stackinNF-e correction letter (CC-e): what can be corrected, deadline, how-to
What a CC-e can and cannot correct, whether there is a deadline, the limit of 20 letters per NF-e and how to register the event with the SEFAZ.
The NF-e correction letter (carta de correção, CC-e) is the electronic event, code 110110, that the issuer registers with the SEFAZ to fix errors in specific fields of an NF-e that has already been authorized, without cancelling it. It is provided for in clause fourteen-A (cláusula décima quarta-A) of Ajuste SINIEF 07/05, and the scope of what can be corrected comes from art. 7, § 1-A of Convênio SINIEF s/nº of 15 December 1970.
What a CC-e can correct
What can be corrected is defined by exclusion: a CC-e covers an error made at issuance, provided the error is not related to (I) the variables that determine the amount of tax, such as the tax base, tax rate, price difference, quantity, or the value of the operation or service; (II) a correction of registration data that changes the sender or the recipient; (III) the issue date or the exit date; (IV) fields of an export NF-e reported in the Single Export Declaration (DU-E); or (V) adding or changing installments of credit sales.
Items IV and V are the newest: they entered Ajuste SINIEF 07/05 through Ajuste SINIEF 44/20, and Convênio s/nº of 1970 through Ajuste SINIEF 45/20, both in force since their publication in the Diário Oficial da União on 11 December 2020. Note that the fixed conditions-of-use text (xCondUso) the CC-e layout requires still reproduces only the three original items — the full list is in the legislation, not in the XML.
Deadline and letter limit
On the deadline: neither clause fourteen-A of Ajuste SINIEF 07/05 nor the event's validation rules in the Taxpayer Guidance Manual (MOC 7.0) set a deadline for the CC-e. NT 2011.003 did create rule GA02, which rejected (code 501) a letter for an NF-e authorized more than 30 days (720 hours) earlier, but NT 2011.004 listed it among the validation rules eliminated. The condition that still applies is that the NF-e must be authorized: if it is cancelled or denied, the event is rejected (rule GA01, code 580). If your system refuses a CC-e more than 30 days after authorization, that limit is the system's own, not the SEFAZ's.
Each NF-e accepts up to 20 correction letters: the event sequence number (nSeqEvento) must be a value from 1 to 20, and above that the SEFAZ rejects with code 594. And the most recent letter replaces the previous ones — the MOC says the new CC-e must contain every correction to be considered, and Ajuste SINIEF 07/05 requires the issuer to consolidate in the last one all information previously corrected. A second letter that corrects only the new error in practice erases what the first one corrected.
How to file a CC-e
How to do it: the CC-e is an XML event message carrying the free-text correction in the xCorrecao field (15 to 1000 characters) and the fixed xCondUso text, signed with the issuer's ICP-Brasil digital certificate — for a legal entity, the certificate of the head office or of any branch with the same base CNPJ — and transmitted to the SEFAZ of the issuer's state. When accepted, the response describes the event as "Carta de Correção registrada".
Two cautions the legislation itself makes clear. First, the receipt protocol does not validate the information in the CC-e: the SEFAZ registering the letter does not mean the correction was within what § 1-A allows. Second, a paper correction letter is forbidden for fixing errors in NF-e fields — correcting an NF-e is always electronic.
The CC-e file with the event registration is an integral part of the NF-e and must also be made available to the recipient and the carrier. And the event applies only to the model 55 NF-e: for the NFC-e (model 65) the SEFAZ rejects a correction letter with code 784.
In stackin, the CC-e for an authorized NF-e is registered with POST /api/v1/invoices/{access_key}/correction, passing the document_type and the correction text in correction, with the same 15 to 1000 character limits as the layout. Since a new letter replaces the previous one, always send the consolidated text with every correction. See Issue NF-e for the rest of the invoice's lifecycle.