International document corresponding to the Antecedentes policiales, penales and judiciales in Peru

One of the requirements when applying for a resident visa in Peru or when changing your immigration status (for example, from a work visa to a permanent resident visa) is presenting the “Antecedentes policiales, penales y judiciales” from your home country or from a country where you legally lived (that is, with a resident visa) during the five years prior to coming to Peru, proving that you do not have a criminal record.

Many foreigners are confused by this requirement. They don’t know what these Peruvian antecedentes actually are, what they correspond to in their home country, or how to obtain an equivalent document. This article aims to clarify these points.

While it’s impossible to know the exact name of the required document and the application process for every country in the world, the information below should at least point you in the right direction and help you avoid common mistakes.

Content Overview

• What are the Peruvian Antecedentes policiales, penales y judiciales?
• What kind of record check does Migraciones accept?
• Some tips and recommendations
• Document corresponding to the Peruvian "antecedentes" by country

What are the Peruvian Antecedentes policiales, penales y judiciales?

In Peru, the antecedentes consist of three separate background checks:

• Antecedentes Policiales: A police clearance certificate indicating whether a person has had registered encounters with the police, was involved in criminal investigations, or is under investigation.
• Antecedentes Penales:  A criminal record check showing whether a person has ever been convicted of a crime by a Peruvian court. So, it’s an official document of the criminal history of a person limited to actual convictions.
• Antecedentes Judiciales: A judicial background record showing whether a person has been incarcerated in a Peruvian jail or completed community service as part of a sentence.

If you need more detailed information on these Peruvian documents and how to obtain them for time you lived in Peru, see our article “Police Clearance Certificate and Criminal Background Check in Peru”

Peruvian Police Clearance Certificate and Criminal Background Check

Legal Stuff

Foreigners, who have lived or are still living in Peru, as well as Peruvians quite often have to provide a police clearance certificate or a crimin...

For visa purposes in Peru, however, Migraciones requires an equivalent document from abroad proving that you do not have a criminal record in your home country or in countries where you legally resided during the five years before coming to Peru.

While the official regulation allows submitting a record check from another country of legal residence, Migraciones often ask for the document from your home country. If they become aware that you lived in another country during the relevant five-year period, they may additionally request a record check from that country.

What kind of record check does Migraciones accept?

Most countries do not have a three-part background check system like Peru. Consequently, it is usually impossible to submit three separate documents equivalent to the Peruvian antecedentes..

After some initial confusion when the requirement was introduced in 2021 - back then Migraciones rejected quite a few police clearance, criminal record and good-conduct certificates submitted by visa applicants because they did not perfectly match the Peruvian system - the authority adjusted its approach. Today, Migraciones generally accepts:

A criminal / background record check or any type of no criminal record certificates issued by the highest competent authority in your home country, such as a federal police authority, judicial authority, or national security agency responsible for criminal records.

The exact name of the document varies by country. What matters is that it clearly proves the absence of police, criminal, and judicial records. A simple local police check or municipal certificate is usually not sufficient and may be rejected.

That said, Migraciones occasionally still rejects documents without clear explanation. If this happens, your only option is to clarify the reason directly with Migraciones and, if necessary, appeal or submit a different document.

If you are unsure which document is accepted from your country, check the country-specific section below or consult a Peruvian consulate before applying.

Some tips and recommendations

• Apply while still in your home country
  Obtaining criminal record checks from abroad is often complicated, slow, expensive—or simply impossible. In most cases, embassies and consulates in Peru cannot help, though there are exceptions.
• Fingerprint requirements can be a hurdle
  Some countries require a current fingerprint card with rolled and flat impressions of all ten fingers, personal data, and official seal/stamp of the police agency and the signature of the official taking the fingerprints.
  In Lima, for example, fingerprinting can be done at the National Police Complex (Direccion de Criminalistica PNP) on Av. Aramburu 550. In Cusco readers reported success at the Policia Nacional del Peru, DIVINCRI PNP, Oficina de Criminalistica Cusco (a building behind the big police headquarters in Plaza Tupaq Amaru).
  Be aware this is a voluntary service.
• Request the document for international use
  When applying for your criminal record check in your home country, make sure the certificate is issued “for use abroad”, “for visa purposes”, or similar.
• Authentication is mandatory
  The document must contain an official signature and stamp from the issuing authority to be eligible for Apostille or legalization.
• Apostille or legalization is required
  After you received your record check, you have to get an Apostille on it (or, if your home country didn’t sign the Hague Apostille Convention must get legalized). This must usually be done in the country where the document was issued. Some authorities offer to forward the document directly for Apostille, which can save time and costs.
• Consider professional services
  Especially if you are abroad, using an approved service provider handling all the red tape to get your record check and/or the Apostille may be practical. In some countries, it’s even required to use such services at one point or the other.
• Translation into Spanish must be done in Peru
  Translations done abroad are not accepted. Foreign documents are only accepted in Peru if the translation was performed by a certified Peruvian translator. You find lists of government-approved translators (traductor público juramentado) on the Peruvian government website. Just click under point 3 on the language of your original document and the list of translators for your language appears. You can use other certified translators also. 

Document corresponding to the Peruvian "antecedentes" by country

Below is information about which document meets the “Antecedents policales, penales y judiciales” requirement for the most common nationalities applying for resident visas in Peru. If your nationality is not listed, we hope the general guidance above still helps. If you have gone through the process and want to share your experience, we’d appreciate it.

United States

Officially, US nationals need an “FBI Criminal Record Check” or an “Identity History Summary”, which is done in the US by the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). You find more information about the application process on the website of the US Department of State or on the FBI website. Once issued the document must be apostilled by the US Department of State.

However, since around mid-2024 some of our readers informed me that Migraciones as well now accept a background check issued by the home state, of course, with Apostille. Others told me that their submitted state issued check wasn't accepted and Migraciones requested the FBI check. Confusing and so typical for Peru.

Since the beginning of 2025, we heard of a few cases where the FBI background check was rejected by Migraciones even though all requirements were met. The information on the Migraciones notifications was quite abstruse from "The document isn't meeting the requirements." to " The document isn't equivalent to the Peruvian Antecedentes policiales, penales y judiciales." to "The FBI isn't the competent authority to issue the document". When paying a Migraciones office a visit, the staff there informed the applicants that the FBI check isn't accepted anymore and suddenly requested specifically the state issued background check.

So, while today (beginning of April 2025) FBI checks are officially still the required document to prove that you don't have a criminal record and are still accepted, sometimes they aren't and for whatever reason Migraciones requests a state issued background check. Welcome to Peru and its bureaucracy.

Anyway, at the moment it is impossible to guarantee that the one or the other background check is accepted. If you are planning to apply for a resident visa in the near future and want to avoid any problems, it might be wise to bring both. And while getting an FBI check is expensive and time consuming getting a state issued background check is usually much quicker, easier and cheaper, in some states it can be done online and/or without having to provide fingerprints. Additionally, as this document is issued by your state (not the federal government), it doesn't have to be apostilled by the US Department of State, which sometimes takes ages, but can be apostilled by the state's Secretary of State, which in most states only takes a few days or a week or two.

One of our readers was so nice and explained which steps are involved in getting a state background check (thank you so much Mike!). Here what he wrote in 2024:

1. Order a notarized background check from your state's law enforcement agency. It is likely you can do this online and have it mailed to you, or directly to the state's Secretary of State.

2. Get the background check apostilled. Since this is a document issued by your state (not the federal government), it can only be apostilled by the state's Secretary of State. I was able to take it into their office and it was apostilled while I waited. Most states also offer the option to service requests via mail.

3. Once in Peru, have it translated to Spanish. It must be done by a translator who is "juramentado" (most official, but more expensive and slower) or "colegiado" (faster and cheaper). I went with colegiado and still don't really understand why there are 3 different levels of translation available in this country.

If you are already in Peru and want to get an FBI background check, read the experience Vaughn, an US national, who already was in Peru when he applied for his FBI background check and the Apostille, send me (2023):

Dear Eva,

With two days remaining on my tourist visa my residency papers were submitted to Migraciones, which means that the visa limit is no longer applicable. The biggest reason for the delay was being so clueless about how to obtain an FBI report and apostillle, and I'm grateful to you for pointing me in the right direction. Whatever activities those Embassy folks may be up to inside their fortress out in Surco, providing useful information evidently has a low priority. To make life easier for some of your readers, I've drafted a summary of how the process works and am sending it along.

This is a two-step process that involves first obtaining the FBI report, and then the apostille, a cover sheet signed and sealed by a government official that validates a document for use in foreign countries. You can either request a report directly from the Bureau or use an FBI Channeler, a company that will deal with the Bureau on your behalf. I chose the latter because it seemed simpler, doesn't cost much more ($50 vs something like $20) and provides a phone contact for handling questions. From a Channeler list I picked one based on cost and expected turn-around time.

They emailed printable instructions and five items to be retuned: a general information form, a form for your M/C or Visa information, and a checklist of necessary items, plus two FBI fingerprint forms to take to the police. (It´s OK to use regular copier paper for these.) Fingerprinting is done at a station on Avenida Aramburu a block west of the Via Expresa, and the fingerprint section is located around the corner on the west side of the building. There was no charge for this, but he sure someone there puts their stamp and signature on each of the forms. Next you need to send the forms back to the Channeler via DHL. At the time their location in Miraflores (700 block of Benavides) had a $45 special for sending documents to the U.S. (Note: there's a guy on the corner-been there for years-who sells great empanadas.)

A few days after receiving your DHL packet they will email your FBI report, which you can then forward to one of the Apostille services. Again there is a list to pick from and I chose one based on the same criteria. The cost was $125 for the service plus $50 for sending back the Apostilled report via DHL. It came in about four weeks, which was what they had estimated.

These documents will then have to be translated into Spanish and the Apostille service I used offered to take care of this, as I imagine they all do. However, I decided to have this done here figuring there was less likelihood of a problem using a translator certified in Peru as opposed to one based overseas. What you will end up with is a stack of papers with the FBI report on the bottom, the Apostille on top of that, the translation on top of that, and on top of everything the translator´s cover sheet with their information, credentials, etc.

Good luck with this and don't forget the empanadas. After all is done and the final payment has been debited to your account, you can also try visiting the Jockey Club on Avenida Larco. You've long known what comes out of the back end of a bull, and at this point you'll also be aware that you have purchased a bureaucratic pile of it for roughly $300. Studying a Racing Form is a good antidote for these unpleasant thoughts, particularly if you do it in a place that serves Miraflores beer at La Victoria prices.

Note: The services used for this did a good job and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

FBI Channeler. Accurate Biommetrics, Itasca, Illinois. (866) 361-9944. Info [at] accuratebiometrics [dot] com
Apostille. Southeast Spanish, Inc. Knoxville, Tennessee. (877) 374-0005. dan.hickman [at] sespanish [dot] com
Translation service (Peru) Peter Spence. (511) 453 2514/(51) 999 190 882. Spencetraducciones [at] gmail [dot] com

Canada

Canadian nationals need a “Certified Criminal Record Check” which is issued in Canada by the Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services (CCRTIS) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). You find more information about the application process on the website of the RCMP. Here the RMCP step-by-step guide. Once issued the document must be apostilled.

One of our readers shared how he got his Canadian Criminal Record Check while already being in Peru. Here what he wrote in 2024:

I just finished the Canadian criminal record check process entirely from Peru, and wanted to share the latest procedure:

Choose a notary in Canada that can digitalize and send your fingerprints and personal data to the RCMP on your behalf. I used Red Seal Notary and was very happy with their service. They will have a list of documents and information they need from you- notarized copies of passport and other Canadian ID document, passport style photo, credit card form, etc.

Make sure you specify you need the police check including the signature from the Ottawa Criminal Real Time director.

Print 2 copies of the RCMP fingerprint form and take them to the DIRINCRI office at Av Aramburu 550 (this is around the corner from the main police station door, you will see people waiting on a small patio for the Peruvian police checks). I asked nicely to the officer at reception if he could take my fingerprints for an international check, and he did so right away and there was no charge. Make sure to tell them you need the rolled fingerprints and read the form before to direct them, as the officer may not be familiar with the format.

Collect the rest of your documents and mail (registered courier like DHL is best) to the notary service in Canada. They will upload your details and send to the RCMP. I received email confirmation within about 10 days that they had my police check back, and it took about another 3-4 days for DHL to deliver my document in Lima.

Now that Canada is officially part of the Apostille Convention, you can make an appointment at the Canadian embassy in Lima to receive the Apostille for your RCMP check. You can make the appointments online in advance here under Notarial Services.

Translators: I asked around to several and used Maria del Carmen Buendia for the translation.

UK

UK passport holders need an ACRO police certificate which is issued by the National Police Chiefs' Council's Criminal Records Office. You find more information about the application process, which can be done online on the website of the Acro Criminal Records Office. Once issued the document must be apostilled.

Australia

Australians need a “National Police Clearance Certificate (NPC) for criminal records that cover all Australian states and territories” which is issued in Australia by the Australian Federal Police (AFP). You find detailed information about the application process on the website of the AFP. Once issued the document must be apostilled.

New Zealand

New Zealand passport holders need a Criminal Record Check issued by the Ministry of Justice. Once issued the document must be apostilled.

Here what our reader Martin shared about the process:

'Ministry of Justice' 'Criminal Record Check'
https://www.police.govt.nz/faq/how-do-i-get-a-police-clearance-certificate
If you are asked for a ‘police clearance certificate’, ‘police record’, ‘police file’, ‘police check’, or ‘criminal check’, a copy of your criminal record from the Ministry of Justice should meet the requirements. If you have no convictions, you will receive a letter stating that is the case.
https://www.justice.govt.nz/criminal-records/
https://www.criminalrecords.govt.nz/
Request a free New Zealand Criminal Record Check
which is emailed to you within three working days.

Department of Internal Affairs 'Apostille'
https://www.govt.nz/browse/passports-citizenship-and-identity/proving-and-protecting-your-identity/use-your-nz-documents-overseas/
https://www.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Passports-citizenship-and-identity/Request-a-document-authentication-or-apostille.pdf
The New Zealand 'Department of Internal Affairs' will verify your electronic 'Criminal Record Check' directly with the 'Ministry of Justice'. You can apply and pay for a Paper Apostille (edit sunflower: which you need for Peru) or e-Apostille which is couriered to a New Zealand address or an overseas address. New Zealand Apostille processing time is approximately seven working days.

Germany

Germans need a "Führungszeugnis Verwendung Ausland“ (criminal record certificate for use aboard). Those who are still in Germany can apply for it at their Meldebehörde. Once issued the document must be apostilled.

For those who are already abroad the Bundesamt für Justiz (Federal Office of Justice) is in charge and issues the document. You find detailed information on the website of the Bundesamt für Justiz.

Be aware that since January 1, 2023 the Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten is responsible to put an Apostille on documents issued by Bundesministerien. And unfortunately, once the Führungszeugnis is apostilled, the BfAA only sends it to a German address. The website of the BfAA explains the whole process nicely (see under subpoint "Wichtige Hinweise für Führungszeugnisse").

Austria

Austrians need a "Strafregisterauszug“ (criminal record certificate). While the Landespolizeidirektion Wien (Federal Police Bureau Vienna) is responsible for keeping the register, the certificate is issued depending where you live by different police departments. You can as well apply online. Once issued the document must be apostilled. And the good news, if you are already in Peru, the Austrian consulate is in charge.

Russia

Russians need a Certificate of no criminal record (in Russian this should be the “Spravka o nalichii (otsutstvii) sudimosti” - Certificate of presence (absence) of a criminal record). If you are still in Russia, you can apply in person at your regional Information Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or at your local Multifunctional Service Center. Once issued the document must be apostilled. If you are already outside Russia, you can apply in person at the Consular Section of the nearest Russian Embassy (bring your Russian passport and, if you are a foreigner who lived in Russia, proof of your (former) residency).

Please note: We from LimaEasy are not a Peruvian government agency, a public authority or (immigration) lawyers. All information is published to our best knowledge and should be seen as general guidance introducing you to Peruvian regulations and procedures. All information is subject to change, as regulations, requirements, and processes can change quickly without prior notice!

And if you find something wrong on this page, please help us to keep this guide as up to date as possible and contact us either below with a comment or use our contact form. Thank you!