Document Translation for Poland

In Poland a translation without a repertory number is not a translation

Every text an authorised translator produces in Poland is entered in the official register the translator keeps, and the end of the translation carries the number of that entry together with the translator’s declaration. The declaration also states whether the text was translated from an original or from a copy. When an institution examines a file, that line is the first thing it looks at. A translation with no number, no declaration, or nothing on it but a stamp will not be treated as official, however flawless its content.

The second detail is the question of what the translation was made from. Send a photocopy rather than the original you hold and the declaration will say so, and some offices accept only a text translated from the original. That is why you need to tell us at the outset, when the file reaches us, whether the original is in your hands.

Recognition of a diploma: two routes, two outcomes

Poland assesses a foreign diploma through two different mechanisms, and which of them you need depends on what you mean to use the diploma for. For a job application, or for enrolment on a master’s programme, a statement showing the level the diploma corresponds to is usually enough. Entry to certain professions, and some public procedures, may instead call for a separate recognition assessment conducted at university level; there the course contents, the credit load and the records of internships are compared one by one.

The practical upshot: if there is any prospect of your going down the second route, do not stop at the academic transcript. Having the course contents translated at the outset is quicker and cheaper than opening the file a second time halfway through.

In gathering the course contents you need to ask your university’s student affairs office for a sealed and signed set; a printout downloaded from a web page, bearing no institutional mark of any kind, does not count as an official source even once translated. For those who graduated some years ago these papers can take weeks to obtain, so where recognition looks likely it is worth setting the process going at the very beginning. This step is the slowest link in the whole timetable.

Voivodeships do not do the same job in the same way

Residence and work permit applications are handled not in a single central office but by the regional administrations. The difference in practice shows itself less in the list of documents required than in the habit of asking for extra papers and in how heavily booked the appointments are. A plain income document accepted in one region may, in another, be expected to come supported by a further statement from the employer. So rather than the “Polish document list” you found on the internet, work from the announcement issued by the city you are applying in.

A map of the documents by purpose

How should the process be set up?

Obtain the original of the document first, then have the certification endorsement put on it, and have the translation made after that. Translated once the endorsement has been added, the document forms a single whole and the institution asks no further questions. Go about it in the reverse order and the endorsement is left untranslated, which makes the file look incomplete. Since appointment dates can slip in busy periods, the sensible course is to start the translation without waiting for the appointment; the translation step is in any case the shortest link in the process. Upload your documents and we will settle together which layer is needed and which level of service will do.

The link between the employment contract and the permit application

In work permit applications the employment contract sits at the centre of the file, and the first thing looked at on examination is whether the description of duties in the contract and the post declared in the application coincide. The broad titles so common in Turkish contracts – specialist, officer, assistant manager – break that correspondence the moment they are freely interpreted in translation. The right approach is not to adapt the title inventively but to carry it across as it stands and, where necessary, to translate the description of duties in detail.

The second point is that the permit is generally tied to a particular employer and a particular job. When the employer changes, or the duties differ in substance, the process is built again from the start; the old translations may not serve as they stand in the new file. Annexes to the contract, and letters about pay rises and changes of duty, should therefore be kept and translated as the need arises.

The third point is consistency between the diploma and the post. If you are proceeding by the skilled employment route, a connection is expected between the field of the diploma and the content of the job. Where that connection looks weak, the translation of the course contents becomes decisive in a way nobody anticipated; the curriculum is often the only evidence that your field of graduation covers the work.

The account below summarises typical practice; every consulate applies its own current guidance. It is as well to check the requirements in force from an official source.