How Long Does a Certified Translation Take?

Two to three business days is the normal turnaround for a certified translation. Premium delivers the same certified translation in one to two business days, and Standard, which does not carry a certificate of accuracy, takes three to five. The window is counted in business days from the point your payment clears, and it applies to the order as a whole, so a six page divorce decree comes back inside the same window as a one page birth certificate.

Turnaround by service level

| Service level | Turnaround | Price per page | Certificate of accuracy | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Premium | 1 to 2 business days | $39.95 | Yes | | Certified | 2 to 3 business days | $24.95 | Yes | | Standard | 3 to 5 business days | $19.95 | No |

You pick the level when you place the order, and the price for all three is shown against your real page count before you pay. The services and pricing page sets out what each level includes side by side.

What a business day means for your deadline

Business days are Monday through Friday, and public holidays are not counted. That gap between calendar days and business days is where most missed deadlines come from.

A Certified order paid on a Friday afternoon is due back on the Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, not on Sunday or Monday. An order placed the day before a long holiday weekend loses those days too. If your deadline is stated in calendar days by the office receiving the document, convert it into business days first and then work backwards.

When the clock starts

The turnaround begins when your payment clears and the order is confirmed, not when you first open the order form. Nothing sits waiting for a quote to be prepared, because your document is measured on upload and the price appears straight away.

The order is then assigned to a certified translator who works in your exact language pair. We only accept orders for pairs that have a qualified translator available, which is the reason the languages page lists eight languages and every combination between them rather than a long menu of pairs that cannot actually be staffed. You never wait while someone is found.

Does a longer document take longer

Within a single order the stated window holds. A forty page contract at the Certified level is still a two to three business day job, because the order is scheduled as a unit against that commitment.

The practical limit is the 50 page cap on one order. If your document runs past 50 pages, or you are sending a set of records that together exceed it, contact us so the work can be quoted and scheduled properly. Larger jobs are entirely possible, they just need a plan rather than a checkout button.

How to plan backwards from a filing deadline

Start at the date the document has to be in someone else's hands, subtract any time they need to receive it, then subtract the turnaround in business days, then add a buffer.

Say a consular appointment falls on Thursday the 19th and you want the translation in hand by Tuesday the 17th so nothing is left to the last morning. At the Certified level, three business days before Tuesday the 17th is Thursday the 12th. Ordering on the 12th gives you the full window with the two day cushion intact. If the 12th has already gone by, Premium buys back the difference for an extra $15.00 per page.

Two details people forget. If the receiving office wants paper in the mail, add the postal time on top of the translation turnaround. And if the same filing needs several documents translated, order them together rather than one at a time, since sequential orders stack their windows end to end.

What can slow an order down

A few things genuinely add time, and in each case we come back to you rather than guess.

• A scan too faint or too low in resolution for the text to be read with confidence
• Pages missing from the middle of a document, or a back page with text on it that was never uploaded
• Heavy handwriting or annotations that need clarification before they can be rendered
• A document that turns out to be a different record from the one described, for example a court summary rather than the full judgment

Uploading a clean, complete PDF of the whole document, every side of every page, removes almost all of this. There is more on the sequence of events in what happens after you upload a document.

What arrives at the end

Delivery is digital. Your certified translation appears in your account as a ready to submit PDF, with the signed certificate of accuracy on the cover carrying the translator's name, signature, date and the language pair. You can download it whenever you need it and print as many copies as the filing requires, at no extra cost.

If the office receiving it wants to confirm the certificate is genuine, they can check it on the verification page. Requirements vary between agencies, courts and universities, and the instructions given to you by the office receiving the document are the ones that govern.

If the deadline is tighter than one business day

Premium is the fastest service we sell, and one to two business days is a commitment we intend to hold rather than a best case. If your deadline is inside that, talk to us before ordering so we can tell you honestly whether it can be met. A clear no in advance is more use to you than a missed date.

If a translation is rejected

If a certified translation is rejected because of a translation error we made, we correct it at no charge. If the corrected translation is rejected again for that same error, we refund what you paid for it. Notice has to reach us within 30 days along with the written rejection, and the refund policy sets out the conditions in full. Corrections are handled with the same care as the original order, so build a little slack into your own dates wherever the filing allows it.

When you are ready, upload your PDF at start an order. The page count, the price and the delivery window for all three service levels are shown before you enter a card, so you can see immediately which one reaches your deadline. For the money side of the same decision, read how much a certified translation costs.