How do I get criminal, police and judicial records certificates in Peru, and who can demand them?

Three different certificates

In Peru, ‘records’ (antecedentes) are three separate documents, issued by three different bodies:

Amounts and validity come from each official gob.pe page: criminal, updated on 9 September 2025; police, on 5 January 2026; judicial, on 23 September 2024. The police certificate for travel or use abroad is a separate procedure: S/ 8.50, in person only, according to the page updated on 19 June 2026, which does not state its validity.

The Certificado Único Laboral: all three, free

Ley 31760 created the Certificado Único Laboral (CUL, a single employment certificate), issued by the Ministerio de Trabajo (labour ministry). It is an electronic document obtained free of charge and available to anyone aged 18 or over. It combines your police, criminal and judicial records, your education and your formal work history. It replaced the old Certijoven and Certiadulto.

Two details:

• For records, the CUL only says whether you have any or not, without detail (regulation, art. 5.1).
• The regulation (Decreto Supremo 014-2023-TR, art. 8) sets validity at 90 calendar days. The gob.pe page says ‘three months’. If the exact period matters to you, confirm it on the official page.

An employer who receives your CUL must keep its contents confidential (regulation, art. 12.2).

Public offices: D.L. 1246, articles 3 and 4

Article 5 of Decreto Legislativo 1246 is well known because it bars public offices from asking for a copy of the DNI or recent birth certificates. Records are not in that article. They are in articles 3 and 4:

• Article 3.2 lists criminal, judicial and police records among the information public bodies must make available to executive-branch agencies, free of charge, through interoperability (electronic data sharing between agencies).
• Article 4 bars public bodies from demanding information they can get directly that way.
• Article 3.3 says that, until interoperability is in place, those documents can be replaced by a sworn statement (declaración jurada), if you choose.

We could not confirm which agencies already have interoperability working. It follows from the rule that, either way, a public office should not make you buy the certificate; that is a reading of articles 3.3 and 4, not a sentence written in them.

Private employers: D.L. 1246 does not reach them

D.L. 1246 is addressed to ‘public administration bodies’. A private company is not bound by it. Nor did we find, in Ley 31760 or its regulation, a ban on a private employer asking for records. The regulation does include employers in its scope and requires them to keep the CUL confidential. If you are asked, you can offer the CUL, which is free; we found no rule that requires the employer to accept it instead of the certificates.

Foreigners

• Criminal: you can apply with a passport or carné de extranjería, but MAC centres only issue it to Peruvians.
• Judicial online: not available to foreigners without a carné de extranjería or PTP, nor to Peruvians born abroad or naturalised, nor to people in prison. They must apply in person.
• CUL: available with a carné de extranjería, CUE or another Migraciones document, with the information available through data sharing between agencies.
• Migraciones: to become a worker resident, it asks for an Interpol international records form issued no more than 6 months earlier, and proof of no records for the 5 years before you arrived.

If you will use a certificate outside Peru, see how to apostille documents. For working in Peru, see working in Peru as a foreigner.