Translation of Commercial and Company Documents for Germany

This page deals with the translation of the commercial documents that a company established in Türkiye will submit to a registry, a business partner, a bank or a tendering authority in Germany. The reverse direction – a German company opening a branch or liaison office in Türkiye – is a separate chain; there it is the German documents that are translated into Turkish, and the counterpart is the Turkish trade registry directorate. Being clear from the very start about which direction you are working in heads off needless certification costs.

The registry you deal with on the German side: the Handelsregister

The backbone of German company law is the Handelsregister; the register is kept within the local Amtsgericht, and the document showing a company’s existence, the persons authorised to represent it and its capital structure comes from that register. When your German counterpart says “show us your company’s official registration”, what they are after is the Turkish equivalent of the Handelsregisterauszug they are used to: the certificate of activity issued by the trade registry directorate, together with the notice in the Turkish Trade Registry Gazette. Submitted together, those two draw far fewer questions than a tax registration certificate sent on its own. If a GmbH is to be set up in Germany, the notarial process is central, and the translations of the Turkish shareholder’s documents must be ready before the notary appointment.

Why beglaubigte Übersetzung is a category of its own

Germany treats translation not as a service but as a matter of authority. A translation submitted to an official body must be a beglaubigte Übersetzung, bearing the stamp and the statement of accuracy of a translator sworn in by a court. A free translation will not get past the registrar’s or the notary’s acceptance of documents, however flawless its content. In a translation produced in Türkiye the chain is different: a sworn translator signs it, a notary attests the translator’s signature, and the apostille is then added. Which route will be accepted is decided by the German notary or institution that will carry out the transaction; getting a one-sentence written confirmation from them before the translation begins is therefore the cheapest step there is. Our page on levels of approval by document type opens up this distinction document by document.

Export paperwork does not follow the translation route

Putting company documents and export paperwork into the same bag is the most widespread confusion in this area. A certificate of origin, an A.TR movement certificate and a EUR.1 are already multilingual printed forms; they are approved by the chamber of commerce or industry, endorsed by the customs administration where necessary, and never enter the sworn translation process. Commercial invoices and packing lists, too, are usually drawn up directly in a foreign language. The chain of sworn translation and apostille exists for documents that produce legal effects: articles of association, registry records, powers of attorney, and court and enforcement papers.

Document	Its source in Türkiye	The route it follows
Certificate of activity	Trade registry directorate	Sworn translation + notarisation + apostille
Trade registry gazette notice	TTSG	Sworn translation + notarisation + apostille
Signature circular	Notary	Sworn translation + notarisation + apostille
Certificate of origin	Chamber of commerce/industry	Chamber approval; no translation needed
A.TR / EUR.1	Chamber + customs administration	Printed form; no translation needed

The chain from power of attorney to signature authority

If a transaction in Germany is to be carried out on your behalf by your lawyer, your accountant or your local partner, the power of attorney is the most delicate link in the chain. The text must state clearly what is to be done and the limits of the authority, and it must be supported by the signature circular and the registry record showing that the person granting it is authorised to represent the company. A power of attorney drawn up in Türkiye is signed before a notary, then takes its apostille certificate at the governor’s office or the district governor’s office, and is translated in that state. The frequent mistake is to have the translation done before the apostille: since the apostille certificate is itself part of the document, most German institutions expect it to have been translated as well. Germany is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention; even so, verifying the current position from the HCCH’s official list of parties is a good habit.

The reverse direction: a German company’s file in Türkiye

At the other end of the same relationship, where a German company is opening a branch or a liaison office in Türkiye, the flow is reversed. This time the Handelsregister record, the articles of association and the board resolution are translated from German into Turkish; the documents are apostilled in Germany, the translation is done in Türkiye by a sworn translator and is attested before a notary. A liaison office permit and a branch registration call for different sets of documents; because a liaison office may not carry on commercial activity, its file is the narrower one. In joint ventures running both directions at once, gathering into a single list which documents are to be prepared in which direction, into which language and at which level of approval prevents the same document from being translated twice.

The tender file: the commonest ground of rejection, and the form of delivery

In German public and private sector tenders the number one ground for rejection is not an error of content but a date: the registry record and the certificate of activity are required to be “currently dated”, and most specifications ask for a recently issued copy. Even a flawless translation of a document obtained months ago counts as out of date. The second frequent ground is that the translation has been separated from the document; the translation should be attached to the copy of the original and delivered as a single stamped and signed whole. If you are to upload to an electronic tendering portal, keep the wet-signed set to hand alongside the scanned copy. State how many copies you need and in what form at the quotation stage; on the pricing page you can see the difference the level of approval makes.

What is described here rests on common practice; national legislation and institutional practice may be updated. The final requirement is set by the authority you are applying to; confirm it in advance.