If any document in your immigration filing is not in English, USCIS requires a full English translation together with a signed certification from the translator. It is one of the most common reasons a petition comes back with a Request for Evidence — not because the underlying case is weak, but because the paperwork around the translation was not done correctly.
This guide covers exactly what the regulation says, what a compliant certification looks like, what it should cost, how long it takes, and the four mistakes we see most often.
The rule is short and specific. Under 8 CFR § 103.2(b)(3):
“Any document containing foreign language submitted to USCIS shall be accompanied by a full English language translation which the translator has certified as complete and accurate, and by the translator’s certification that he or she is competent to translate from the foreign language into English.”
Three obligations follow from that sentence, and each one is a place where filings go wrong:
There is no official USCIS form for this. A certification that satisfies the regulation includes:
The certification is normally printed on company letterhead and attached as the first page, with the English translation following and the copy of the source document behind it.
For USCIS, no. This is the single most common misconception we encounter. USCIS requires certification by the translator; it does not require notarisation. A notary public witnesses a signature — a notary does not verify that a translation is accurate, and cannot.
Notarisation is still worth having in specific situations: some consulates, foreign ministries, courts and universities ask for it, and requirements for documents used outside the United States differ. If you are filing with USCIS and nothing else, a certified translation is sufficient. We cover the distinction in more detail in notarised translation of a birth certificate and in what is a sworn translation, which is a European concept with no direct USCIS equivalent.
No. An applicant may not translate their own documents, and neither may a beneficiary or petitioner in the same case. The translator must be a disinterested third party. A bilingual friend or relative with no stake in the petition may legally certify a translation — but in practice this is where errors and rejections cluster, because the certification wording, the completeness requirement and the formatting conventions are unfamiliar.
Certified translation in the United States is priced per page for standard civil documents, or per word for longer or technical material. A “page” in this context is a standard document page, not 250 words of dense text.
Beware of quotes far below market rate. Certified translation is a professional service with liability attached to the certification; pricing that looks impossible usually means machine translation with a signature on top, and it is your filing that carries the risk. Our current rates are published on the certified translations page — no quote form required to see them.
Standard turnaround for routine civil documents is measured in business days, not weeks. Rush service is available where a filing deadline is close. Turnaround starts when legible copies of the documents are received — poor scans are the most common cause of avoidable delay.
Practical advice: scan at 300 dpi or higher, capture the entire page including borders and stamps, and photograph or scan both sides of any document that has printing on the reverse.
An official stamp is part of the document. If the English version does not account for it — typically with a bracketed notation such as [Official seal of the Civil Registry of Bogotá] — the translation is not complete within the meaning of the regulation.
Applicants often submit the front of a document and skip an endorsement on the back, or omit a section that appears administrative. Completeness is judged against the source document, not against relevance.
Where a name is transliterated from Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese or another non-Latin script, the spelling must be consistent across every document in the filing and must match the passport. Two spellings of the same name across two documents invites an RFE.
A translation renders a foreign document into English. A credential evaluation states what a foreign qualification is equivalent to in the United States. They are different deliverables with different purposes, and academic filings frequently need both. Ordering one when the case calls for the other costs weeks.
No. USCIS does not approve, certify or maintain a register of translators or translation companies. Any translator who is competent in both languages and provides the required certification satisfies the regulation. Treat any vendor advertising itself as “USCIS approved” with caution — no such designation exists.
No. Submit a legible photocopy or scan of the foreign-language original alongside the English translation and the certification. Keep your originals.
For online filing, a scanned PDF of the certified translation is accepted. For paper filing, print it. In both cases the certification page must be included.
A certified translation does not expire. If the underlying document is reissued or amended, the new version needs its own translation.
GCS has provided certified translations and credential evaluations for immigration filings for 9+ years, across 65+ languages, for more than 20,000 clients. Every translation is delivered with a signed certification of completeness and accuracy that meets the requirements of 8 CFR § 103.2(b)(3), and is backed by our money-back acceptance promise.
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