.BR domain policies

.BR is the ccTLD of Brazil.

To successfully register a COM.BR domain, the registrant must meet specific requirements mandated by the BR Registry. If all the requirements are met when the request is submitted, the registration should be complete within a day; however, in some cases, it can take up to 45 days before a domain registration completes.

COM.BR registrations do not occur in real-time; they are done through an asynchronous process. When a COM.BR registration request is submitted, the order is placed in your Reseller account’s in progress queue, and the order state is waiting for registry response. API-based queries of in-progress orders will return a status of waiting.

• Registrant requirements
• Contact information requirements
• Nameserver and DNS requirements
• Transfers
• Registering dropped names
• Registering related names
• Registry errors
  • CNPJ/CPF & Contact Set Errors
  • Name server & DNS Errors
• Registrations by foreign entities
  • Additional requirements

Registration details

Registration details can be found in the TLD reference chart. 

Any person or organization legally established in Brazil as a legal entity (institution) or as an individual (liberal professional or natural person) with a contact location within the Brazilian national territory can register a .COM.BR domain name.

To prove their eligibility, they must submit a legal identification number issued by the government organization, the Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil (Secretaria da Receita Federal). For organizations, this is the CNPJ (Business Identifier / Cadastro Nacional de Pessoa Juridica); for individuals, this is the CPF (Individual Tax Number / Cadastro de Pessoa Fisica).

The registry validates the registrant's name, company name, and owner contact address associated with the CNPJ or CPF with the federal revenue service of Brazil (Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil). You can view the information related to a CNPJ on the Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil’s website.

If the CPF or CNPJ has already been used for a COM.BR registration with another Registrar, the registrant needs to contact the BR Registry and request a change of Registrarbefore they register a new COM.BR domain with OpenSRS.

We recommend that you implement a programmatic validation routine when accepting a CNPJ or CPF number to ensure that the submitted values are in the correct format.

• CNPJ Format (14 digits): NN.NNN.NNN/NNNN-NN
• CPF Format (11 digits): NNN.NNN.NNN-NN

Google Gadgets hosts a CPF & CNPJ validation tool.

You can find additional information on the CNPJ, including examples of validation scripts.

Note: This page is in Portuguese, and you may prefer to view it through a translator.

This page provides additional information on the CPF, including examples of validation scripts.

Foreign companies may be able to register COM.BR domains, but to do so, they must meet the additional requirements outlined below in the section Registrations by Foreign Entities. 

Back to top

Note: OpenSRS do not perform contact validation; the BR Registry does it after OpenSRS submits the registration request.

COM.BR registrations require four contact types: Owner, Admin, Technical, and Billing. The Owner and Billing contact information must include real Brazilian addresses, and all information must be entered correctly, as the Registry will validate the addresses.

Street and city names that include accents must be submitted in UTF-8 encoding. For example, the UTF-8 encoding of São Paulo would be S[c3][a3]o Paulo.

When using the OpenSRS Control Panel to register a domain name, ensure that your browser’s encoding is set to UTF-8 to properly submit accented characters, such as entering São Paulo as the city.

When submitting registrations through the API, ensure that the programming language you use can submit information in UTF-8 encoding.

Further information on the UTF-8 encoding is available with a detailed chart.

If the country submitted is BR (Brazil), then the state must be a valid Brazilian state code: AC, AL, AP, AM, BA, CE, DF, ES, GO, MA, MT, MS, MG, PA, PB, PR, PE, PI, RJ, RN, RS, RO, RR, SC, SP, SE, or TO

We recommend that you validate the postal code format and that the state submitted correctly correlates to the postal code submitted.

You can find information about Brazilian postal codes here.

Back to top

• Registry Tool
• Registry Documentation

Note: OpenSRS SystemDNS name servers can not be used during domain registration.

When registering a .COM.BR domain, you must submit two authoritative name servers, and these name servers must respond to DNS queries by the BR Registry.

Suppose the name servers exist but are not yet responding to queries for the domain being registered. In that case, they are not considered authoritative for the domain, and the order will remain in a waiting status in the in-progress queue until the BR Registry verifies the DNS. If the DNS for the domain cannot be verified, the request will expire after 14 days.

You can only use name servers within the same namespace as a domain after that domain has been successfully registered.

As a result of switching backend providers, OpenSRS can no longer support the inbound transfers for .BR domains.

Back to top

When domains expire and are not renewed, they are made available to be registered again. These are referred to as dropped domains. The BR Registry only drops domains three to four times per year and not on a specific schedule.

Although names become available for registration when you query the registry, it can take up to 45 days to complete the registration of dropped names due to the BR Registry's review process.

Additionally, multiple end-users could apply for the same dropped domain name. If this happens, the domain registration could stay in a waiting state (in progress) for up to 45 days. If the domain registration does not complete within 45 days, OpenSRS declines the registration.

When a registrant submits a request for a dropped domain, they can choose to certify that they have a demonstrable legal right to that domain. If they choose this option but cannot provide a document showing that they have a legal right to that domain, the registry will not award the domain. They reserve the right to hold a bias against the registrant if they make any future applications for dropped domains. In order to demonstrate proof of legal ownership of a domain, the registry will accept the following:

• A copy of the trademark certificate (fully registered trademark) granted by the INPI, identical to the domain name requested.
• A copy of the registrant's Articles of Incorporation where the Company Name is identical (or confusingly similar) to the domain name requested. The holder must also submit proof that they have been using this Company Name with the public for more than thirty (30) months.

Even when these documents are provided, there is still no guarantee that the registry will award the domain name. But your chances are significantly higher if you can provide these supporting documents. In any case, DO NOT indicate that you can demonstrate a legal right to that domain name if you do not have the supporting documentation.

Back to top

Similar domains, where something like the presence of a hyphen or accented characters is the only difference, can only be registered by a single applicant.

Attempts to register accented or non-accented versions of a domain that is already registered will fail unless the identification and contact information submitted for the new domain registration matches that of the existing registered domain.

Accented character example: pensãoboa.com.br and pensaoboa.com.br

When the Registry checks the domain name registration requests that include hyphens, the hyphens are stripped out, and this could result in a name that is already registered. When this happens, the registration request will fail unless the identification and contact information submitted for the new domain registration request matches the registered domain.

Hyphen example: oneexample.com.br and one-example.com.br

Back to top

Registry errors are recorded in the notes field of the registration order. Some of the most common mistakes are explained here.

CNPJ/CPF & Contact Set Errors

If the CNPJ/CPF number has been used with a different registrar for a different domain, it cannot be re-used with OpenSRS, and the domain registration will fail.

Name server & DNS Errors

Back to top

Foreign companies may be able to register COM.BR domains with OpenSRS; however, all following requirements must first be met.

For a foreign company to register a .BR domain, it must appoint a legally established attorney-in-fact in the country. The company must be registered with the BR Registry, and it must meet some additional criteria. Once the foreign company is registered with the BR Registry, the company will receive an identification number (CNPJ) that must be submitted with the domain registration request.

To register a foreign company with the BR Registry, you must provide the following:

• A power of attorney notarized in the company’s country of origin, conferring authority on the attorney-in-fact to perform acts regarding domain registry, domain cancellation, domain ownership transfer, and change of the contact person for the entity.
• A statement duly notarized in the company’s country of origin, declaring the company's commercial activity, including the following: trade name, full registered address, telephone number, business purpose, activities performed, name, and position of the legal representative.
• A statement duly notarized in the company’s country of origin, declaring the company’s commitment to permanently carry out its activities in Brazil within 12 months from the receipt of the statement.
• A sworn translation of a power of attorney, the commercial activity statement, and the commitment statement.
• A copy of the CNPJ or CPF (individual taxpayer registration number) of the attorney-in-fact.
• An official letter from the attorney-in-fact establishes the contact ID for the foreign entity.

All documents must be certified by the Brazilian Consulate in the company’s country of origin.

If the attorney-in-fact does not have an entity registered in the BR Registry system, this registration would also have to be made, and all pertinent information regarding the attorney-in-fact must be sent: CNPJ/CPF, trade name/ name, complete address, telephone number and ID of the contact for the entity.

All documents must be sent to Registro.br at this address:

A/C Hostmaster - Registro .br

Subject: Cadastro de empresa estrangeira

Av. das Nações Unidas, 11541, 7° andar

04578-000 - São Paulo – SP

Additional Requirements

• The domain billing contacts registered by the company must be residents in Brazil.
• The trade name of the foreign company can only be altered administratively by Registro.br.

For additional information, refer to the BR Registry.

Back to top