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Valid notification of an administrative act in Peru: electronic mailbox, home address, and public notice

Short answer

A notification is valid when the agency follows the legal order (personal delivery to your home address first, then email or an electronic mailbox only if you authorized it, and publication only as a last resort) and uses the correct address. Your deadline to pay, appeal, or respond starts running from when the notification takes legal effect, not from the date the act was issued.

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Peruvian State portal (gob.pe)

Checked 1 Oct 2026Next review 28 Dec 2026

By Gyason · verified 1 Oct 2026

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The clock running against you

2 business days from the day after the agency emails you the notification (with no assigned electronic mailbox) and you have not confirmed receipt.This is a procedural deadline: miss it and you lose that route and have to start another.

What day was it?

If the automatic receipt confirmation for the email does not arrive within those two business days, the agency must notify you again, this time by paper delivery to your address (art. 20.1.1), and the agency's own 5-day deadline to notify (art. 24.1) starts counting over from that point.

S.D. 006-2026-JUS (TUO of Law 27444), art. 20, numeral 20.4

The rule: a fixed order, not whatever is easiest for the agency

Notifying you of an administrative act — a fine, a decision, a collection order — is the responsibility of the agency that issued it, on its own initiative, without you having to ask (art. 18.1). But not just any notification counts: article 20 sets a strict order of methods the agency must follow:

Personal notification, at your home address.
Certified mail, telegram, or another verifiable method, but only if you expressly requested it.
Publication in the official gazette or a widely circulated newspaper, as a last resort.

The agency cannot skip a step or change the order because it is more convenient: doing so is grounds for the notification to be void (art. 20.2). If you were notified directly by publication without the agency ever attempting personal delivery, and your address was known, that notification has a defect you can raise.

Your address: where the agency must look for you

Personal notification must be made at the address on record in your file, or the last address you gave that same agency in another procedure within the past year. If you never gave one, the authority must use the address on your national ID (DNI) (art. 21.1 and 21.2).

If the process server cannot find you or anyone else at that address, they cannot simply give up: they must record it and leave a notice with a new date for the next attempt. If they still cannot reach you on that second try, they must leave the record and the notification under the door, and both become part of your file (art. 21.5). This is what, in practice, is called “cédula” delivery.

Email and electronic mailbox: both need your express authorization

The agency can notify you by email, but only if you provided that address in your file and expressly authorized that method; in that case, the order of methods above no longer applies (art. 20.4). The notification counts as valid when the agency receives your confirmation of receipt, or when a technology platform generates that confirmation automatically, and it takes effect the day it is on record as received.

If that automatic confirmation does not arrive within two business days of the day after it was sent, the agency must notify you again, this time by paper delivery to your address, and its own 5-day deadline to notify (see below) starts counting from zero again.

Beyond one-off email notifications, an agency with the right technology can also assign you a dedicated electronic mailbox for all your notifications — again, only with your express consent, unless a supreme decree for that sector has made the electronic mailbox mandatory for that kind of procedure.

Publication (public notice): the last option, not the first

Publication — what is informally called “edicto” notification — only applies in two scenarios, under article 23:

As the main route: when the act is a general provision, or affects an indeterminate number of people with no known address.
As a subsidiary route: for an act that does affect you individually, only when the authority already tried the other methods without success, for a reason attributable to you — for example, your address being unknown despite an inquiry, or you having disappeared or being abroad without a legal representative.

In other words: if the agency knows your address and never tried to notify you there, it cannot go straight to publication. If it did, that notification is open to challenge.

The agency’s own deadline: 5 days to notify you after issuing the act

Once the agency issues the act — the decision, the fine, the order — it has five days to notify you of it, and the notification must include the full text of the act with its reasoning, the identification of the procedure, the authority that issued it, its effective date and, where applicable, the appeals available against it and the deadline to file them (art. 24.1).

When your deadline starts: the “vigencia” of the notification

This is probably the most practical question on this page: from exactly what date does your deadline to pay, appeal, or respond start running? Article 25 answers it by method:

Method	Takes effect from…
Personal notification	The same day it was carried out
Certified mail, email, electronic mailbox	The day it is on record as received
Publication (public notice)	The day of the last publication in the official gazette
An act that must be both personally notified and published (to protect third parties)	From whichever of the two happened last

It is not the date of the act, nor the date it was sent: it is the date the notification, according to its own method, is deemed received. Miscounting that date is one of the most common mistakes when working out whether an appeal or a payment arrived on time.

If the notification had an error: it doesn’t always void the act

A notification with a formal defect — missing some piece of information, not following the exact procedure — does not automatically mean the act is void. Article 27 offers two outs:

If you expressly acknowledge having received the defective notification, it takes effect from the date you acknowledged it, unless you prove otherwise.
If your own conduct shows you already knew the content of the act — for example, you filed an appeal against it — you are deemed notified from that action. This does not apply if you simply asked to be notified of a pending decision.

In practice, this means a notification defect rarely erases the act: what you can argue is from what date your deadline runs, not whether the act exists.

This TUO changed several article numbers

Other pages on this site, verified before July 2026, cite the previous TUO of Law 27444 (S.D. 004-2019-JUS). The new TUO (S.D. 006-2026-JUS) reordered several articles in the administrative-procedure regime. If you are going to cite an article of this law in a filing, confirm its current number in SPIJ or in this same TUO first.

How long it takes

The agency
The agency issues the administrative act (a decision, a fine, an order)
It has 5 days to notify it from the date it was issued
Source: Decreto Supremo N.° 006-2026-JUS, Artículo 24, numeral 24.1 (TUO de la Ley N.° 27444)
The agency
You are notified following the order of methods: personal delivery to your address first; other methods only if that fails
It cannot skip the order or freely swap methods, on pain of nullity
Source: Decreto Supremo N.° 006-2026-JUS, Artículo 20, numeral 20.1 (TUO de la Ley N.° 27444)
The agency, with your express authorization
If you authorized email or an electronic mailbox, you are notified through that method
Takes effect the day it is on record as received
Source: Decreto Supremo N.° 006-2026-JUS, Artículo 20, numeral 20.4, primer párrafo (TUO de la Ley N.° 27444)
The agency
If receipt of the email is not confirmed in time, the agency notifies you again by paper delivery to your address
2 business days from the day after the email was sent
Source: Decreto Supremo N.° 006-2026-JUS, Artículo 20, numeral 20.4, párrafos segundo y tercero (TUO de la Ley N.° 27444)
Automatic
Once the notification takes effect, your deadline to pay, appeal, or respond starts running
Per art. 25: the same day if personal; the day it is on record as received if by email or mailbox; from the last publication if by public notice
Source: Decreto Supremo N.° 006-2026-JUS, Artículo 25 (TUO de la Ley N.° 27444)

These periods are counted differently, so we don't add them up.

If the notification had a defect, it is not lost: it takes effect from when you acknowledge receiving it or from when your own actions show you already knew about it (art. 27).

How to file

Identify which method the agency used to notify youCheck whether it was personal (who signed the delivery record?), certified mail or email (did you authorize it?), or publication. The method determines when your deadline starts.
Check that the order of methods was respectedThe agency cannot notify you by publication if it never tried personal delivery and your address was known, nor notify you by email without your express authorization.
Confirm the exact date the notification took effectUse article 25: personal, the same day; email or electronic mailbox, the day it is on record as received; publication, from the last publication. Your deadline runs from that date, not the date of the act.
If there was a defect, weigh whether it helps you to raise itA formal defect does not void the act, but it can shift the date your deadline starts. If you already filed an appeal or acted as though you knew about the act, the notification is likely already cured (art. 27.2).
If your address changed, update it with the agency as soon as possibleThis keeps the agency from turning to publication as a subsidiary method after failed delivery attempts, claiming the missed address is attributable to you.

What people fail to ask in time

Do you know what to do if your bank account still gets frozen without ever being notified?

Find out before it matters →

What most people believe — and what the law says

The belief

If nobody physically handed me the paper, the notification is not valid.

The law

Not necessarily. If they cannot find you at your address, the process server leaves a notice with a new date, and if they still cannot reach you, they leave the record and the notification under the door (art. 21.5). And even if there was a defect, your own actions — such as filing an appeal against that act — can cure the notification (art. 27.2).

The belief

A regular email already notifies me validly even if I never authorized anything.

The law

No. Article 20.4 requires your express authorization to be notified by email or electronic mailbox. Without that authorization, the agency must follow the paper-based order: personal delivery first, then certified mail only if you requested it, and publication last.

The belief

If they published the act in the official gazette, I'm already notified even if I never saw it.

The law

Only if your case fits article 23: publication is the main route only for general provisions or acts affecting an indeterminate number of people with no known address. For an act that affects you individually and whose address the agency knows, publication is only a subsidiary route, used when they genuinely could not reach you through another method.

The belief

If the notification had an error, the act is voided and everything starts over.

The law

An error in the notification does not void the act itself. Article 27 says a defective notification takes effect from the date you yourself acknowledge receiving it, or from when you acted as though you already knew about it (for example, by filing an appeal). What changes is the date your deadline starts, not whether the act is valid.

Frequently asked questions

When does my deadline to pay or appeal something I was notified about start?

It depends on the method, per article 25: for personal notification, from the same day it was delivered; for certified mail, email, or an electronic mailbox, from the day it is on record as received; for publication, from the day of the last publication in the official gazette.

Can an agency notify me by email without my having authorized anything?

No. Article 20.4 requires your express authorization to notify you by email, and also to assign you an electronic mailbox, unless a supreme decree for that sector has made the electronic mailbox mandatory for that specific procedure.

What if I no longer live at the address the agency has on file?

Your valid address is the one on record in your file, or the one you gave that same agency in another procedure within the last year; if you never gave one, the authority must use the address on your DNI (art. 21.1 and 21.2). If you moved without updating it, you risk the agency, after failed attempts to reach you, turning to publication as a subsidiary method.

Can I be notified by public notice (edicto) even if the agency has my correct address?

That should not happen. Article 23 reserves publication as the main route for general provisions or acts with indeterminate recipients and no known address; for your individual case, it only applies as a subsidiary route, when other methods failed for a reason attributable to you, such as having moved without reporting it.

What do I do if the notification I received had an error or was missing information?

A formal defect does not automatically void the act. Under article 27, a defective notification takes effect from the date you expressly acknowledge receiving it, or from when your own actions show you already knew about it. You can use that defect to argue that your deadline to challenge it runs from a different date than the one the agency claims.