Bahia is the largest state of the Northeast: Salvador and its metropolitan region with Camaçari and the industrial pole, Feira de Santana as the crossing of BR-116 and BR-324, the tourist coast from Porto Seguro to the Linha Verde and the agricultural west of Barreiras on BR-242. Infractions are applied by DETRAN-BA in the registry, by Transalvador and the municipal bodies in the cities, by the military police on state roads and by the Federal Highway Police on federal ones.

Context and authorities

The framework is the Brazilian Traffic Code, which classifies infractions as minor, medium, serious and very serious with fixed-value fines and points on the driver’s licence; the state DETRAN, the municipal traffic bodies and the Federal Highway Police on federal highways apply them, and SENATRAN integrates the national registries. An unpaid fine blocks the annual licensing and the transfer of the vehicle.

DETRAN-BA is the registry body: it enters the infraction against the plate and the RENAVAM and processes the notice, the defence and the appeal; Transalvador enforces the capital with cameras and agents, and Feira de Santana, Vitória da Conquista and Ilhéus have their own municipal bodies. The BR-324 concessionaire and the Federal Highway Police act on federal highways; the annual licensing stays blocked while an overdue fine exists.

What the API returns for this jurisdiction

In Bahia a plate, with the RENAVAM when the source requires it, is sent to the Brazil fines API, which walks its integrated sources and returns each infraction with the body that recorded it:

  • Issuing body and infraction notice number exactly as the source publishes them.
  • Date, location and infraction code under the traffic code.
  • Value, status (citation, penalty, paid) and points when the source reports them.
  • Coverage per source and a partial-result flag when any failed to answer.

How to check a plate in Bahia

To check a plate by hand, the DETRAN-BA portal shows the infractions and the licensing status with the plate and the RENAVAM, and the Carteira Digital de Trânsito app, coordinated by SENATRAN, concentrates the notices of every body. With ten units that is enough; with a hundred, the API walks the integrated sources by plate and returns the result split by body.

What to watch if you run a fleet in Bahia

A distribution fleet leaving Camaçari or Feira de Santana for the interior crosses dozens of municipalities and piles up BR-116 camera and municipal-body infractions on plates passing from one driver to another; looking up the plates every month and filing the result per body lets you name the driver while the period is still open.

For a rent-a-car in Salvador or Porto Seguro, the plate lookup at the return of each rental charges the customer the Transalvador or Linha Verde infraction that would otherwise show up at licensing with the points on the company.

How to integrate

The integration starts with one POST per vehicle, with the jurisdiction as an optional filter. Since sources answer at their own pace, the API accepts the job and delivers the result by status or webhook; store the idempotency key before sending, as the asynchronous APIs guide describes. The API page details limits and fields.

JSONIllustrative example, not a contract.
{
  "plate": "ABC1D23",
  "jurisdictions": [
    "BR-BA"
  ]
}

Limits and considerations

  • Infractions on federal highways are recorded by the Federal Highway Police and are checked in the national channels, not at the state DETRAN.
  • Values are those of the traffic code current at the time of payment, with the applicable discount or surcharge; the final amount is set by the body.
  • A source that does not answer is reported as such, never as an absence of infractions.
  • The API neither pays fines nor files defences; it delivers information to decide.

Sources and further reading