What Is a Certified Translation?

A certified translation is a complete translation of a document issued together with a signed certificate of accuracy, a written statement that the translation is a true, complete, and accurate rendering of the original. The certificate is the part that makes it certified. Without it you have a translation. With it you have a document a government office, a university, or a court can treat as the official version of the original.

What makes a translation certified

Certification is not a different style of translating. A translator does not reach for more official sounding words because a job is certified. What changes is that the finished translation is issued with a signed statement, on letterhead, naming the source document, naming the language pair, and declaring the translation accurate to the best of the translator's professional knowledge and ability.

The United States has no government license for translators and no national register that stamps documents. That is why the certificate of accuracy carries the weight. Whoever signs it puts their name and their credentials behind the accuracy of the work, and the receiving office relies on that signature.

A certified translation arrives as one package. The certificate sits on top. The translation follows, laid out to follow the original so a reviewer can hold the two documents side by side and find the same information in the same place.

What is included in a certified translation

Every certified translation we deliver contains the following.

• A certificate of translation accuracy on letterhead, signed and dated
• The name of the source file and the document type
• The language pair, for example Spanish to English
• An order reference that identifies the job
• The ATA membership number the certification is issued under
• The full translation, formatted to follow the original

Everything on the page is translated. Nothing is summarized and nothing is dropped. Stamps, seals, signatures, and printed codes are not text that can be translated, so they are described in brackets at the position where they appear, for example [round official seal] or [signature]. A reviewer comparing the two documents should be able to account for every mark on the original. Our guide to what a certificate of accuracy contains goes through that page element by element.

Which documents usually need a certified translation

The documents that most often need certifying are the short official ones that prove a fact about a person or a transaction.

Birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, death certificates, passports and national identity cards, police clearance records, diplomas and academic transcripts, medical records, bank statements, court judgments, and business contracts. Most of these run to one or two pages, which is why a certified translation usually costs far less than people expect before they check.

Who requires a certified translation, and what USCIS asks for

Immigration authorities, universities, credential evaluators, professional licensing boards, courts, and banks are the common requesters.

USCIS publishes a clear rule. Any document in a foreign language filed with an application must be accompanied by a full English translation, along with a certification from the translator stating that the translation is complete and accurate and that the translator is competent to translate from that language into English. USCIS does not ask for notarization and does not ask that the translator hold a particular credential. What it asks for is the certification statement.

That is a description of a published requirement rather than legal advice. Requirements differ between a university admissions office, a state licensing board, and a foreign consulate, and the written instructions from whoever will receive your document always govern. Read them first, and if anything is unclear, ask that office directly or talk to us before you order.

What a certified translation does not do

A certificate of accuracy attests to the accuracy of the translation only. It says nothing about whether the source document is genuine. Our certificate states that plainly on its face, because the two questions are separate and a receiving office needs to know which one has been answered.

Certification is also not notarization, and it is not a sworn translation in the European sense. Those are three different things that get used interchangeably in conversation, and the difference matters if your document is going overseas. We set all three out in certified vs notarized vs sworn translation.

How much a certified translation costs

Certified translation is 24.95 per page. A page is up to 250 words of the source document rather than a physical sheet of paper, so a single sided birth certificate carrying 180 words counts as one page.

Standard is 19.95 per page and delivers the same professional translation without the signed certificate. Premium is 39.95 per page, is translated ahead of other orders, and exists for the filing deadline that is already close. The three levels are compared in full on our services and pricing page, and the difference between the first two is covered in certified translation vs standard translation.

We measure the price from the real document rather than asking you to guess. You upload the PDF, we count what is actually in it, and the total appears before you pay. Online orders run up to 50 pages. For anything larger, contact us for a quote.

How long a certified translation takes

Certified orders are delivered in 2 to 3 business days. Standard takes 3 to 5 business days. Premium is delivered in 1 to 2 business days.

Those windows are working days rather than calendar days, and they start once payment clears. A certified order placed on a Thursday afternoon is normally back in your account by the middle of the following week.

Which languages we certify

We work in eight languages. English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Turkish, and every pair between them. That means every pair to and from English and every cross pair, such as French to German or Portuguese to Italian. The languages page shows the full set.

If a certified translation is rejected

If a certified translation is rejected because of a translation error we made, we correct it at no charge, and if the corrected translation is rejected again for that same error we refund what was paid for it. You need to tell us within 30 days and send the written rejection. The conditions, and what is not covered, are set out in the refund policy.

How to order a certified translation

Ordering is four steps. Upload the PDF, choose the language pair and the service level, pay by card, and collect the certified translation from your account. The how it works page walks through each step, and the FAQ answers what people ask most often before a first order. Every certificate carries an order reference that the recipient can check on our verification page.

Start an order at /account/new. Upload your document, see the price measured from the real page count before you commit to anything, and have a certified translation with a signed certificate of accuracy back in your account within a few business days.