Trade Registry Translation for Canada

Matching the fields to the provincial or federal registry

Corporate registers in Canada are kept both federally, by Corporations Canada, and at provincial level; whichever register your recipient consults, they will look in your document for the fields they read in their own. Submitted together, the certificate of activity and the TTSG announcement supply what a registry summary supplies: whether the company is active, where it is registered, who runs it and what it does. Rendering those fields in the terms of Canadian company law reduces the objection. A short covering note explaining that the document is the Türkiye equivalent is useful too, because a recipient expecting a single registry summary needs to see two documents doing that job between them.

The false-equivalent trap: an A.Ş. is not an “Inc.”

A common error is to translate the abbreviation for the company type into a Canadian one. Writing A.Ş. as “Inc.”, “Corp.” or “Ltd”, or a Limited Şirketi as “Ltd”, equates the company with a different legal form, and these types do not map onto one another. In translation the abbreviation is left as it stands, with a bracketed explanation where one is needed. Translate the type and you create a mistaken legal expectation on the other side; treating a provincial company form as identical to a Turkish one would be misleading as to the rules on liability and capital.

The field setting out the objects of the company calls for particular care. What the Turkish document records there answers to the information that marks out the limits of a company’s activity in the Canadian registry, so it has to be carried across without widening or narrowing its scope. Sector-specific terms are given their established counterparts in Canadian commercial usage, but without distorting the meaning; where the document carries an activity code of the NACE sort, the code is an identifier and is left as it stands rather than converted into the other country’s coding system. Interpreting an item of activity freely can make the field the company is authorised to work in look different from what it is, and raise a false expectation on the other side.

Capital, MERSIS and the accredited translator

The amount of capital and the currency (TL) stay exactly as they are in the translation; no Canadian dollar equivalent is put in its place. The QR code on the certificate of activity is marked with the notes [QR code] and [electronic verification], and no attempt is made to decode it. The MERSIS number and the trade registry number are carried across exactly. Where the document is going into an official procedure, expect the translation to be required either from a translator accredited by a provincial translators’ association such as ATIO, OTTIAQ or STIBC, or with an affidavit attached; and since Canada has two official languages, confirm the target language, English or French.

Telling the current position from past changes

The certificate of activity shows the company as it stands today, whereas gazette announcements are a chronological record. When a Canadian buyer or authority asks for a current record, submitting the most recent registration announcement together with a currently dated certificate of activity is more complete than sending a single old copy, and reduces the chance of further documents being requested. Which announcements, by date, are to be translated should be settled at the outset: missing an announcement that records a relevant change leaves the file incomplete, while translating more old announcements than are needed drives up the cost. By keeping the date and issue number of each announcement, the translation makes it plain which change was registered when.

The signature circular is a separate document

The signature circular, which shows the signing authority of the authorised representative, is a document apart from the certificate of activity and the gazette announcement; a Canadian recipient may ask for it too when confirming a contract or a power to act. The principles on this page concern trade registry documents; where a signature circular is needed it forms a separate translation job. Translating the names and titles of individuals consistently across the two documents lets the recipient match up the authority without effort. As to whether an apostille or consular legalisation is required, Canada’s position under the Hague Apostille Convention changed recently, so confirm which route your document takes both from the official HCCH list and from the authority concerned. Before delivery:

• Check that the type abbreviation has not been turned into an “Inc./Corp./Ltd” equivalent.
• Verify that the capital has been left in TL.
• Confirm the apostille or consular legalisation route from an official source.

You can see the level of certification other documents need on our document types page, look at the cost on our pricing page and upload your document to request a quotation. Translations are handled from our single office in Ankara Kızılay. Conditions of acceptance differ with the authority applied to, so ask for confirmation in advance.