ABSTRACT Objective: To describe the epidemiological characteristics of suicide mortality in the state of Pernambuco, from 1996 to 2015. Method: Study with data from the Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade. The simple linear regression model was used to verify the trend in the period analyzed. Results: There were 6,229 suicides, of which 3,390 (54.4%) occurred in the second decade of study. The mortality rate was 4.7 per 100,000 inhabitants. The temporal trend presented a decrease of 23.5% (p=0.031). For the male sex and the age range between 20 and 39 years, there was a decline in self-inflicted death of 23.8% (p=0.018) and 26.1% (p=0.046), respectively. Conclusion: The temporal analysis revealed a reduction in suicide mortality coefficients. This observation may contribute to better targeting of health interventions, optimizing resources and efforts, especially in suicide prevention.