eletrônico — electronic service. Following the amendment of Article 246 by Lei nº 14.195 of 2021, electronic service is the priority modality for most cases. Brazilian companies, government entities, and registered legal-person defendants are required to maintain electronic-service addresses in the court system’s electronic infrastructure.
• Citação pelo correio — postal service by the Brazilian court. The court itself sends the document through Brazilian domestic postal channels (typically with delivery acknowledgement) to the defendant’s address. This is a domestic-Brazilian-court mechanism for the Brazilian court’s own cases; it is NOT the same thing as Article 10(a) of the Hague Service Convention, which addresses postal service from abroad directly to a Brazilian recipient by a foreign plaintiff. Brazil closes the Article 10(a) inbound channel from abroad; that closure does not affect the Brazilian court’s domestic use of postal channels when it is moving its own case forward.
• Citação por oficial de justiça — personal service by a judicial officer (oficial de justiça). The court’s own officer delivers the document directly to the defendant at the defendant’s residence, place of business, or other appropriate location, and obtains acknowledgement of receipt. This is the traditional primary method where electronic service is unavailable.
• Citação por edital — service by publication. A last-resort method available where the defendant’s whereabouts are unknown and reasonable attempts at the methods above have failed.

Subsequent notifications during the case — to confirm a deadline, to notify of a court order, to summon for a hearing — are intimação, typically effected through the court’s electronic system once the defendant has been initially cited. Pre-litigation or out-of-proceeding notices (delivered before a formal case has been filed or outside the proceeding) are notificação.

Documents served by a Brazilian court are in Portuguese. Documents originating in other languages — including documents arriving from abroad under a Hague Service Convention request — must be accompanied by Portuguese translations; this requirement runs at both the domestic level (the Code’s general rule) and at the Central Authority level for inbound Hague requests (see the Portuguese-translation section below on the formal Article 5(3) reservation).

International legal cooperation — including inbound Hague Service Convention requests — operates under a dedicated framework in CPC Articles 26 through 41. Articles 28 through 34 specifically structure the auxílio direto (direct assistance) channel, which is the operational route by which a foreign Hague Service Convention request flows through the Brazilian court system. The auxílio direto framework is what makes the Article 5 Central-Authority route work in Brazil — its institutional and statutory expression. The section below on auxílio direto develops the framework in detail because it carries the cluster-distinctive operational substance for Brazil.

Serving Documents Into Brazil From Abroad: The Hague Service Convention

For a plaintiff in the United States — or in any other state party to the Hague Service Convention — serving a defendant in Brazil, the operative international instrument is the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters. Brazil acceded to the Convention on 29 November 2018, with entry into force on 1 June 2019. This makes Brazil the newest accession in this guide’s country series by a substantial margin — the next-most-recent accession was the Philippines on 1 October 2020.

Brazil’s designated Central Authority under Article 2 is the Department of Assets Recovery and International Legal Cooperation (Departamento de Recuperação de Ativos e Cooperação Jurídica Internacional — DRCI), within the National Secretariat of Justice of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública), in Brasília. The HCCH Central Authority record was most recently updated by Brazil on 22 July 2022.

Brazil filed declarations and reservations under Articles 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 of the Convention on the accession date (29 November 2018). The table below records each Convention channel, Brazil’s filed position, and what that means for service into Brazil. Read together, the declarations make Brazil the most restrictive inbound posture in this guide’s country series — three of the table’s six rows deserve careful reading on Brazil in particular: Article 8 (the only fully-closed Article 8 in the series, with no sending-State-national carve-out), Article 10 (blanket-closed across all three sub-paragraphs via a single-joint declaration), and Article 5(3) (a formal Convention-level Portuguese-translation reservation rather than a Central-Authority-practical requirement). The Article 6 row records Brazil’s distinctive declaration that the return certificate of service must be signed by the judge with jurisdiction or by the Central Authority.

Why Brazil’s Inbound Posture Is the Most Restrictive in This Guide’s Series

Three features of Brazil’s Hague Service Convention posture, taken together, make this guide’s country page on Brazil the most restrictive inbound posture in the series. Each feature is unusual; the combination is unique.

The first feature is the fully-closed Article 8 declaration. Brazil objects to all diplomatic-channel service into its territory under Article 8, without any sending-State-national carve-out. This is unique in this guide’s series. Six other country pages (Norway, Austria, the Philippines, Portugal, Ukraine, and Korea) carve out sending-State nationals — they permit a sending-State consul to serve their own national in the destination country even where consular service on third-country or destination-country nationals is objected to. Australia runs the inverse pattern. Brazil alone closes the diplomatic channel for all recipients, including for service on the sending State’s own nationals physically present in Brazil. The Article 5 Central-Authority route through the DRCI is the available channel for all recipient categories.

The second feature is the blanket-closed Article 10 declaration. Brazil’s single-joint declaration closes all three sub-paragraphs of Article 10: no postal service from abroad under 10(a), no direct engagement of Brazilian judicial officers under 10(b), no service by interested persons through Brazilian competent officers under 10(c). The blanket closure result is the same as Norway’s, Ukraine’s, and Korea’s — Brazil is the fourth country in this series with all of Article 10 closed. But unlike Australia, which left Article 10(a) conditionally open subject to destination-state-rules and registered-mail-with-acknowledgement, and unlike Portugal, which filed no Article 10 declaration at all and is fully open, Brazil leaves none of the Article 10 channels available.

The third feature is the formal Article 5(3) Portuguese-translation reservation. Brazil’s Article 5(3) declaration is filed as a Convention-level reservation — not as a Central-Authority-designation-practical requirement of the kind Norway, Portugal, Ukraine, and Korea use. Brazil sits in the formal Article 5(3) camp with Austria and Australia. The practical consequence is similar — documents without translation are returned, requests not effectively executable — but the legal frame is treaty-reservation rather than CA practice. Portuguese is required for service into Brazil regardless of the recipient’s familiarity with English or any other language.

The combined effect is unusual in this series. Article 10 is closed (matches Norway, Ukraine, Korea); Article 8 is closed without carve-out (uniquely Brazil); Article 5(3) is formal (matches Austria, Australia); but no other country in this series combines all three. Brazil exceeds Norway and Ukraine on Article 8 (they have the sending-State-national carve-out; Brazil doesn’t), matches them on Article 10, and is stricter than them on Article 5(3) formality. Brazil exceeds Korea on Article 8 and Article 5(3) formality. The two formal-Article-5(3) Austria-Australia pages have open or partial Article 8 and conditional or open Article 10; they don’t share Brazil’s blanket closures.

Operationally, this means a U.S. plaintiff serving in Brazil has one inbound Convention channel — the Article 5 route through the DRCI — and the route requires certified Portuguese translation as a treaty matter, not just as CA practice. The route runs through the auxílio direto framework described next; the closures of Article 8 and Article 10 mean the alternative channels other cluster pages leave at least partially available are not available here.

The Auxílio Direto Framework: Brazil’s Hague Channel Bypasses STJ Exequatur

Brazil’s Article 5 Central-Authority channel operates within a distinctive framework of Brazilian procedural law: auxílio direto (direct assistance) under the Code of Civil Procedure Articles 28-34. The framework is the operational reason Brazil acceded to the Hague Service Convention in 2018, and it is what makes the Article 5 route work without the STJ-exequatur step that Brazilian law traditionally required for cross-border judicial cooperation.

The background is a Brazilian-constitutional rule. Article 105(I)(i) of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil grants the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (Superior Court of Justice — STJ) jurisdiction over the granting of exequatur (preliminary approval) for letters rogatory (cartas rogatórias) from foreign courts. Historically, this was the operative channel for cross-border service of process: a foreign court would issue a carta rogatória, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministério das Relações Exteriores) or another forwarding authority would receive it, the STJ would review and grant exequatur, and only then would the request route to a federal judge for execution. The STJ-exequatur step added months to the timeline and imposed a substantive-review layer on every request.

Auxílio direto was developed as an alternative. Codified in the 2015 Novo CPC at Articles 28-34, it provides a direct-assistance channel for cross-border cooperation pursuant to treaty obligations, bypassing the STJ-exequatur step. Where Brazil is party to a treaty providing for direct international cooperation — the Hague Service Convention being the principal example for service of process — requests flow through auxílio direto rather than through the traditional carta rogatória route. The Brazilian Central Authority (the DRCI in the case of the Hague Service Convention) receives the foreign request, processes it for compliance with treaty requirements, and routes it directly to the federal court with jurisdiction over the defendant’s location for execution. The STJ-exequatur step is not required for auxílio direto requests.

This is the reason Brazil joined the Hague Service Convention. The auxílio direto channel had been available under the 2015 CPC framework since the Code’s enactment, but Brazil’s accession to the Hague Service Convention in November 2018 (with entry into force in June 2019) formalized the United States and other Convention parties as treaty partners eligible to use auxílio direto for service of process. Before 2019, U.S.-Brazil service ran through the slower carta rogatória channel with the STJ-exequatur step (or through the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory, which is itself a letters-rogatory mechanism with similar exequatur requirements). Since 2019, the Hague Service Convention plus auxílio direto provides the direct route.

What this means for U.S. counsel: the Article 5 Central-Authority route through the DRCI flows as follows. The U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Judicial Assistance (OIJA) receives the Letter of Request from U.S. counsel and forwards it to the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, where the DRCI receives the request. The DRCI processes the request for compliance with treaty requirements — including verifying the Portuguese translation under the Article 5(3) reservation, confirming the Article 6 certificate format, and checking that the request falls within the scope of the Convention. The DRCI then routes the request directly to the federal court with jurisdiction over the defendant’s location for execution. The federal judge orders service by an oficial de justiça (court officer) of the federal court system; the officer effects service per CPC procedures and files the return of service into the case. The Article 6 certificate is signed by the federal judge with jurisdiction or by the DRCI as Central Authority (per Brazil’s Article 6 declaration), and returns up through the DRCI to the OIJA, which forwards it back to the requesting U.S. court.

The STJ does not appear in this chain. The Hague Service Convention plus auxílio direto bypass the STJ-exequatur requirement that Constitution Article 105(I)(i) imposes on traditional cartas rogatórias. For service of process between the United States and Brazil after 1 June 2019, the Hague Convention is the operative channel, and auxílio direto is the operational mechanism.

This is the cluster-distinctive substance for Brazil. Every country page in this guide’s series has a Central-Authority routing mechanism; only Brazil has the auxílio-direto-vs-carta-rogatória distinction that explains why the Hague Convention channel exists in Brazilian procedural form. The traditional letters-rogatory channel still exists for non-treaty cooperation (where no Convention or bilateral treaty governs); it still requires STJ exequatur; it is still substantially slower than the Hague Convention auxílio direto route. U.S. counsel serving in Brazil after 1 June 2019 should use the Hague Convention auxílio direto path, not the letters-rogatory route.

The Portuguese-Translation Requirement

Brazil’s Portuguese-translation requirement is the operationally most demanding feature of the country’s Hague Service Convention posture for U.S. counsel. It runs as follows.

What must be translated. The documents to be served on the Brazilian defendant must be in Portuguese. This means the originating process (summons, complaint, petition, citation), any accompanying exhibits or attachments that are part of what the defendant is being served with, and any cover or instruction documents that the defendant is expected to read. The Letter of Request (USM-94 in the U.S. case) and the technical Convention-required form are filled out in English for the requesting Central Authority’s purposes; what must be in Portuguese is the substantive material the addressee receives. Per Brazil’s Article 7(2) declaration (filed alongside the Article 5(3) declaration on the accession date), the translation requirement extends to the standard request-form terms — the standardized Convention-form language that ordinarily moves between Central Authorities without translation must be translated for Brazil.

The framing is treaty-formal, not CA-practical. Brazil’s translation requirement is filed as a formal Article 5(3) Convention-level reservation, not as a Central-Authority-designation-practical statement of the kind Norway, Portugal, Ukraine, and Korea use. The distinction matters because the treaty-formal framing means the requirement is binding as a matter of Convention law, not merely as a matter of the receiving Central Authority’s operational discretion. The DRCI does not have discretion to accept untranslated documents; it must return them. Brazil sits in the formal-Article-5(3) camp with Austria and Australia.

Portuguese specifically — and Brazilian Portuguese in practice. The Convention-level reservation language refers simply to “Portuguese” without distinguishing Brazilian Portuguese from European Portuguese. Operationally, Brazilian Portuguese is the standard the DRCI processes against. Translations performed in Brazilian-Portuguese orthography and idiom — which differs from European Portuguese in spelling conventions (e.g., “ação” rather than “acção”), vocabulary, and some grammatical choices — are the expected form.

What “certified” means in practice. The Brazilian Central Authority does not publish a closed list of accredited translators for inbound Hague Service Convention requests; the operational standard is a translation produced by a competent professional translator and accompanied by a translator’s certification of accuracy. A translation produced by a U.S.-based Portuguese-language translator with a certification block, or by a Brazilian law firm or translation service, is typically accepted. A translation done by machine alone or by a non-professional is not.

Even if the defendant speaks English or any other language. The requirement runs even where the Brazilian defendant is fluent in English, lives part-time in the United States, is a corporate entity with English-speaking counsel, or otherwise has practical access to the English-language documents. The formal Article 5(3) reservation does not turn on the recipient’s language capacity; it is a Convention-level requirement that the DRCI enforces uniformly. A request that arrives without Portuguese translation is not effectively executable, regardless of the defendant’s English proficiency.

Practical implication for case planning. Build the Portuguese-translation work into the service-window expectation. A competent Brazilian-Portuguese translation of a typical complaint and supporting documents takes one to several weeks to procure at professional quality. The translation work runs in parallel with the rest of the Convention-request preparation and sits at the front of the Article 5 pipeline; treating it as a back-of-the-line task creates delay. The 9-18 month DRCI-side execution timeline starts running only after a complete, properly-translated request arrives at the Ministry of Justice.

Working With Counsel on Service Into Brazil

U.S. counsel arranging service into Brazil should approach the work with awareness of the auxílio direto framework, the cluster-most-restrictive posture (closed Article 8, closed Article 10, formal Article 5(3)), and the substantial timeline. Practical steps:

• Plan for the Article 5 channel as the only route. Alternative Convention channels are closed across the board. Domestic Brazilian alternatives — engaging a private Brazilian process server directly, mailing the summons to the defendant in Brazil, or routing through the U.S. consulate — are NOT recognized Convention channels and would not produce service the Brazilian court system would recognize.
• Prepare certified Brazilian-Portuguese translations of all documents to be served. Start the translation work at the front of the case-preparation pipeline, not at the back. Allow professional-grade time and check the translator’s certification block.
• Prepare the Letter of Request (USM-94) and assemble the Convention package: the request form, two sets of the documents to be served, two sets of the Portuguese translations, the request summary, and any case-specific cover material. The request is routed through the U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Judicial Assistance (OIJA), which forwards to the Brazilian Ministry of Justice DRCI in Brasília.
• Build a 9-to-18-month service-window expectation. The HCCH Central Authority record for Brazil states “usually between 9 and 18 months” — this is the slowest baseline in this guide’s country series. Build the upper end of the range into case-deadline planning for difficult cases.
• Expect proof of service through the Article 6 certificate signed by the federal judge with jurisdiction or by the DRCI. The certificate will be in Portuguese; plan to translate it back into English for use in the U.S. forum.
• Cost expectations: free at the Brazilian Central Authority. Per Brazil’s Central Authority designation: “Brazil does not charge for the service of process” (subject to a limited exception clause).
• Do not assume Article 8 carve-out for U.S. nationals. Unlike most country pages in this guide’s series, Brazil’s Article 8 declaration does not carve out sending-State nationals. A U.S. consul posted in Brazil cannot serve even a U.S. national on Brazilian territory through diplomatic channels.

Undisputed Legal handles outbound service of U.S. process into Brazil through the Article 5 Central-Authority auxílio direto route — including Letter of Request preparation, certified Brazilian-Portuguese translation, transmittal to the Ministry of Justice DRCI, status tracking through the Brazilian federal-court execution chain, and return of the Article 6 certificate (with English translation of the certificate where useful for the U.S. forum). To begin a Brazil service request, see our service page or call the number on this site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Can I mail a Hague Service Convention request to a Brazilian defendant from the United States?

No. Brazil has objected to Article 10 in its entirety — its single-joint declaration closes Article 10(a) postal, Article 10(b) judicial-officer engagement, and Article 10(c) interested-person service all at once. Postal service from abroad directly to a person in Brazil is not available as a Convention channel. The Article 5 Central-Authority route through the DRCI is the available channel.

Q2. Can a U.S. consul in Brazil serve documents for me, at least on a U.S. national?

No. Brazil’s Article 8 declaration objects to all diplomatic-channel service in its territory, including service on the sending State’s own nationals. This makes Brazil unique in this guide’s country series — six other country pages (Norway, Austria, the Philippines, Portugal, Ukraine, and Korea) carve out sending-State nationals from their Article 8 objections; Brazil does not. The Article 5 DRCI route is required regardless of the defendant’s nationality.

Q3. What is the only valid method for serving an inbound foreign case into Brazil?

The Article 5 Central-Authority route through the Department of Assets Recovery and International Legal Cooperation (DRCI), within the National Secretariat of Justice of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública), in Brasília. Brazil closes Articles 8 and 10 in full, so the alternative channels are not available. The Article 5 channel operates under Brazil’s auxílio direto framework (CPC Articles 28-34), which bypasses the STJ exequatur traditionally required for letters rogatory.

Q4. Do I need certified Portuguese translation even if the defendant speaks English?

Yes. The Portuguese-translation requirement is a formal Article 5(3) Convention-level reservation, not a Central-Authority-designation-practical preference. The DRCI does not have discretion to accept untranslated documents and returns requests that arrive without Portuguese translation. The requirement runs regardless of the defendant’s English proficiency. Brazilian-Portuguese orthography and idiom are the operational standard.

Q5. How long does service into Brazil actually take?

Treat 9 to 18 months as the practical baseline. The HCCH Central Authority record states “usually between 9 and 18 months” — this is the slowest baseline in this guide’s country series. The range reflects the multi-step DRCI processing plus the Portuguese-translation requirements plus the high inbound request volume Brazil receives. Build the upper end of the range into case-deadline planning for difficult cases.

Q6. What is auxílio direto, and how does it differ from a carta rogatória?

Auxílio direto (direct assistance) is the Brazilian procedural framework — codified in Code of Civil Procedure Articles 28-34 — that lets a foreign court’s request flow through the Brazilian Central Authority directly to a federal court for execution, without the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ) exequatur step required for traditional letters rogatory. The Hague Service Convention plus auxílio direto provides the direct route for service of process between the United States and Brazil after 1 June 2019. By contrast, a carta rogatória (letter rogatory) requires STJ exequatur under Constitution Article 105(I)(i) — a preliminary-approval step that adds substantial time to the timeline. The Hague Convention auxílio direto channel is faster than the traditional letters-rogatory route and is the operative channel for U.S.-Brazil service.

Q7. Can I engage a private Brazilian process server to serve documents in Brazil?

No, not as a Convention channel. Brazil’s Article 10(b) and 10(c) objections close the channels that would allow a U.S. plaintiff to engage a Brazilian competent officer or interested person directly. Private process service is not a recognized inbound route into Brazil under the Convention. Within Brazilian domestic procedure, service is effected by an oficial de justiça (court officer) of the court that has jurisdiction over the case, after the Central Authority routes the request to that court via auxílio direto.

Q8. Does the STJ have to approve service requests into Brazil under the Hague Service Convention?

No. The Superior Tribunal de Justiça’s exequatur jurisdiction under Constitution Article 105(I)(i) applies to letters rogatory (cartas rogatórias), not to Hague Service Convention requests routed through auxílio direto. The Hague Convention plus auxílio direto is precisely the framework that bypasses STJ exequatur for treaty-based cooperation. A Hague Service Convention request flows DRCI → federal court → execution → Article 6 certificate back → DRCI → requesting foreign Central Authority, with no STJ approval step.

Q9. The 2015 Code of Civil Procedure replaced an older code — is the older code still relevant for service of process?

No, for current cases. The 2015 Code (Lei nº 13.105 of 16 March 2015, in application since March 2016) replaced the prior Code of Civil Procedure (Lei nº 5.869 of 11 January 1973). The 1973 Code is no longer the operative procedural framework for civil cases filed after the 2015 Code’s effective date. Pre-AXIOM-era guidance on Brazilian service of process that referenced 1973-Code provisions may be out of date; the 2015 Novo CPC, as amended, is the current operative text.

Hague Service Into Brazil — Related Resources

• Order Brazilian Service of Process
• Brazil Process Service: Rules, Laws & Court Procedures
• How the Central Authority Works in Brazil
• Hague Service Convention Guide for Serving U.S. Legal Papers
• Civil-vs-Common-Law Approaches to International Process Service
• Understanding Alternate Methods of International Process Service
• How the Hague Convention Impacts International Service of Process