Diploma Translation for Australia

The NAATI stamp is compulsory: an unstamped translation is not accepted

A translation submitted in an official procedure in Australia must be produced by a translator certified by NAATI (the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters), and the translation must bear the NAATI stamp. This is Australia’s strictest and most decisive rule: a translation without the stamp is not accepted, however well made it may be. Verifying before you commission a diploma translation that the translator holds NAATI certification and a stamp therefore saves you having the whole thing translated again later. The translator’s number and the validity details on the stamp must be visible on the translation, and it also matters which way round the stamp is valid – from Turkish into English – since certification runs one way at a time.

The Assessing Authority and the diploma translation are separate pieces of work

The Australian equivalence of a diploma is assessed by an Assessing Authority determined by the occupation or the visa category; the translation does not make that decision, it feeds into it. The translator conveys the name of the degree as it stands: turning “Lisans” straight into an Australian title is an act of levelling, and that authority lies with the assessing body rather than the translator. The names of the institution and faculty are kept in their original spelling; the assessor recognises the institution by its name, and a free Englishing of it can break the match.

The assessing authority by occupation, and the points system

Australia uses a points-based system for skilled migration, and a different Assessing Authority is competent for each occupation; the same diploma may be assessed by a different body depending on the occupation applied for. The set of documents that body wants – diploma, transcript, course content – and the form of translation it expects are set out in its application guide. The diploma translation is one part of that assessment; the scoring and the equivalence are the body’s work, and the translation only renders the document complete and readable, bearing the NAATI stamp. If the document is going to more than one body, an assessing organisation and Home Affairs, finding out at the outset whether each of them wants the stamped translation as a separate original set will prevent delay.

If the diploma runs to several pages, the page order is preserved and the translation is presented in the same arrangement as the source document, completed by the NAATI stamp; a page out of sequence or without a stamp opens the integrity of the document to question. The institutional seal, the coat of arms and the wet signature are marked in the translation not by their text but by their presence, in square brackets; a seal that cannot be read is shown with an [illegible] note, and no reading is invented. Because NAATI certification runs one way at a time, it is important to verify that the translator holds the authority to translate from Turkish into English; certification the wrong way round may not be accepted even where the stamp is present. On QR-coded e-diplomas the presence of the QR code and of the electronic verification wording is marked with [QR code] and [e-signature verification] notes, and no attempt is made to decode the contents of the code. Where the document is going both to an assessing organisation and to Home Affairs, planning from the start how many stamped original sets each of them needs will meet requests that surface at the last minute and speed the process up. It is also worth reviewing, before the translation is delivered, that the stamp and the translator number have printed legibly; a faint or partly printed stamp can lead the authority to send the document back even where its content is correct.

The Home Affairs file, the apostille and the order of approval

Where the diploma forms part of a visa file, the recipient is the Department of Home Affairs, and the spelling of the name must be consistent with the passport on every copy of the document. On QR-coded e-diplomas the presence of the QR code and of the verification link is marked with [QR code] and [e-signature verification] notes. Check the following points before delivery:

• Make certain that the translation bears the NAATI stamp.
• Avoid equating the name of the degree with an Australian level.
• Where an apostille is needed, obtain it before the translation.

Australia is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention; confirm the current position from the official HCCH list. You can see the level of approval required for other documents on our document types page, review the cost on our pricing page, and upload your document to request a quotation. Translations are handled from our single office in Ankara Kızılay. Practice is updated from time to time, so look at the institution’s current notice before you begin.