FBI Background Check Apostille for Brazil: Complete Guide

On this page

1. On this page
2. Key takeaways
3. On this page
4. Do you need an apostille or consular legalization for an FBI check in Brazil?
5. At a glance: what you need before you file
6. Why does the US Department of State issue this apostille and not a state office?
7. What does the Hague Convention actually change for Brazil applicants?
8. How much does it cost and how long does it take?
9. Which Brazilian visa and residence categories ask for it?
10. Do you need an FBI check or a state police check for Brazil?
11. How do you get the apostille, step by step?
12. What about the sworn translation Brazil requires?
13. Can you order the FBI check while already living in Brazil?
14. Common reasons an apostille request is rejected
15. Frequently asked questions
16. Sources

On this page

1. Key takeaways
2. On this page
3. Do you need an apostille or consular legalization for an FBI check in Brazil?
4. At a glance: what you need before you file
5. Why does the US Department of State issue this apostille and not a state office?
6. What does the Hague Convention actually change for Brazil applicants?
7. How much does it cost and how long does it take?
8. Which Brazilian visa and residence categories ask for it?
9. Do you need an FBI check or a state police check for Brazil?
10. How do you get the apostille, step by step?
11. What about the sworn translation Brazil requires?
12. Can you order the FBI check while already living in Brazil?
13. Common reasons an apostille request is rejected
14. Frequently asked questions
15. Sources

On this page

1. Do you need an apostille or consular legalization for an FBI check in Brazil?
2. At a glance: what you need before you file
3. Why does the US Department of State issue this apostille and not a state office?
4. What does the Hague Convention actually change for Brazil applicants?
5. How much does it cost and how long does it take?
6. Which Brazilian visa and residence categories ask for it?
7. Do you need an FBI check or a state police check for Brazil?
8. How do you get the apostille, step by step?
9. What about the sworn translation Brazil requires?
10. Can you order the FBI check while already living in Brazil?
11. Common reasons an apostille request is rejected

Do you need an apostille or consular legalization for an FBI check in Brazil?

An apostille — nothing more. Brazil joined the Hague Apostille Convention on 14 August 2016, so your FBI Identity History Summary needs one certificate from the US Department of State in Washington, DC ($20 per document). No Brazilian consulate stamp. No state Secretary of State. Then a Brazilian sworn translation once you arrive.

That short answer hides three places people lose weeks: sending the report to the wrong authority, sending a copy the FBI never authenticated, and paying a US translator for a translation Brazil will not recognise. This page walks each one.

At a glance: what you need before you file

Work down this list. If you can tick every line, your file will pass the Office of Authentications on the first pass.

• A freshly produced FBI Identity History Summary bearing the FBI watermark and the signature of a division official — not a photocopy, not a scan you printed, not a report from last year.
• The report in the format the Department of State accepts for federal authentication (paper original, or the printed authenticated PDF as produced by the FBI or its channeler).
• A completed Department of State authentication request form naming Brazil as the destination country.
• $20 per document for the apostille — by check or money order made out to the U.S. Department of State for mailed requests, with the check number above 100 and a preprinted name and address.
• A prepaid return envelope or courier label with tracking.
• No notary stamp anywhere on the FBI report.
• A plan for the tradução juramentada in Brazil, arranged after the apostille is attached.

Why does the US Department of State issue this apostille and not a state office?

The rule is about who signed the document, not what the document is about.

A state Secretary of State can only certify signatures of officials that state commissioned: its notaries, its county clerks, its vital records registrars, its court clerks. That authority stops at the state line and stops at the state level. The FBI is a federal agency in the Department of Justice. The person who signed and watermarked your Identity History Summary is a federal division official, and no state government has any standing to vouch for that signature.

So the FBI’s own guidance sends authenticated results to the U.S. Department of State for an apostille. If you mail an FBI report to Texas, California, Florida, or any other Secretary of State, it comes back — sometimes after two weeks of silence, sometimes with a rejection slip, occasionally with your fee held. This is the single most common wasted trip in the whole process.

The phrase “state apostille” that you see on forum threads and consulate checklists is a real thing, just not for this document. It describes an apostille issued by a Secretary of State on a state-issued record: a birth certificate, a marriage certificate, a state police criminal history, a notarized power of attorney. Those go to the state. FBI reports go federal. Same certificate format, different signing authority.

What does the Hague Convention actually change for Brazil applicants?

Before 14 August 2016, a US document destined for Brazil went through a chain: federal authentication, then a stamp from a Brazilian consulate with jurisdiction over your address, sometimes with an appointment queue measured in weeks. Brazil deposited its instrument of accession on 2 December 2015 and became the Convention’s 111th Contracting State when it entered into force the following August.

Since then, one apostille from the US Department of State is the complete authentication. Brazilian authorities accept it directly. The consulate has no authentication role in this document at all, and if a consular checklist still mentions legalização for US public documents, it is out of date — verify the current position on the HCCH status table for the Apostille Convention, which is the authoritative live record of who is in and from what date.

One thing the Convention did not change: language. An apostille certifies a signature. It says nothing about whether the receiving country can read the document. That is the translation problem, and it is where most of the friction now sits.

How much does it cost and how long does it take?

There are three separate money flows and it helps to see them apart. The FBI charges for the report. The Department of State charges for the apostille. A service like ours charges for handling, courier movement, and pre-screening — and if you do it yourself you pay none of that, but you carry the risk of a return.

On timing: the FBI’s turnaround depends entirely on which route you use — an approved channeler with electronic submission is measured in days, a direct electronic request in days to weeks, and a mailed fingerprint card is the slowest by a wide margin. The Department of State publishes its current authentications processing time on its own page, and that figure moves. Do not plan around a number you read on a blog, including this one; open the Department of State’s authentication services page and read the posted turnaround the week you file.

The FBI does not re-authenticate. It applies the watermark and the division official’s signature at the moment your results are produced, and it will not accept a request to authenticate previously processed results. If what you are holding is a printout, a photocopy, or a report you downloaded and saved months ago, it cannot be apostilled — you must submit a new $18 request and get a fresh authenticated result.

Which Brazilian visa and residence categories ask for it?

A criminal background certificate is a standard element of Brazilian long-stay applications. It shows up across the temporary-visa families — work authorisations, investor and business categories, the digital nomad route, the retirement (aposentado) route, religious and volunteer categories, family reunion, and student cases with certain durations. Short tourist visits do not require it.

What differs between categories is not usually whether you need it but the surrounding paperwork: proof of income thresholds for the retirement route, a Brazilian company’s sponsorship documents for work, a marriage record for family reunion. The criminal-history document sits in the same slot in all of them.

Two practical branches decide who you file with:

• Applying from the United States. You file with the Brazilian consulate whose jurisdiction covers your state of residence. Consulates publish their own document lists, and they are not identical post to post.
• Applying or converting inside Brazil. The Polícia Federal processes residence permits (autorização de residência) and will want the apostilled report with its sworn translation attached. Their published checklist is the one that governs.

Because those lists change and vary by post, treat any category-specific list you find online — this page included — as a starting point, and confirm against the consulate’s own page or the Polícia Federal before you order fingerprints. The receiving authority always has the final say on what it will accept.

Retirement (aposentado) applicants

The document itself and its apostille route are identical. Retirement applicants are not routed differently through the Department of State, and there is no special federal handling. The difference is on the Brazilian side: income and pension evidence, and often a longer document list overall, which means more items needing sworn translation. Budget translation time accordingly.

Spouses of Brazilian citizens

Marriage to a Brazilian citizen does not, by itself, remove a criminal-history requirement from a family reunion filing. Some posts apply different rules than others, and requirements have shifted over the years. Ask the specific consulate or the Polícia Federal office handling your case before you assume an exemption — the cost of asking is an email; the cost of assuming is a rejected file and a new $18 report.

Do you need an FBI check or a state police check for Brazil?

Read the checklist you were given carefully, because these are different documents with different apostille routes.

If the Brazilian checklist says “federal criminal record certificate,” “FBI,” or “national criminal background,” it means the FBI report. If it says the certificate must cover everywhere you have lived, the FBI report is the one that does that in a single document. When a consulate asks for both, they are two separate files taking two separate apostille routes — do not put them in one envelope to one authority.

How do you get the apostille, step by step?

1. Choose your FBI route. Submit directly to the FBI electronically or by mail, or use an FBI-approved channeler for faster turnaround. Channelers vary in output format and speed; see the full directory of FBI-approved channelers before you pick one.
2. Get fingerprinted properly. Use a live-scan location if your channeler supports it. Smudged or partial prints are the most common cause of an FBI rejection, and a rejected submission costs you the whole cycle.
3. Pay the $18 and receive the authenticated result. Confirm on receipt that the document carries the FBI watermark and the division official’s signature. If it does not, stop — it cannot be apostilled and no one can add the authentication later.
4. Do not notarize it. There is no notary step on a federal document. A notary stamp adds a state officer to a federal file and helps nothing.
5. Complete the Department of State request form. Name Brazil as the destination country. Download the current form directly from travel.state.gov rather than a copy hosted elsewhere; form numbers and revision dates change.
6. Pay $20 per document correctly. Mailed requests: check or money order payable to the U.S. Department of State, preprinted name and address, check number above 100. Never send cash or card details by mail. In-person service is card or contactless only.
7. Send it with a tracked return method. Include a prepaid return envelope or courier label. This is your only sealed original; treat the return leg as seriously as the outbound.
8. Check the apostille when it comes back. Your name, the FBI as the issuing authority, the signing official, the date, and the Department of State seal should all be present and correct.
9. Then translate. Arrange the sworn translation in Brazil, covering the report and the apostille together, and only after the apostille is physically attached.
10. File with the consulate or the Polícia Federal. Submit the original apostilled report with the sworn translation as the receiving office instructs.

What about the sworn translation Brazil requires?

This is the part most English-language guides skip, and it is where people who did everything else right still get turned away.

Brazil operates a system of public translators — the tradutor público e intérprete comercial, commonly called a tradutor juramentado. These translators are appointed after examination and registered with a state Junta Comercial (board of trade). A translation they produce, the tradução juramentada, carries official standing before Brazilian public bodies. A translation by anyone else generally does not, no matter how good it is, and no matter how many US notary stamps or “certificate of accuracy” pages are attached to it.

Three consequences you can act on:

• A US translator is usually the wrong purchase. Certified translations from American agencies are built for USCIS and US courts. Brazilian authorities are looking for a registered Brazilian public translator’s seal. Paying for a US translation first is money most applicants do not get back.
• Translate after the apostille, not before. The apostille certificate is itself part of the document set the Brazilian office reads. If the translator works from a pre-apostille copy, the apostille goes untranslated and the file is incomplete.
• Many sworn translators work remotely. You do not have to be standing in Brazil. Registered public translators routinely accept scanned documents and courier the sworn translation to a Brazilian address, which means you can start the translation the day your apostille clears if you have someone to receive it.

Verify the specific format your receiving office wants — some accept a digitally signed sworn translation, others want the physical booklet stapled to the original — and confirm the translator’s registration with the relevant Junta Comercial before you pay.

Can you order the FBI check while already living in Brazil?

Yes, and plenty of people do it after arriving on a tourist entry and deciding to apply for residence. It is slower and has more failure points than doing it before you leave.

The obstacles are practical, not legal. You need fingerprints taken on the FBI’s standard card, which usually means a police station, a US consulate, or a private provider willing to roll prints — quality is the risk, since a rejected print set restarts the clock from Brazil. You need a US payment method the FBI accepts. And you need the sealed result and, later, the apostilled original to physically travel between Washington and wherever you are.

The workaround most people use: nominate a trusted contact or a service in the United States as the return address for both the FBI result and the apostille, then have the completed package couriered to Brazil in one shipment. That converts three international mail legs into one. Confirm current international submission and payment options directly with the FBI before committing, because those details change.

Common reasons an apostille request is rejected

Almost every failure we see falls into one of these. None of them are subtle once you know to look.