Civil procedure deadlines in Brazil: business days, start point and the exceptions

Business days: the rule that changed everything

CPC art. 219 is short and blunt: "When counting deadlines in days, set by law or by the judge, only business days shall be counted." Saturdays, Sundays and court holidays simply do not count. And what counts as a court holiday? Art. 216 answers: beyond those declared by statute, court holidays are Saturdays, Sundays and any day with no court sitting, which sweeps in local holidays and each tribunal's optional days off. That is why the same 15-day deadline can fall on different dates in São Paulo and in Rio: the court calendars are not the same.

The sole paragraph of art. 219 draws the most important and most forgotten line: "This article applies only to procedural deadlines." So counting in business days governs the time to answer, to appeal, to speak in the case, acts performed inside the proceeding. It does not govern substantive-law periods: limitation (prescrição) and forfeiture (decadência) keep running on calendar days, uninterrupted, because they are substantive, not procedural. Conflating the two is a classic mistake; if your question is until when a right can be claimed or exercised, use the civil statute of limitations tool, not the art. 219 rule.

Procedural deadline

Time to perform an act inside a case (answer, appeal, object). Counted in business days (art. 219) and subject to the recess suspension (art. 220). E.g., 15 business days to appeal.

Substantive deadline (limitation / forfeiture)

Time to exercise a right or a claim, defined by civil law. Runs on calendar days, outside the business-day rule (art. 219, sole paragraph). E.g., 3 years to collect a debt.

The start point: art. 231, item by item

Before counting, you need to know when the deadline starts, the "start day" that art. 224 tells you to exclude. And here lies the biggest trap in civil procedure: the start point is almost never the date you actually learned of the act. Art. 231 lists, by form of communication, what the start day is. As a rule, the trigger is the date the proof is filed in the record (the return receipt, the executed writ), not the date the act happened. The exception that dominates practice is electronic service (item V) and gazette publication (item VII).

The counting algorithm

Putting the articles together, counting a civil deadline becomes a seven-step procedure. Always run it in the same order, most mistakes come from skipping the start-point step or forgetting the recess.

1. Classify the deadlineIs it procedural or substantive? Only a civil procedural deadline counts in business days (art. 219, sole paragraph). And which branch, civil, small claims, labor or criminal? Each has its own rule.
2. Find the start pointIdentify the form of communication and read the start day from art. 231. For gazette publication, first apply art. 224, § 2: publication is the business day after the item is made available.
3. Exclude the start dayThe count begins only on the first business day after publication (art. 224, § 3). That is business day number 1.
4. Count only business daysAdd the days, skipping Saturdays, Sundays and court holidays, including local ones (arts. 219 and 216).
5. Apply the recess suspensionIf the count crosses December 20 to January 20, freeze the clock in that span (art. 220) and resume on January 21.
6. Check for a doubled termPublic treasury, prosecution, public defender or co-parties from different firms in a paper file? Double the number of business days (arts. 180, 183, 186 and 229).
7. Verify the due dayIf the last day lands on a day with no sitting or with the system down, extend it to the next business day (art. 224, § 1).

Two examples counted day by day

Example 1, a 15-business-day appeal, no recess. A judgment is made available in the electronic gazette on Monday, March 2, 2026. Under art. 224, § 2, the publication date is the next business day: Tuesday, March 3. Under § 3, the count begins on the first business day after publication: Wednesday, March 4, that is business day #1. Counting 15 business days and skipping weekends, the deadline falls on Tuesday, March 24, 2026.

Example 2, the same 15-business-day deadline, but crossing the recess. Now the judgment is made available on Wednesday, December 10, 2025. Publication (art. 224, § 2): Thursday, Dec 11. Count begins (§ 3): Friday, Dec 12, business day #1. Six business days run through Friday, Dec 19 (days 12, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19). On Dec 20 the art. 220 recess begins and the clock freezes until Jan 20, 2026 inclusive. The count resumes only on Wednesday, Jan 21, with the 7th business day. Nine days remained; adding them from Jan 21, the 15th business day falls on Monday, February 2, 2026. The recess does not "eat" days off the deadline: it just pushes the due date forward.

Who counts double

Some parties get their deadline doubled by statute. The rationale is to offset scale (the treasury and the public defender handle enormous caseloads) or the coordination between distinct lawyers. Watch two conditions: for the treasury, the prosecution and the public defender, the benefit does not apply when the law expressly sets a specific term for that party; and for co-parties, doubling exists only in paper files.

Civil, criminal and the other branches

The CPC business-day rule is not universal. It spread to some branches and was blocked in another. In criminal procedure the logic is the opposite: CPP art. 798 says deadlines "run in the registry and are continuous and peremptory, not interrupted by recess, Sunday or holiday", that is, calendar days. And under STF Precedent 710, criminal deadlines count from the date of service, not from the filing of the writ in the record, the reverse of the civil art. 231 rule.

1. 2015CPC art. 219

   Law 13,105 introduces business-day counting for civil procedural deadlines.

2. Nov 2017CLT art. 775

   The Labor Reform (Law 13,467) brings business days to labor procedure.

3. 2018Small claims: Law 9,099, art. 12-A

   Law 13,728 ends the dispute and fixes business days in small-claims courts too.

4. UnchangedCriminal: CPP art. 798

   Criminal procedure stays on calendar days: the business-day reform never reached it.

In labor procedure, art. 775 of the CLT as amended by Law 13,467/2017 is clear: "The deadlines set in this Title shall be counted in business days, excluding the start day and including the due day." And CLT art. 775-A mirrors the Dec 20 to Jan 20 recess. So labor and civil converged. When the deadline lapses and the amount at stake moves to enforcement, other calculations kick in: see monetary restatement and interest and, when a fee must be set, attorney fees. The criminal counting logic, in turn, resurfaces in sentencing, another legal calculation with rigid stages, detailed in the sentencing dosimetry guide.