Certified Translation
Every document certified as standard and accepted by UKVI, the Home Office and the tribunals. Send scans; your originals stay with you.
Prism Linguistics translates immigration documents with certification included, from £35 to £60 per page for short standard certificates. Most certificates are ready the next working day, and our certified translations are accepted by UKVI, the Home Office, HM Courts & Tribunals Service and HM Passport Office. Longer documents are priced per word, with a fixed quote within one working hour during office hours.
UKVI's rule is blunt: any document that isn't in English or Welsh must come with a full translation, certified with confirmation of its accuracy, the date, and the translator or company's full name and contact details. Everything we return for an immigration matter carries exactly that, signed, on our letterhead. What certification means in general is covered on our certified translation page; this one deals with the immigration paperwork itself.
Most of the people who contact us about immigration paperwork fall into a few groups. Spouse and family visa applicants gathering evidence of a marriage that happened abroad. People applying for indefinite leave to remain or British citizenship who need years of overseas records put into English. Workers and students whose sponsors want documents verified. And immigration solicitors, who send us multi-document batches every week and need each one back certified, on time, with the file names still matching their index.
One thing we should say plainly: we translate the documents; solicitors advise on the application. If you're not sure which documents your route actually requires, ask your adviser or check the guidance for your visa type, then send us whatever is on the list. We'll tell you if something doesn't need translating at all (blank pages and duplicate stamps come up more often than you'd think), because paying to translate a page nobody will read helps no one.
For funded matters we accept Legal Aid Agency rates, and court-bound material such as witness statements and disclosure sits under our legal document translation service. This page is part of the wider translation services we've run from Warrington since 2013.
No two applications need identical paperwork, but the same document types come up again and again:
The certification requirement is the same for all of them, and every document we return carries it as standard. You don't need to ask for it or pay separately; on an immigration job, an uncertified translation would be useless to you.
Language-wise the spread is wide. A certified Urdu translation of a nikah nama one day, Albanian family records or an Eritrean police letter the next. We work in more than 300 languages, including the rarer ones many agencies turn away.
A clear scan or a phone photo of each document. That's it. We don't need your originals, and we'd rather you kept them, since the Home Office may ask to see them later. Photograph each page flat, in decent light, with every word, stamp and seal legible, and include the back of any certificate that has entries on both sides.
Tell us three things when you send the files: the language, your deadline, and where the translation is going (a UKVI online upload, a paper application, a tribunal). You'll get a PDF for online submissions, plus a stamped hard copy by tracked Royal Mail if the receiving body wants paper.
Immigration files are sensitive by definition. Our handling is UK GDPR compliant, your documents are seen only by the linguists working on the job, and we'll sign a non-disclosure agreement where a firm requires one.
No account, no minimum spend. Most jobs start and finish by email.
Upload scans or phone photos through the quote form, or email the batch. Tell us the language, the deadline and which body will receive the translations.
We reply within one working hour during office hours. Certificates are priced per page, longer documents per word, and solicitors can add a Legal Aid Agency reference for funded matters.
A native-speaker translator does the work and a second linguist checks it. Every document comes back certified, as a PDF and, if you want it, a stamped hard copy by tracked Royal Mail.
UKVI's rules for translations are short but strict: the translator's credentials, the company's details, the date and a confirmation of accuracy, on every document. Our certification carries all of it as standard. The translation itself is done by a professionally qualified native speaker and checked by a second linguist, because a caseworker who spots one inconsistency tends to start looking for more.
Short standard certificates are priced per page, £35 to £60, and that includes the certification statement. A one-page birth certificate sits at the bottom of the range; a dense, heavily stamped family book page sits nearer the top.
Longer documents (bank statements, tenancy agreements, sponsor letters) are priced per source word: as a guide £0.12 to £0.18, because immigration work is certified as standard, and a little more for rare languages. Genuinely urgent work carries a premium and depends on capacity. If a biometric appointment is bearing down on you, same day translation is often possible for short documents, and it's worth ringing rather than emailing.
We accept Legal Aid Agency rates for funded matters and NHS framework rates where they apply. The full ranges are on our pricing page, and a fixed quote for your actual bundle takes one working hour through the quote form.
This page covers documents coming into the UK system. If your translated documents are heading the other way (a UK certificate for a foreign consulate, say), the receiving country may ask for notarisation or an apostille. We don't provide or arrange either. What we do is prepare the certified translation in the form your notary needs, so the notary and apostille steps run smoothly from there. The detail is on our notarised translation page.
Scans or phone photos are fine. You'll have a fixed quote within one working hour during office hours, with every document certified as standard.