Trade Registry Translation for the UK

Matching the fields to their Companies House counterparts

The British side looks in your document for the fields it reads in its own Companies House record. Submitted together, the certificate of activity and the TTSG announcement supply what a Companies House 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 English company law reduces the objection that “this is not a Companies House record”. A short covering note explaining that the document is the Türkiye equivalent also helps, because a British recipient expecting a single registry summary needs to see that two separate documents are doing that job between them.

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

A common error is to translate the abbreviation for the company type into a British one. Writing A.Ş. as “PLC” or “Ltd”, or a Limited Şirketi as “Ltd”, sets the company equal to 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; presenting a Turkish A.Ş. as though it were a publicly traded PLC, for instance, is misleading as to the rules on capital and liability.

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 a British reader’s record, so it has to be carried across without widening or narrowing its scope. Sector-specific terms are given their established counterparts in British 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 QR-coded certificate of activity

The amount of capital and the currency (TL) stay exactly as they are in the translation and are not converted into a sterling equivalent, because what the document records is registered legal capital. The certificate of activity now generally comes with a QR code and electronic verification; the translation marks the presence of the code 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 the key data identifying the company and are carried across exactly; a single wrong digit and the document cannot be verified. The announcement date and issue number on the TTSG announcement are kept as well.

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 British 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: translating more old announcements than are needed drives up the cost, while missing an announcement that records a relevant change leaves the file incomplete. 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 British recipient may ask for that 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, and its notarially drawn structure means it follows its own chain of certification. Translating the names and titles of individuals consistently across the two documents lets the recipient match up the authority without effort. Watch the following points before delivery:

• Check that the type abbreviation has not been turned into a “PLC/Ltd” equivalent.
• Verify that the capital has been left in TL and not converted into sterling.
• Obtain the certificate of activity and the TTSG announcement with a current date; obtain the apostille before the translation.

There is no sworn translator system in the United Kingdom; a signed certificate of accuracy is attached to the translation instead. The United Kingdom is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention; confirm the current position from the official HCCH list. 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. Practice is updated from time to time, so check the current announcements of the institution concerned before you begin.