Catalan Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions provides certified Catalan to English translation for USCIS, credential evaluators, courts and estate matters, and English into Catalan where a document has to be read in Catalonia or Andorra. Work goes out complete, with the signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy that a US filing needs. A large part of the job is telling callers, before they pay for anything, which pages of a Spanish bundle are actually in Catalan and which are not.

Last reviewed September 12, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Catalan is the one language on this site people order by accident. A client sends what they describe as Spanish paperwork from Barcelona, Palma or Valencia, and half of it turns out to be in Catalan, or in two languages at once with the important handwriting in only one of them. The reverse happens too: someone pays for a Catalan translator and the certificate is plain Castilian.

• Certified translations prepared to meet USCIS requirements
• Human linguists only, matched to the subject
• Fixed written quote within 60 minutes in business hours
• One office in New York, linguists in every state

When a Spanish Certificate Is Actually a Catalan Document

Send the scans before you decide. We look at them at no charge and tell you what is there. Three patterns come up again and again, and only one of them needs a Catalan translator for the whole page.

The first is a certificate printed in both languages, columns or stacked lines, with the fixed text bilingual and the variable entries typed in one language only. The second is a Catalan-only certificat literal, common from Barcelona and Girona offices. The third is a Castilian certificate carrying a Catalan marginal note, added when a marriage, a divorce, an adoption or a name change was later recorded. That last one is where money gets wasted: a translator working from the Castilian body alone produces a clean page and leaves out the event the officer is looking for.

Where the document is genuinely Castilian we say so and quote it as a Spanish job, which is cheaper and faster. See Spanish translation for that side of the work.

Certified Catalan Translation of Registre Civil Certificates

Spain rebuilt its civil registry around a single electronic record, and Ley 20/2011 came fully into force on 30 April 2021, so certificates issued since then are generated from that record and signed electronically rather than stamped by a local judge. Older certificates still circulate on the previous forms, and a family file commonly holds one of each. We translate whatever was issued, describe the format for what it is, and reproduce the registry office, the volume and page references and the electronic verification code exactly as printed.

For USCIS the requirement is the plain one in 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3): a complete English translation, certified as accurate, of every foreign-language page. Complete means the margins and the seals as well as the boxes. The certificate wording and delivery are described on the certified translation page.

• Birth certificate translation from a Registre Civil in Catalonia, Valencia or the Balearics
• Marriage certificates, divorce judgments and family court orders
• Death certificates, wills and notarial deeds for a US probate file
• Generalitat and municipal certificates, residence and civil status attestations

Andorran Civil Records and Catalan Certified Translation

Andorra is the case with no ambiguity at all. Catalan is the only official language of the principality, its Registre Civil issues in Catalan alone, and there is no Castilian column to fall back on. An Andorran birth or marriage certificate therefore needs a Catalan translator, not a Spanish one, and we have seen files delayed because an agency assigned it as Spanish and produced approximate work.

Andorra has been a party to the Apostille Convention since 31 December 1996, so an Andorran document going into a US filing can carry an apostille from the Andorran authorities. We translate the apostille sheet with the record. If the apostille is still to come, get it first: it saves a second handling fee. See apostille translation.

Catalan Diploma and Academic Transcript Translation

Universities in Catalonia teach and examine largely in Catalan, so a degree from Barcelona, the Autònoma, Pompeu Fabra or Rovira i Virgili usually arrives with a Catalan transcript even when the diploma itself is bilingual. Course titles are the difficult part, not the grades. A subject named in Catalan has no automatic English equivalent, and inventing a familiar-sounding American course name misrepresents what was studied. We translate the title and leave the judgement to the evaluator.

Grades run on the Spanish ten-point scale with its named bands, and the matrícula d’honor distinction has no US counterpart; we render it and explain it in a note. For what evaluators want to see, read diploma translation and academic transcript translation.

Catalan Names and Place Names on a Certified Document

One family can appear under two spellings across four papers, and neither spelling is wrong. Joan and Juan, Jordi and Jorge, Girona and Gerona, Lleida and Lérida: the form used depends on the language of the document and on the decade, because Castilian forms were the norm on official records for much of the twentieth century. Catalan surnames also join two family names with the letter i, as in Puig i Ferrer, which US data entry reads as a stray initial.

We print what each document prints, use the passport spelling for the applicant’s own name through the English text, and list the variants in a translator’s note. Nothing is silently harmonized. If two documents genuinely disagree, the attorney needs to see that rather than have a translator settle it.

Catalan Interpreters, and When a Spanish Interpreter Will Do

Most Catalan speakers handle Spanish and often English well, so honest advice saves clients money most of the time. It stops being good advice in three situations: a witness who grew up in Catalan and reaches for it under cross-examination, an elderly patient describing symptoms, and a commercial matter where the contracts and board minutes are in Catalan and the interpreter has to sight-read them on the spot. A Spanish interpreter follows most of a Catalan sentence and misses the rest, which nobody in the room notices.

Catalan and Spanish are separate languages and a Spanish credential covers only Spanish. Hearings and depositions are handled under court interpreting and appointments under medical interpreting. Valencian and Balearic speech present no difficulty for a fluent Catalan interpreter; tell us the variety if it matters to you and we match it.

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