Documents to Translate for an Australian Visa: What to Check Before You Order

If a document in your visa application is not in English, Home Affairs asks you to provide an English translation. Where the translation is done decides what details it must carry: inside Australia, the translator must be accredited by NAATI; outside Australia, the translator's full name, address, phone number and qualifications must be shown. Your visa's own checklist says which documents you must provide, so read it before you order.

With CertifiedWords you can order online: upload your documents, choose the service, see the price, pay, and receive the translations by email. You can check prices and order here. This page is general information, not migration advice.

The Home Affairs rule

Home Affairs' guidance on getting your visa application right the first time says to have all non-English documents translated into English, and it sets two rules depending on where you are:

• In Australia: include the translator's NAATI practitioner number.
• Outside Australia: include the translator's full name, address, phone number and qualifications in the language they are translating. Home Affairs' evidence guidance adds that translators outside Australia do not have to be NAATI accredited, and that the translator's details should be in English.

You also provide the original document with its English translation. If you do not provide a translation, the application may be delayed.

The Home Affairs Partner visa pages (subclasses 820, 309 and 100) say the same thing: have all documents translated into English, and provide the original and translated documents. Translators in Australia must be accredited by NAATI. Translators outside Australia do not have to be accredited, but on each translation they must include their full name, address and telephone number, and their qualifications and experience in the language they are translating, all in English.

For how NAATI translations work in general, see our guide to NAATI certified translation.

How to find the documents your visa needs

Every visa has its own checklist, and it can change. Home Affairs suggests these steps:

1. Go to the Home Affairs website and enter your visa subclass in the search bar. The subclass is the number that sits alongside the visa, such as 600 for a Visitor visa.
2. Open the page for your visa subclass.
3. Click the "step by step" tab.
4. Go to "gather your documents" and click through the "see how" options.

Write down which documents are not in English. Those are the ones to translate.

Example: Partner visas (820 inside Australia, 309/100 outside)

The Partner visa (subclass 820) is for people applying from inside Australia, and the Partner visa (subclass 309/100) is for people applying from outside Australia. Home Affairs' pages for the 820 and the 309 name the same core documents. If any of them are not in English, they need translating:

• a birth certificate showing the names of both parents (if you can't provide one, the identification page of a family book, a government-issued identification document, a court-issued document that proves your identity, or a family census register);
• the pages of your passport showing your photo, personal details and issue and expiry dates;
• a national identity card, if you have one;
• proof of a change of name, such as a marriage or divorce certificate, or change of name documents;
• your marriage certificate, or other evidence that your marriage is valid in Australia;
• for former relationships, divorce documents, death certificates, separation documents or statutory declarations;
• for dependent children, documents such as birth or marriage certificates, adoption papers, parental court orders and evidence of enrolment at school or university;
• evidence of your relationship, such as joint bank statements, lease documents, household bills and written statements from witnesses.

These pages also tell you to have all documents translated into English, to scan or photograph all your documents in colour, clearly enough to read, and to save a document that has more than one page as one file. They say you do not need to have any documents certified. The page for the permanent stage (subclass 100) gives the same translation and scanning instructions.

The permanent stage also asks for police certificates, including an overseas police certificate from any country where you have spent a total of 12 months or more since your 309 visa was granted. If an overseas certificate is not in English, it needs translating. Home Affairs says police certificates are valid for 12 months from the issue date for immigration purposes, so check the dates before you order.

Some details, such as the sections for dependants, differ between the 820 and the 309/100, so read the page for the visa you are applying for.

Our page on birth certificate translation covers the first document on the list in detail.

A certified translation is not a certified copy

These are different things, and mixing them up can cause delays.

• A certified translation is done by a qualified translator, who marks it with their NAATI stamp.
• A certified copy is a copy of a document that an authorised person has certified as a true copy of the original.

The Home Affairs Partner visa pages (820, 309 and 100) say you do not need to have any documents certified, but other visas and organisations differ, so check yours. AUSIT, the professional association for translators in Australia, says translators cannot certify photocopies of a source document as true copies of the original, because certification procedures for that exist and translators are not among the professions authorised to carry them out. If your checklist asks for certified copies, ask the person or agency it names. In Australia that is often a Justice of the Peace, but the authorised people vary by organisation.

Full translation or extract translation?

A full translation covers everything on the document. An extract translation takes the key details into a standard one-page template. Not every organisation accepts an extract, and AUSIT recommends a full translation if you can't find out. Our birth certificate translation page explains the difference and why we ask for every page of a multi-page certificate.

Names must match your passport

Home Affairs asks you to check that your name is spelt correctly and matches the passport you use to apply. A name written in another alphabet can be spelled in English in more than one way, so tell us how it appears in your passport when you order.

How to order

1. Prepare your documents. Scan or photograph every page in colour, including the back and any empty pages, clearly enough to read. Keep all four corners in the frame and avoid shadows and glare.
2. Upload them. Select the language of each document and the language you need.
3. Choose the service. For translations done in Australia, select the NAATI Certified Translator option. In your order instructions, tell us where you will submit the translation and which visa it is for.
4. Check the price and pay. You see the price before you finish the order. It depends on the language pair, the document, the service, the delivery speed and any additional services.
5. Receive your translations. They are delivered by email. Read them against your passport and your other documents before you upload them to your application.

Check prices and order your visa document translations.