Indonesian Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Indonesian documents into English for immigration, academic and commercial use in the United States. Almost every family file comes from the same source, the Dukcapil civil registration service: a birth certificate extract, a family card, a marriage record, a police clearance. We translate each one complete, including the issuing office as it is printed rather than as it is named today, and sign a Certificate of Translation Accuracy.

Last reviewed September 11, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Language Solutions

Indonesian is a manageable language with awkward paperwork. The language is regular, Latin-scripted and easy enough to read; the trouble is administrative. Civil registration has been reorganised more than once, forms have been redrawn, offices merged and renamed, and the certificate in a client's hand may be issued by a body that no longer exists under that name.

• 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

Certified Indonesian Translation for USCIS

A foreign-language document filed with USCIS needs a complete English translation certified by a competent translator under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3). Indonesian certificates make that easy to get half right: the data fields are legible and the temptation is to translate those and stop. The legal basis printed at the head of the document, the office name, the registration number, the officer's title and the stamps all belong in the translation as well. What the certificate covers is under certified translation, and the document set per petition under USCIS translation.

• Birth certificate extracts (kutipan akta kelahiran) from a local Dukcapil office
• Family cards (kartu keluarga) and national identity cards
• Marriage records: a buku nikah from the religious affairs office or an akta perkawinan from the civil registry
• Diplomas (ijazah) and transcripts for employment filings
• SKCK police clearance certificates and name change declarations

Indonesian Birth Certificate (Akta Kelahiran) Translation

Births are registered with the Dinas Kependudukan dan Pencatatan Sipil of the local regency or city, the office everyone calls Dukcapil, which sits under the Ministry of Home Affairs. What a family holds is normally a kutipan, an extract of the register entry, rather than the register itself. Formats have changed several times, so a certificate issued in 1985 looks nothing like one issued last year, and an older one may name a colonial-era or pre-reform registry office.

We reproduce the issuing authority exactly as printed and explain in a translator's note where the office has since been renamed or absorbed. Updating it silently would be the easy thing to do and it would be wrong: an officer checking the certificate against a current office list needs to see the name that is on the paper.

Indonesian Family Card (Kartu Keluarga) Translation

The kartu keluarga has no American counterpart, and that is why it carries weight in a petition. It lists every member of a household with their national identification number, date and place of birth, religion, education, occupation, marital status and, critically, the relationship of each person to the head of the family. For a family-based case it is often the clearest statement of a relationship that anyone holds.

The whole card is translated, every row of it, including relatives with nothing to do with the petition. Extracting one line is a common shortcut and it destroys the evidential value of the document. Where a card has been reissued after a birth, a death or a move, the reissue date sits next to older data, and both go in.

Single-Name Indonesians on a Certified Document Translation

A great many Indonesians, Javanese above all, have one legal name. It is not a first name missing a surname; it is the whole name. US systems cannot hold that, so the applicant is entered with FNU in one field, or a translator invents a surname out of the single name, and from then on the record no longer matches the passport.

We leave a single name single, spelled exactly as the passport spells it, and say so in the translator's note. Where an Indonesian has two or three name elements, the last one is not necessarily a family name either, and we do not label it as one. A 2022 Ministry of Home Affairs regulation set standards for recording names on population documents, including a recommended minimum of two words, so newer certificates increasingly show a longer name than an older document for the same family. Families of Chinese descent may also hold a Surat Pernyataan Ganti Nama recording a name change under the 1960s rules, and unless it is translated beside the birth certificate the two names never join up.

Indonesian Marriage and Divorce Record Translation

Marriage records come from two different systems depending on religion. A Muslim marriage is registered by the office of religious affairs and produces a buku nikah, a small book rather than a single sheet, with entries across several pages and a stamp on each. Non-Muslim marriages are registered civilly and produce an akta perkawinan from Dukcapil. Divorce comes with a court decision, from a religious court or a district court, and the decision is long. We translate a buku nikah as the book it is, page by page, and quote a court decision by its actual length rather than as a flat certificate price. See divorce decree translation.

Apostille for Indonesian Documents Before Translation

Indonesia acceded to the Apostille Convention in 2021 and it entered into force on 4 June 2022, replacing the old chain of ministry and embassy legalizations. An Indonesian public document going to another member country is now apostilled by the ministry designated as the competent authority, and the application is made online in Indonesia, on the original document. Do that first and send us the apostilled document, so the apostille certificate is translated with the record instead of arriving later as a loose page. For US documents going to Indonesia, see apostille translation.

Indonesian Translation Cost and Turnaround

Indonesian sits mid-range in our pricing. A certified page of a short document is quoted from about $24.95 as a US market guide, with running text charged by the source word. A single-page akta kelahiran is normally back within 24 hours of a confirmed quote. A kartu keluarga with a dozen household members, a buku nikah or a court decision is priced by what is actually on the pages and takes two to four business days. Send the reverse side as well; Indonesian certificates often carry endorsements there. Guide figures are on the pricing page.

Questions we get asked