São Paulo concentrates the largest vehicle fleet in South America: the capital and its metropolitan region, with the municipal rodízio and the CET cameras, the concessioned Anhanguera, Bandeirantes, Dutra and Imigrantes motorways, the port of Santos, Campinas and the industrial interior. Infractions are applied by DETRAN-SP and the military police on state roads, by CET and the municipal bodies in the cities and by the Federal Highway Police on federal highways; with an overdue fine the annual licensing is not issued.

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-SP is the registry body: it enters the infraction against the plate and the RENAVAM and processes the notice, the defence and the appeal before the JARI; the capital’s CET applies the rodízio and the electronic enforcement of the avenues, and each municipality with municipalised traffic has its own body. The concessioned motorways and DER-SP enforce speed with cameras on state roads, and the Federal Highway Police the federal ones such as Régis Bittencourt and Fernão Dias.

What the API returns for this jurisdiction

In São Paulo 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:

  • 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 São Paulo

A plate is checked by hand at the DETRAN-SP portal and, for infractions from other bodies, in SENATRAN’s national channels. The API does the same round at scale and returns each infraction with the body that recorded it, so verification becomes part of the fleet process rather than a spreadsheet.

What to watch if you run a fleet in São Paulo

A delivery or ride-hailing fleet working in the capital piles up rodízio, CET camera and marginal-road infractions on plates that rotate between drivers, and the citation notice reaches the company’s address with a short period to name the driver; looking up each plate at month end, with the result stored per body, lets you identify the driver in time and keep the points off the company.

For a carrier descending to Santos on Anchieta and Imigrantes, the plate lookup before the annual licensing finds the concessionaire and PRF infractions that would block the procedure for the whole batch.

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-SP"
  ]
}

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