Chinese to English Certified Translation

The thing to know about Chinese civil documents: most are not the original certificate. They are notarised extracts produced by a Chinese 公证处 (notary office). That is itself a Chinese-language step before the document ever reaches our desks. So when a UK applicant says 'birth certificate', they almost always mean the notarised extract. These are often already bilingual Chinese-English. But the English portion is partial.

The hukou (户口本) is the other one that surprises applicants. It's a multi-page household registration booklet that records who lives at a registered address. UKVI sometimes asks for it on family applications to confirm relationships. Our translators read both simplified (mainland) and traditional characters (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau). They also know which institutions issue what.

Mainland documents use simplified characters (简体字). Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau use traditional (繁體字). Older mainland documents — pre-1956, or some recent ceremonial certificates — may also use traditional. We assign translators by character system and document type, not just by 'Chinese'. A Hong Kong marriage certificate and a Beijing notarised birth extract have almost nothing in common beyond the script family.

Chinese sits at £12.99 per page, the same as every other language pair we offer. Some UK agencies still charge more for Chinese than for European languages. The official line is usually 'character density per page'. Our flat rate applies whether your document is simplified, traditional, single-page, or a multi-page hukou. A typical notarised birth extract is two pages (£25.98). A standard degree certificate is one page.