Pernambuco combines Recife and its metropolitan region, with Olinda and Jaboatão, the Suape port and industrial complex with the refinery and the automotive pole, BR-101 towards Paraíba and Alagoas and BR-232 climbing to Caruaru, the largest fair in the Northeast, and to the sertão of Petrolina. Infractions are applied by DETRAN-PE in the registry, by CTTU 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

Infractions are governed by the Brazilian Traffic Code: each has a fixed value, a seriousness and a number of points recorded on the licence of the identified driver, and they are notified in two stages, the citation and the penalty, with periods for the prior defence and the appeal. The state DETRAN, municipalities with municipalised traffic and the Federal Highway Police apply them; SENATRAN coordinates the national systems.

DETRAN-PE is the registry body: it enters the infraction against the plate and the RENAVAM and processes the notice, the defence and the appeal; CTTU enforces Recife with cameras and agents, and Jaboatão, Olinda, Caruaru and Petrolina have their own municipal bodies. DER-PE enforces the state-administered BR-232 and the Federal Highway Police the federal ones such as BR-101; the annual licensing stays blocked while an overdue fine exists.

What the API returns for this jurisdiction

In Pernambuco a plate lookup walks the integrated sources of the Brazil fines API and returns each infraction with the body that recorded it, as the source publishes it:

  • The body that recorded the infraction and its number, unnormalised.
  • The date and reason, with the location if the source reports it.
  • The value and status current at the source.
  • Which sources answered and which did not, on every lookup.

How to check a plate in Pernambuco

To check a plate by hand, the DETRAN-PE 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 Pernambuco

A distribution fleet leaving Suape or Recife for the agreste on BR-232 piles up DER-PE camera infractions and those of the municipal bodies 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 citation period is still open.

For a rent-a-car at Recife airport, the plate lookup at the return of each rental charges the customer the CTTU 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-PE"
  ]
}

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