Turkish Certified Translation

The word certified means different things in different countries

This page exists partly to clear up a genuine ambiguity. In the United Kingdom or the United States, a certified translation usually means a translation accompanied by a signed statement from the translator or agency attesting to its accuracy. There is no central register and no state involvement. In Turkey certified is a looser term than sworn: in everyday use it means a translation signed and stamped by the translator or the translation office, with no notary step. The formal system here is the sworn one, in which the translator has taken an oath before a notary and appears on that notary's register.

So when an institution asks for a certified translation, the first question is which system it has in mind. Answering the wrong question produces a document that is technically valid and practically useless.

Reading the wording on your requirements list

Requirement lists use a small set of phrases, and each tends to point to a different form. These are the usual readings; the receiving office confirms which one it means.

• Certified translation, from a private institution in Turkey such as an employer or a private school: often a translation signed and stamped by the translator, sometimes with no further step.
• Official or sworn translation, from a Turkish public authority: a translation by a yeminli tercüman (sworn translator), very often with noter onayı (notary certification) added. Many public authorities ask for exactly this pairing.
• Notarised translation: the sworn translation with the notary's certification bound to it, described under Turkish Notary Translation.
• Apostilled or legalised translation: a set going abroad that needs authentication on top of the notary step, described under Apostille Services in Turkey.
• A named list of approved translators, from some foreign universities and immigration authorities: here the list decides, and if a translator sworn in Turkey is not on it we tell you before anything is produced.

If the wording is ambiguous, ask the office to confirm in writing which form it accepts. A short email reply naming the form is worth more than any general rule, ours included.

When no translation may be needed

For civil status documents there is a question to ask before choosing any certification level: whether a translation is needed at all. Turkey issues multilingual civil status extracts under the CIEC conventions: Formül A for birth, Formül B for marriage and Formül C for death. Some destination offices accept these without a translation; others want one regardless. The receiving office decides, and a short question to it can remove a step from the file.

The reverse case comes up for foreign nationals in Turkey. A foreign birth or marriage certificate presented to a Turkish office is apostilled, or legalised, in the country that issued it, and then translated here, so that the apostille is translated as part of the same set. A certified translation made abroad under another country's system is a different instrument again; whether a Turkish office takes it is that office's decision.

What a completed set looks like

A finished certified translation normally consists of the translated text, a translator's declaration naming the translator and the language pair, the translator's signature and seal, and a copy of the source document attached so the two travel together. Where notary certification has been added, the notarial act is bound to that set. Where an apostille has been obtained, it is attached to the notarial act.

Keeping the set intact matters. Documents are frequently rejected not because of the translation but because the attachment has been separated from the source, or a page has gone missing from a scan. When we deliver digitally we deliver the complete set as one file for exactly this reason.

Where certified translations go wrong

The recurring failures are predictable. A plain translator's certificate is submitted where a public authority expected a notarised sworn translation. A full set with notary certification and apostille is ordered for an office that would have accepted the multilingual extract as it was. A name is spelled one way on the translation and another way on the passport it will be checked against. Or an older certified translation is reused for a new application after the underlying certificate has been reissued, so the two no longer match.

We cannot guarantee that a particular office will accept a particular document, and we will not claim otherwise. What we can do is produce the form that office has told you it wants, and tell you plainly when your requirements cannot be met from Turkey. To start, send a scan of every page, the passport spelling of each name, and the exact wording of the requirement, ideally a copy of the office's own list.

Further reading: sworn vs certified vs notarised translation and a step-by-step guide to certified translation services in Turkey. For the underlying instrument see Turkish Sworn Translation, and for Turkish documents going to another country see translating Turkish documents for use abroad.