Guide
How the CNJ number is read and how a case is looked up
The number is national, written the same way everywhere in Brazil, and every group of digits says something. This guide takes it apart piece by piece and shows how a case is checked in the public lookup, with no account and no password.
Open the official e-SAJ lookupLook up your case nowOne number for the whole country
Until 2008 each court numbered cases however it liked, and the same case changed number when it moved up an instance. The CNJ unified numbering ended that: a case is registered once, with a number that stays with it from the day it is filed until it ends, and that does not change if it moves up an instance or is reassigned to another court.
That is why it pays to learn to read it. The number says what year the case is from, which branch of the Poder Judiciário it runs in, which court and which unit it entered through — and that is what tells you where to go and look it up, because in Brazil the lookup belongs to each court and there is no national door open for all of them.
What follows is written with the lookup of the Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo in front of us, which is the one we measured on 13 September 2026. Other courts publish theirs in the same shape, and others do not publish it openly.
The four pieces of the number
It is always written in the same shape, and the separators are not decoration: each one splits a different field.
The shape
NNNNNNN-DD.AAAA.J.TR.OOOO
A real example
1000415-82.2024.8.26.0047
NNNNNNN · the sequential
The first seven digits are the running number the unit of origin gave the case, and it restarts every year. They only tell cases apart within the same unit and the same year: without the rest of the number they identify nothing.
DD · the check digits
Two digits computed from the rest of the number. They are there so a mistyped number does not return somebody else's case: when one of them changes, the lookup answers exactly as it does for a case that does not exist.
AAAA.J.TR · the year, the branch and the court
The year the case was registered, one digit for the branch of the Poder Judiciário it runs in, and two for the court within that branch. In the example, 8.26 is the Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo.
OOOO · the unit of origin
The last four digits are the forum the case entered through. They are the ones most often lost in a copy and paste, and without them the lookup finds nothing: the portal asks for them in a field of their own.
The dots and the dash can be left out when typing it — the twenty digits in a row are the same number — but it is worth storing it in its full shape: that way you can see at a glance which year and which forum it is from.
Looking up a case, with no account and no password
Five steps, exactly as we measured them in the first-instance lookup of the Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo on 13 September 2026.
Open your court's case lookup
Each court publishes its own, and the address lives on the court's site. The São Paulo one is the first-instance case lookup of its e-SAJ, and it is open: no account, no password, no prior registration.
Choose the lookup by number
The portal offers several routes — by number, by party name, by document and by bar registration number. The one by number is the only one that returns a case rather than a list to filter by eye.
Paste the whole number
With the unified number complete. The portal splits out the unit of origin — the last four digits — into a field of its own, so if you paste the number already split, that field will be left empty.
Confirm whatever the portal asks
Some portals ask for a check before returning the result. The São Paulo one did not ask for it in any of the ten lookups we measured, and answered in under two seconds every time.
Read the record
The full case record arrives on a single page. If the number is right and the case runs in that system, it shows up; if not, the portal says it found nothing, without saying which of the two reasons it was.
Look up your case here
Custodio asks the court portal for you, so it can take a few seconds. We ask you for no name, no email and no account: what the lookup leaves behind is a single record, deleted two hours later. How we handle this lookup
The Brazilian lookup reads case files from the TJSP, the TJAC and the TJAM: the state courts of São Paulo, Acre and Amazonas.
This video is narrated in Spanish only; the transcript below is in English.
The video was recorded on the Uruguay guide; on this guide the steps are the same, with this country’s case number and portal.
Read the video transcript
This guide explains how to look up a case file at the Judiciary of Uruguay. First, the site asks about cookies: choose what you prefer.
Inside the guide there is a search box. Type the case number in the format the country uses; here we use a sample case file.
Custodio checks that a person is making the lookup before it goes out to ask. It does not ask for an email or a password, and it does not keep the number you typed.
Look it up. Custodio asks the court portal on your behalf, so it can take a few seconds.
This is what the portal publishes today: the court, the parties and the latest action with its date. The parties appear as initials, because nobody has identified themselves here yet.
At the bottom it says how far this country's lookup reaches. Read it before drawing conclusions: the Uruguayan lookup runs one business day behind and does not cover criminal matters.
Looking once is looking once. With a free account you can put that case file under watch: Custodio checks the portal every day for you and alerts you when a new action appears.
What the lookup returns
What we saw in the ten records we measured, field by field.
- The class and the subject of the case, as the court classifies them.
- The forum, the court and the judge where the case sits today.
- The date and time of distribution, the control number, the area and the amount in dispute.
- The parties with their side — claimant or respondent — and each one's lawyers.
- The full table of movimentações, each with its date and its type.
- The hearings scheduled and the incidental proceedings attached to the case.
Paste your CNJ number and we'll flag every new move
We watch the court for you: an alert the moment there is a new docket movement, no more checking by hand. With each one, the AI updates the matter status and proposes the deadline that runs; it drafts the reply when you ask.
Create your free accountWhat the official lookup does not do
Five limits worth keeping in mind before a working routine leans on it.
- It does not notify. It is a lookup: if something moved yesterday, you find out when you go back and look.
- It belongs to each court. There is no national door open where every case in the country can be checked with the same number.
- Not all of a court's docket sits in the same system. In São Paulo the e-SAJ lookup reaches 82% of the court's cases; the ones running in another system do not show up there.
- A case under segredo de justiça is not shown to anyone who is not a party, and the public lookup treats it as if it did not exist.
- Searches on a very common name do not come back: the portal cuts them off with a notice to narrow the search, or with a ceiling of a thousand results.
None of the five is a flaw in the portal: it is a public lookup doing what a public lookup does. What changes is who remembers to go back and look, and what happens to what they find.
What gets asked about the lookup
Does the lookup cost anything?
No. The first-instance case lookup of the Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo is open to the public, free, and asks for no registration. What costs something is the time of going back to look at every case, every day.
Do I need an account or a digital certificate?
To look a case up by number, no. The certificate and the account are needed to file and to see restricted documents, not to read the public record of a case.
What if the case is under segredo de justiça?
The public lookup does not return it, and it does not tell a restricted case apart from a number that does not exist. If you are a party or a lawyer on the case, you see it through the court's identified channel.
Do I have to type the dots and the dash?
You do not need to: the twenty digits in a row are the same number, and the portal takes it that way. What you do need is all twenty of them, including the four of the unit of origin.
Can I look it up from here?
Yes, for cases of the TJSP, the TJAC and the TJAM. This page has a lookup: paste the CNJ unified number and we query that court's e-SAJ for you, with no account and at no cost. You will see the court, the latest movement with its date and the parties reduced to initials; the whole case is read in the official lookup this guide links to, or inside your account. And if you want us to tell you the day the case moves, you create a free account from the result.
Stop going back to look by hand
Custodio looks the case up every day, tells you what changed and hands you the ruling already read. The AI turns each update into matter status, deadline and draft, and answers questions about your documents.