Maltese Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Maltese into English for probate files, US courts, USCIS petitions and attorneys handling estates with property in Malta. Much of the work is not immigration at all: wills, notarial deeds and judgments from Valletta arrive wholly in Maltese, while modern civil status certificates come out of the Public Registry bilingually and only need part of the page translated. Everything certified carries a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy.

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

Malta runs in two languages. Maltese and English are both official there, most Maltese-born people speak English well, and the Public Registry under Identita issues civil status certificates with both languages on the page. That is why a Maltese translation order looks unlike any other Mediterranean language: the real question is not readability but which parts of the page a US body still needs rendered.

• 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

Bilingual Malta Certificates and Their Maltese-Only Annotations

A bilingual certificate feels like a document that has already solved the problem, and that is exactly how the mistake happens. The printed fields appear in Maltese and English, so a clerk files it as an English document. What is not bilingual is everything added afterwards by hand or by stamp: the marginal annotation recording a later marriage or a legitimation, a correction, a note of a court order, a registrar's remark. Those are frequently Maltese only, and under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) the foreign-language content has to be translated before the document is complete.

So send us the whole page, front and back, rather than the fields you think matter. We quote only for what is genuinely in Maltese, which on a modern certificate can be two lines. Charging you to retype the English half would be indefensible. The certificate format is described at certified translation.

Maltese Will, Notarial Deed and Probate Translation

Probate is the larger half of Maltese document work, and these documents are not bilingual. A will drawn up in Valletta, a notarial deed transferring property, a judgment of the Maltese courts, an older parish baptism entry: these are in Maltese throughout and often run to many pages of formal register. The translation for a US probate court has to be literal and complete, seals and attestation clauses included.

Maltese notarial practice sits inside a civil law tradition, so the instruments do not map neatly onto American equivalents. A notarial deed executed before a Maltese notary is not the same animal as a document notarized in this country, and translating it as though it were misleads whoever relies on it. The term is rendered and then explained in a translator's note, rather than swapped for the nearest American word. See legal translation and power of attorney translation.

Maltese Document Translation Needs a Maltese Linguist

Maltese is a Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet, descended from the Arabic of medieval Sicily and layered over centuries with Sicilian, Italian and English vocabulary. That combination defeats near-enough substitutes in both directions. An Arabic translator recognizes the grammar and stumbles on half the words in a legal document, most of which came from Italian. An Italian translator recognizes those words and cannot parse the sentence they sit in.

The alphabet is the other trap, and it is a purely practical one. Maltese uses the letters ġ, ħ, ż and ċ, and an English-speaking clerk retyping a surname drops the dots and bars, so one family name enters an American record in two forms. We reproduce the letters exactly as the document prints them, spell the applicant to the passport where there is one, and note the variant so nobody later treats the two spellings as two people.

Certified Maltese Translation for USCIS and the EU Multilingual Form

For an immigration filing the requirement is the ordinary one: a complete English version of any Maltese text, certified as accurate by the translator. Malta has been in the Apostille Convention since 1968, so an apostille is available, but USCIS does not ask for one and there is no reason to buy one for that purpose alone.

One European instrument causes regular confusion here. Malta can attach a multilingual standard form to a civil status certificate under Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, which has applied since February 2019, and that form prevents another EU member state from demanding a translation. It has no effect on a US filing, since the United States is outside that regime. If you have one, send it anyway; it is part of the document and gets translated with the rest. See apostille translation.

Maltese Interpreters for Hospitals, Probate Hearings and Depositions

Interpreting requests in Maltese are rare and almost always urgent, because nobody plans them. A Maltese-born patient in his eighties who has spoken English for sixty years can lose it after a stroke and come back in his first language, and the ward has never been asked for a Maltese interpreter before. Estate hearings are the other common setting.

Maltese Translation Cost and Turnaround

Maltese is priced above the common European languages, because the pool of translators is small, and quoted on the Maltese content rather than the page. A bilingual certificate with two lines of Maltese annotation is a short job and priced as one, from around $24.95 per certified page as a US market guide. A multi-page will or notarial deed is quoted per source word and normally takes two to five business days. Older handwritten parish entries take longer. Guide ranges are at pricing.

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