⚠️ Important notice
This is not a government website. Certificado Digital Global is a Registration Authority accredited to the Certisign network, a brand of Kindness in Business Consulting Ltd (UK Company No. 10386293), serving clients from London. Issuance depends on identity validation, documentation and ICP-Brasil rules. Do not send CPF, passport or sensitive documents via WhatsApp or the initial form.
O que é
Most digital signatures rejected in Brazil don't fail for lack of a certificate — they fail on an execution detail nobody mentioned. Anyone learning how to sign Brazilian documents abroad needs to know those details b…
Para quem
Guidance on your first signature · Checked on ITI's validator
Como resolve
PAdES, CAdES and timestamp explained · Service in Portuguese and English
Limite
Não é site do governo. Emissão sujeita a validação de identidade, documentação e normas da ICP-Brasil.
The seven mistakes, from most common to most expensive
Two mistakes in a single contract
Real case
Illustrative scenario. A Brazilian project coordinator works for a humanitarian organisation in Accra and enters, as an individual, into a cooperation agreement with a federal university in Brazil's Northeast for a field study. He prints the PDF, signs in ink, scans it and applies his gov.br signature over the scanned file. The university's legal office sends it back: the agreement requires a qualified signature and the file, on top of that, is an image with no verifiable signature. He issues an e-CPF by video call on a Saturday morning, Accra time, receives the clean draft again, signs the original PDF in PAdES with a timestamp — because the agreement has a start date — and sends the file along with the ITI validator link. The university registers the agreement the following Monday. — A frequent combination: printed-and-scanned document + insufficient signature level
Checklist before sending
- The file is the original PDF, not a scan or a photo.
- The recipient confirmed the accepted signature level and the final version of the text.
- If there is a signing order, you are signing on the file that already contains the earlier signatures.
- Timestamp enabled, if the date has legal effect.
- After signing, nothing was changed — the file name needn't change either, but the content never.
- You checked your own signature at validar.iti.gov.br before sending.
- The attachment is the signed document; the certificate stays on your computer or token.
The right format for each file
A PDF takes a PAdES signature, which lives inside the file itself and can accumulate several people. Spreadsheets, XML and images take CAdES, which generates a .p7s next to the original — the two must travel together. The step-by-step with the tools is in signing Brazilian documents while living outside Brazil, and the table by document type in digital signing of Brazilian documents abroad. This page exists for the step before that: not getting it wrong.
Before you decide
“I've already made the mistake. Is the contract valid or not?”
It depends on the level the act requires. If it required qualified and you used something else, the document must be signed again with the certificate — and we help you redo it.
“The other party signed with gov.br. Does that hurt me?”
Not necessarily. A document can carry signatures of different levels, as long as each signatory meets the level the act requires of them.
“My ID expired; can I still issue the certificate?”
With another valid Brazilian ID, yes. If none is valid, renew the passport at the consulate first.
“Is it worth more than a trip to sign at a notary?”
From €200 you sign this and every document of the year. A single flight to get a signature notarised costs more and solves only one.
Transparent pricing
The e-CPF that signs any Brazilian document, plus guidance on your first signature so that none of the seven mistakes happens to you.
Starting point for a one-year A1; A3 and the timestamp have their figures stated in the WhatsApp quote.
Issue and sign with guidance