Commercial and Company Document Translation for the United States

The first thing to learn about sending documents to the United States is that your counterpart works at state level, not federal. This page deals with the documents a company established in Türkiye will put before an American state authority, a customer, a bank or a tendering body. An American company opening a branch in Türkiye is a separate file altogether, one in which the documents run in the opposite direction and into Turkish.

State, not federal: the logic of the Secretary of State

Companies in the United States are registered not on a federal register but with the Secretary of State’s office in the state where they were formed. The document showing that a company exists and has met its obligations comes from that same office. Two things follow from this structure. First, which state you are dealing with changes the rules; Delaware, New York, Texas and Florida do not do things in the same way. Second, the authority that will accept a Turkish company’s documents is likewise at state level. So the first question to ask before preparing the file is not “which document” but “which state and which office”.

What establishes the identity of a Turkish company?

Your American counterpart is used to seeing a certificate of formation and a good standing letter on their own side. The Turkish equivalents are the announcement in the Türkiye Trade Registry Gazette and a recently dated certificate of activity from the trade registry directorate. The articles of association are added for the shareholding structure and the field of activity; the signature circular for who may sign so as to bind the company. If you are going to set up a company or open an account in the United States, the tax identification number application, the appointment of a registered agent and the bank’s compliance review each generate their own group of documents. Compliance reviews may call for the ownership chain to be opened up right to the top, which pushes the volume of translation beyond what was expected.

A notary public in place of a sworn translator

There is no sworn translator system in the United States. What is expected is a signed statement of accuracy attached to the translation. Some transactions require that statement to be signed before a notary public; there, though, the notary confirms not the accuracy of the translation but whose signature it is. Knowing the difference matters, because notarisation in Türkiye is a wider-reaching act. If an apostille is needed on the Turkish official document itself, it is obtained from the governor’s office or district governor’s office in Türkiye; if a document issued in the United States needs an apostille, that means going to the Secretary of State’s office of the state concerned. Confusing the two apostilles is a common mistake.

Act	Who certifies	What is certified
Certificate of accuracy	Translator or agency	The accuracy of the translation
Notarisation	Notary public	The identity of the signatory only
Apostille (Turkish document)	Governor’s office / district governor’s office	The source of the Turkish document
Apostille (US document)	State Secretary of State	The source of the American document

Registered agent and out-of-state registration

The first concept every foreign investor forming a company in the United States runs into is the registered agent: a person or body with a physical address in the state that accepts official service. The appointment rests on a resolution of the competent organ of the Turkish parent, and the translation of that resolution goes into the file. The second is the obligation to register separately in any state outside the one you formed in, if you are going to trade there; each registration produces its own set of documents and calls for the same package of translations in several copies. The third is the tax identification number application, in which details of the company structure are declared and supporting documents may be requested. Deciding at the outset how many states and how many copies you are dealing with lets you produce the translations once, in the right number.

Export paperwork and the tender file

For shipments to the United States, the declaration of origin, the invoice and the transport paperwork are governed by commercial practice and by customs legislation; these are drawn up in English and never reach a translator’s desk. Public procurement and large corporate supply programmes are another matter: there, company identity, financial standing and compliance documents are requested, and their translations are submitted with a statement of accuracy. The specification may in some cases also require the statement to be notarised. Where anything is unclear, asking the purchasing unit for written confirmation is quicker than obtaining a fresh certification afterwards. In federal procurement, entry into the supplier registration system is a step in its own right, and there the company details are expected to match the documents declared exactly.

The most frequent ground for rejection, and the form of delivery

The reason given most often when an American file comes back is a statement of accuracy that is missing or unsigned. Second comes confusion over states: the document has not been prepared in the form the state handling the matter requires. Third is dating; the certificate of activity is expected to be recent. Electronic files are widely used for delivery, though a wet-signed set may be requested for registration and banking transactions. You can follow the detail document by document on our document pages and the rules of other markets in the country guide, and send us your file through the quotation form.

The account below summarises typical practice; each consulate applies its own current guidance. The safest course is to ask the relevant unit for written confirmation before you start.