USCIS Translation Requirements
USCIS requires a full English translation plus the translator’s certification of competence and accuracy (8 CFR 103.2(b)(3)); it does not require notarization. Certified Translation Center provides exactly that for $25 per page, delivered within 24 hours, with a free redo or refund if USCIS rejects the translation. Updated September 26, 2026.
The actual regulation is one sentence. Here is what it says, what it does not say, and what really gets translations rejected.
There is a great deal of marketing noise about what USCIS demands from a translation. The actual rule is one sentence long, it has not changed in years, and knowing it will save you money. Here it is, along with what genuinely gets translations rejected.
The rule itself
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.”
Read it closely, because four things follow from it that the industry would rather you did not notice:
- No licence or accreditation is required. The rule asks for competence, attested by the translator. It does not require ATA membership, a degree, or membership of any body. There is no such thing as a “USCIS-certified translator.”
- No notarization is required. The word does not appear. A notary adds identity verification, not accuracy verification, and USCIS does not ask for it.
- The translation must be full. Not the important parts — all of it. Seals, stamps, registration numbers, marginal notes, reverse sides, illegible regions marked as such.
- The foreign document must accompany the translation. Both go in the envelope.
The immigration court equivalent, for cases before EOIR rather than USCIS, is 8 CFR 1003.33, and it works the same way.
What a compliant certification statement contains
There is no prescribed form, but every valid certification includes these elements. If your translation is missing any of them, it is vulnerable:
- A statement that the translator is competent to translate from the source language into English
- A statement that the translation is complete and accurate
- Identification of the document translated
- The translator’s printed name
- The translator’s signature
- The date
- Contact information for the translator or agency
The five things that actually get translations rejected
We are regularly asked to fix translations that were rejected somewhere else. The pattern is consistent, and credentials are almost never the cause.
1. Incompleteness
By a wide margin the leading cause. A Soviet-era birth certificate has a round seal, a registry book reference, a serial number printed on the form, and frequently endorsements on the reverse. A translation that renders the names and dates but silently drops the seal text is not a full translation, and an officer who notices has a clean basis for a Request for Evidence.
2. Name transliteration that does not match the passport
Central Asian names can be transliterated several defensible ways — Хуршид can become Khurshid, Hurshid or Xurshid, all legitimately. What matters is that the translation matches the spelling on the applicant’s passport and prior filings. If the translator picks a different valid spelling, the officer sees two different people. Send us your passport spelling with the order and we conform to it.
3. A missing or defective certification page
Sometimes the certificate is absent entirely; more often it is present but omits the competence statement, or is unsigned, or is undated.
4. Submitting the translation without the original
The regulation requires the foreign-language document to be there too. This is a filing error rather than a translation error, but it lands on the translation.
5. Invented text
Where a stamp is smudged or handwriting is unreadable, the correct practice is to mark it [illegible]. A translator who guesses at what it probably said has introduced a statement into the record that the original does not support — which is far worse than the gap it fills.
Which documents typically need translation
Anything in the file that is not already in English. For the common family-based and humanitarian filings, that usually means:
Family petitions (I-130, I-485)
- Birth certificates for petitioner and beneficiary
- Marriage certificate
- Divorce or death certificates ending prior marriages
- Passport biographic pages
- Police clearance certificates, where required
Asylum and humanitarian (I-589)
- The applicant’s personal declaration
- Supporting witness statements
- Medical and psychological records
- Police reports, court summonses, arrest records
- Newspaper articles and country evidence
Employment (I-140, H-1B, O-1)
- Diplomas and degree certificates
- Academic transcripts and supplements
- Employment record books
- Professional licences
- Reference and experience letters
Naturalization (N-400)
- Name-change orders
- Foreign marriage and divorce records
- Military service documents
- Tax or property records, where relevant
- Court dispositions of any arrest
A note on scope: we are a translation company, not a law firm. We do not give legal advice and we cannot tell you which documents your particular case requires — that is a question for your attorney or accredited representative. What we can tell you, precisely, is what a compliant translation of those documents looks like.
Frequently asked
What is the exact USCIS translation rule?
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.’ That is the whole of it.
Does USCIS keep a list of approved translators?
No. There is no USCIS-approved translator list, no registry and no accreditation requirement. Any website claiming to be ‘USCIS certified’ or ‘USCIS approved’ is using language that has no official meaning. What is certified is the translation, by the translator — not the company, by USCIS.
Can my spouse or my cousin translate my documents?
The regulation permits any competent person to translate, including a family member. In practice this is risky: officers have discretion to question translations where the translator has an interest in the outcome, and a family-member translation invites that scrutiny. For a filing that matters, use a disinterested third party.
Do I submit the foreign-language document too?
Yes — a copy of it. The regulation says the foreign-language document must be ‘accompanied by’ the translation, so a clear copy of the source document goes in together with the certified English translation. Do not mail an irreplaceable original unless the form instructions specifically ask for one. Sending the English translation alone is one of the most common causes of a Request for Evidence, and it is entirely preventable.
What causes USCIS to reject a translation?
In our experience, in order: an incomplete translation that omits seals, stamps or a back page; a missing or defective certification statement; names transliterated inconsistently with the passport; the translation submitted without the original; and invented text where the original was illegible. Translator credentials are almost never the issue.
Does the translation need to be notarized for USCIS?
No. USCIS does not require notarization. Other institutions do require it, and for those the $35 notarized tier adds a separate commissioned New York notary; for a USCIS filing specifically, the certification alone satisfies the rule.
Translation by filing type
N-400 naturalization
The short list of what actually needs translating, and what the good-moral-character questions add.
Marriage green card (I-130 & I-485)
Two filings, two document sets, and what a full packet costs.
DV lottery documents
Uzbekistan sends more Diversity Visa selectees than any country on earth. What the Tashkent consulate needs translated.
NVC and CEAC civil documents
The consular rule is not the USCIS rule — and the Uzbek-language exemption does not apply.
Ready to get started?
Upload your document, see the exact price on screen, and pay in the same minute — From $25 a page — $35 with notarization — delivered in 24 hours on orders up to 3 pages. No waiting on a quote.
Upload & Pay — from $25/pageCalculate your translation price
Certified translation: $25 per page. Includes a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy — this is what USCIS asks for under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3).
Certified + notarized: $35 per page. A separate commissioned New York notary notarizes the translator's signature. Courts, the DMV, banks, schools and insurers sometimes ask for this; USCIS does not.
Rush, 12-hour delivery: +$15 per page. Standard delivery is 24 hours on orders up to three pages and is already included.
Worked examples. Certified: 1 page $25, 2 pages $50, 3 pages $75, 5 pages $125. Certified and notarized: 1 page $35, 2 pages $70, 3 pages $105, 5 pages $175. A New York apostille adds $300 and a mailed hard copy adds $15; both are chosen at checkout.
It says estimated because the page count sets the price. A page means one page of the original document, up to 250 words. Add your files on the order page and we count the pages for you, then check by hand before starting — if the count differs we tell you before charging anything.