Last updated: June 2026
Police clearance certificates have a short shelf life and a high stakes profile. UKVI rejects translations that look slightly off because the document is the procedural proof that the applicant doesn't have a criminal record in their home country. Most clearances expire six months after issue, which means a translation delay turns into a re-application at the home-country police authority, not a re-translation. Knowing what each major issuing authority puts on the page, and what UKVI wants to see, keeps the process under a week.
Skilled Worker visas in occupations classified as 'working with vulnerable groups', most settlement (ILR) applications under criminal-conduct rules, and family-visa applicants from listed countries. Spouse and student visas do not routinely require a police clearance unless UKVI raises a specific question.
The headline categories are Skilled Worker and ILR.
For Skilled Worker, UKVI requires a police clearance from any country the applicant has lived in for twelve months or more in the past ten years, when the role falls within healthcare, education, social care or other 'working with children or vulnerable adults' fields. The list of countries is the applicant's own residence history, not a UKVI-published list.
For ILR, the criminal-conduct test is broader. UKVI can ask for clearances from past countries of residence as part of the suitability assessment, particularly where the immigration history shows long periods abroad.
For family visas (spouse, partner, parent, child), police clearances are not a routine requirement, but UKVI can ask for one through an RFI if there's anything in the file that prompts a closer look.
The pattern that catches applicants: a Skilled Worker offer at an NHS trust, applicant who lived in three countries in the past decade, suddenly needs three police clearances, three sets of certified translations, all inside a few weeks of starting. Planning for that ahead of the offer landing is much smoother than scrambling after.
Indian PCC is bilingual Hindi/English on green security paper. Pakistani Character Certificate is Urdu, sometimes with an English summary block. Chinese No Criminal Record is Chinese only and needs notarisation in China before translation. Nigerian Police Report is English on letterhead. Most need full certified translation if any non-English text appears.
Five issuing authorities cover the bulk of UK clearance translation work.
India: the Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) is issued by passport offices or local police authorities. The standard PSK-issued PCC is bilingual Hindi-English, with the English section carrying the binding text. If the PCC is the standard format, no translation is needed. If it's a state-police-issued PCC in Hindi or a state language, the certificate needs full translation.
Pakistan: the Character Certificate is issued by district police authorities and is usually Urdu only. Some district authorities add a brief English summary block, but the binding text is the Urdu. Full certified translation is needed.
China: the No Criminal Record certificate is issued by the local Public Security Bureau (PSB), is Chinese only, and requires Chinese notarisation before it leaves the country. The notarisation booklet adds 4–8 pages of formal Chinese legal text around the certificate itself. UKVI wants the whole booklet translated, not just the certificate page.
Nigeria: the Police Report from the Nigerian Police Force is issued in English on official letterhead. No translation is usually needed. Edge case: a state-command-issued report with a local-language stamp.
Philippines: the NBI Clearance is issued in English. No translation needed.
Elsewhere: most European clearances (Spanish Certificado de Antecedentes Penales, Italian Certificato del Casellario, French Bulletin n°3) are in the issuing country's language and need certified translation.
Yes. The Chinese No Criminal Record is issued as a notarial booklet binding the PSB certificate, the notarisation declaration, the notary's credentials, and a photocopy of the original certificate. UKVI wants every page translated, including the notary's formal block at the front.
Chinese No Criminal Record certificates are a specific case because they don't leave the issuing authority as a standalone certificate. They leave as a notarial booklet: a hard-cover bound document of usually 4 to 8 pages, with a Chinese notarial declaration at the front, the PSB certificate in the middle, supporting documents (a copy of the passport, a copy of the household registration) at the back.
The translation has to cover all of it. UKVI reads the booklet as a single document and queries any page that's left untranslated. A common mistake is to translate only the PSB certificate page and skip the notarial framing, on the basis that 'the notary part is just procedure'. The notary part includes the notary's name, registration number, the city in which they're notarising, the date, and a formal statement that the PSB certificate is a true copy of the original. All of that is binding text.
The per-page cost is real because the booklet is 4 to 8 pages of dense formal Chinese. Expect £100–£200 for a standard notarised No Criminal Record translation, with same-day delivery available at most established Chinese-into-English providers.
Most police clearances expire six months from issue, and UKVI checks the issue date against the application date. Order the translation as soon as the certificate is issued, not weeks later. A translated certificate with an expired underlying original is worthless to UKVI.
The shelf life is the part that creates real urgency. UKVI's published guidance is that police clearances should be issued within six months of the application date. Some routes are stricter and want three months.
Which means the planning sequence runs from the home-country police authority's issue date backwards. If you apply for a police clearance in country and it takes four weeks to issue, you have five months from the issue date before it's effectively expired for UKVI purposes. The translation work itself is one to two days. The risk window is the wait for the application to be lodged.
A few practical points:
Order the translation as soon as the original certificate is in your hand, not at the moment you upload the visa application. The translation doesn't expire; the underlying original does. A translated copy in your inbox is ready whenever the application timing aligns.
For multi-country files (three police clearances from three jurisdictions), order them together once they're all in hand. A single translator can prepare three clearances under one statement of accuracy more efficiently than three providers preparing them separately.
If a clearance is about to expire and your visa application is delayed, re-issue rather than re-translate. The issuing authority is the bottleneck, not the translator.
Not routinely. UKVI does not require police clearances on standard spouse-visa applications. They can be requested through an RFI if something in the file prompts a closer look, but most spouse-visa files don't include one.
The PSK-issued PCC (Passport Seva Kendra) is bilingual Hindi-English and usually needs no translation. State-police-issued PCCs vary and may be entirely in Hindi or a state language. Check yours before assuming.
Chinese No Criminal Record certificates leave the PSB as part of a multi-page notarised booklet. UKVI reads the whole booklet as one document, so the translation covers the notarial declaration at the front, the certificate, the supporting copies, and the notary's signature block — typically 4–8 pages.
No. The clearance has to be issued by the district authority where the applicant resided. A certificate from a relative's district is the wrong document, regardless of how well the translation reads.
UKVI usually requires it to be inside six months. A clearance that's seven months old at the application date is likely to draw an RFI for a fresh one. Re-issue rather than re-translate; the original is the constraint, not the translation.
No. UKVI requires certified English translations of all non-English police clearances. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Polish, Romanian and other EU-issued clearances all need full certified translation.
UKVI-accepted certified translations from £12.99 per page. Statement of accuracy included. 24-hour delivery.