Translation of Commercial and Company Documents for Poland

Poland is the largest market in Central Europe and a country in which Turkish companies both export and invest in manufacturing. This page sets out the documents a company established in Türkiye will submit to the Polish court register, to its buyer or to a tendering authority. A Polish company opening a branch in Türkiye is a separate process, in which the documents run in the opposite direction and are translated into Turkish.

The logic of a register kept by the courts

Companies in Poland are held on a national court register; the register, that is, works within the judicial organisation rather than in an administrative body. This gives what is expected of paperwork a formal cast: the form, the date and the approval of a document going to the register are gone over with care. What is looked for from a Turkish company is records giving the same information: a recently dated certificate of activity from the trade registry directorate, the announcement in the Turkish Trade Registry Gazette, the articles of association and the signature circular. Stating the company’s tax and statistical numbers in the covering letter makes life easier for a counterparty used to working from numbers. In a branch registration the parent company’s documents settle at the centre of the file, and the register looks at the form of those documents too.

Tłumacz przysięgły: the ministry list requirement

Official translation in Poland is done by a sworn translator who appears on the Ministry of Justice list. The translator’s seal carries the number under which they are entered on that list, and the translation is numbered and recorded in their own register book. This traceability sets Poland decisively apart from countries that work on declaration: a translation from outside the list is not accepted in official business. In a file prepared in Türkiye the chain is the signature of a sworn translator, notarisation and the apostille; commercial counterparties generally accept it, whereas the court register and public procedures ask for a translator on the list. Obtaining written confirmation from the authority that will handle the matter is the safest course.

Counterparty	Translation expected	Flexibility
Court register	A sworn translator on the list	Next to none
Public tender	The level stated in the specification	Low
Bank	Certified translation + apostille	Moderate
Buyer / distributor	Stamped translation	High

Manufacturing investment and supply chain files

Turkish companies entering the automotive, white goods and furniture supply chains in Poland submit a capability file alongside their legal identity documents: quality management certificates, process audit reports, declarations of conformity with technical specifications. A stamped translation is mostly enough for this second layer. Supply framework agreements, penalty clauses and warranty undertakings, on the other hand, place obligations on the parties directly; these are subject to the full chain of approval and are submitted together with proof of signing authority. Where a manufacturing plant is to be built, land, tenancy and permit documents open a third layer, and local requirements as to form come into play in those.

The list of documents in public tenders

Polish public tenders are an important source of work for Turkish contracting and equipment companies, and the list of documents for them is a thick one: work experience certificates, lists of technical staff, inventories of equipment, financial statements, letters confirming the absence of tax and contribution debt. All of these are obtained from Turkish institutions and are subject to the chain of translation and approval. In work experience certificates, meeting each work item with the right term is of critical importance; a wrong term can lead to the experience being counted as unrelated to the subject of the tender. Drawing up the list of terms in advance for tender files, and using the same equivalents in every document, is far cheaper than dealing with an appeal.

Form of delivery: the electronic portal and the wet signature

Public tenders in Poland are largely run over electronic platforms; the tender file is uploaded digitally and approved with an electronic signature. That does not make the physical set unnecessary. The scanned copies uploaded have to be complete, legible and inclusive of every page, and the translator’s seal and the notarisation must be plainly visible in the scan. At the contract stage, or in the course of an appeal, production of the wet-signed set may be called for. Keep the physical set to hand, therefore, even where delivery is electronic, and keep a record of which copy is where. A missing page is the technical ground met most often in these files.

Powers of attorney, shipping and the commonest ground for refusal

If a registration or a court matter in Poland is to be run through your local representative, have the power of attorney drawn up before a notary, obtain its apostille, and have it translated after that; support the authority with a current register entry and the signature circular. Poland is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention; verify the current list of parties through the HCCH. On the shipping side, certificates of origin, movement certificates and transport documents are not translated. The commonest ground for refusal is a translation that does not carry the seal of a translator on the list; the date of the document comes second and an incomplete set third. On delivery a stamped and numbered set is expected. You can compare other markets in our country guide, follow the detail of individual documents on our document page, and send us your file through the quotation form.

The account below summarises typical practice; every consulate applies its own current guidance. We recommend obtaining confirmation from an official source before you begin.