Document Translation for Romania

One layer will not do: the authorised translator and the notary together

The mistake made most often with Romanian files is sending the translation in a single layer. In most official procedures the text an authorised translator produces is not held sufficient on its own; the translator’s signature is notarised on top of it. There are, in other words, two separate operations, and each is charged for separately. Part of what is sent from Türkiye goes forward on the first layer alone, which is why it comes back at the closing stage and the process drags on for weeks.

Which procedures want the two layers together and which are satisfied by one varies from institution to institution. An employer may be content with the authorised translator’s work alone, whereas in civil registry or court matters notarisation is all but the rule. Reading the institution’s own wording before you decide protects you from paying twice and from sending an incomplete file alike.

When letters go missing, names stop matching

The letters ç, ş, ğ, ı, ö and ü in Turkish names, and the specially marked letters of Romanian orthography, are stored differently from one system to the next. In the machine-readable zone of your passport your name is already written without those marks; in your civil registry record and on your diploma, meanwhile, it appears in full Turkish spelling. If the translation leaves it unclear which of the two it has followed, the impression of “a different person” arises between the two documents.

Our practice is to keep the full spelling of the name as it stands in the source document and to show the unmarked passport form in brackets. That small addition lets the official match the two documents up. The same logic holds for applicants whose surname has changed: where marriage or divorce has altered it, the record evidencing the change has to be in the translation set as well.

Recognition of a diploma parts ways by level of study

Recognition of secondary school documents does not travel the same road as recognition of higher education diplomas; the office you apply to differs, and so do the supporting papers wanted. On the secondary side it is the grading system and the list of subjects taught that come to the fore, while on the university side the credit load, the length of study and the field the programme corresponds to are what get examined. Where the department names on Turkish diplomas have no exact counterpart, the course contents turn into the decisive evidence.

For the health professions, for teaching and for certain branches of engineering, professional authorisation comes on top of academic recognition. This second stage runs through the professional body and has a document list of its own; even with the academic recognition certificate in hand, you may have to open a fresh file on the professional side.

Purpose, documents and the layer of approval required

The order, and a realistic timetable

• Obtain the original from the institution that issued the document.
• Have the certification endorsement completed before the translation; the endorsement too is part of the text to be translated.
• Have the authorised translator’s translation made.
• Where it is needed, have notarisation added – skip this step and the file comes back.
• Before you submit the file, compare the spelling of names across every document.

Translation is the most predictable and the quickest link in this chain; what governs the timetable is obtaining the documents and getting them certified. With bulky sets such as course contents the page count feeds straight into the cost and the delivery date, so sending the file in one go is an advantage both for consistency of terminology and for the budget.

Upload your documents and let us work out together which layers you genuinely need; you can also see our per-page starting rates from the outset.

Should the translation be done in Türkiye?

A question that comes up often: since notarisation is required in any case, is it easier to have the translation done in Romania? The answer turns on the nature of the matter. Where the document was issued in Türkiye and the certification endorsement will be obtained here too, having the translation completed here keeps the chain whole; what reaches the other side is a single, consistent file. If instead you have a local representative running the procedure and the institution insists on the local form, a second corrective step may be needed.

The scenario that wastes most time in practice is being caught between the two: part of the document is translated here and part there; the terms do not agree, the spellings of names diverge, and the official cannot read the set as a whole. Whichever way the decision goes, having the entire set come from one hand visibly improves the file’s chances of being accepted.

Then there is the cost side. Bulky sets such as course contents run to a high page count, so having the translation made twice puts serious strain on the budget. The decision therefore belongs before the first page is translated; changing course later is always expensive.

If we look at the documents you hold together with the institution’s written request, we can tell you at the outset which route is the shorter one for your file. Settling it in a single exchange of letters, rather than proceeding on guesswork, saves weeks on most files.

What is set out here rests on common practice; the legislation of the country and the practice of institutions can be updated. We recommend obtaining confirmation from an official source before you proceed.