Moldovan Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates documents from Moldova into English for USCIS, courts, universities and employers, and English into Romanian or Russian for readers there. The word Moldovan on a client’s paperwork can point at three different things: Romanian printed in Latin letters, Moldovan written in Cyrillic on a Soviet form, or Russian. We read the file before quoting, say which language each page carries, and deliver every certified item with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy.

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

Moldova has settled the naming question in its own law, and the answer changes how an order should be placed. The Constitutional Court held in 2013 that the Declaration of Independence, which calls the language Romanian, takes precedence over the wording of the constitution, and in March 2023 Parliament adopted Law No. 52 replacing the term Moldovan with Romanian across the statute book. A certificate printed in Chișinău this year is therefore a Romanian-language document, and if that is all you hold, the page you want is Romanian translation.

• 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

Which Language Your Moldovan Documents Are Actually In

Before anything is priced, sort the bundle into three piles. Papers issued since the mid-1990s by a local civil registry or by the Agenția Servicii Publice are Romanian in Latin script. Anything with a Soviet crest is a two-column form and needs both columns rendered, not the Russian one alone. Anything from a Transnistrian authority is in practice Russian, and it carries a status problem no translator can fix: the receiving officer may not treat the issuing body as a recognized one, which is a question for your attorney.

We do that sorting free, before a quote goes out. It occasionally costs us the job, because a client expecting a rare-language price finds out the whole file is Russian and shops it elsewhere. Fair trade for not billing anyone for a language their papers are not in.

Certified Moldovan Translation for USCIS

Filings run under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3), which asks for a full English translation plus a certification that the translator is competent and the translation accurate. Two habits matter on these files. A bilingual Soviet form is translated in both of its languages, with a note where the columns disagree on a spelling or a patronymic. And every marginal annotation counts: a later correction, a name change, a marriage recorded against the birth entry.

Formatting and the certificate itself are described on the certified translation page, and the form-by-form list is on USCIS translation.

• Birth certificates: Soviet ZAGS forms, 1990s Romanian certificates and current Agenția Servicii Publice prints
• Marriage certificates and divorce decrees, including judgments running to several pages
• Police clearance, the cazier judiciar, requested on most immigrant visa files
• Diplomas and transcripts for credential evaluation and H-1B petitions
• Soviet work books and pension records, usually entirely in Russian

Translating a Soviet-Era Moldovan Birth Certificate

A grandmother’s certificate from the 1960s is the hardest page in most of these files, and not because the wording is difficult. It is a printed form filled in by hand, often faded, with a stamp across part of the entry, issued by a ZAGS bureau whose district has changed both its name and its spelling since. We reproduce the issuing body as it appears rather than as the district is called now, and add a translator’s note explaining the relationship so the change does not read as an error.

The Cyrillic column is not Russian, and treating it as Russian produces nonsense. Moldovan was written in Cyrillic letters from 1938 until 1989, using that alphabet for a Romance language, so a Russian reader sees familiar letters spelling unfamiliar words. We put a linguist on it who reads both.

Moldovan Name Forms on a Certified Document Translation

Soviet clerks recorded Romance names in their Russian form, so a man registered at birth as Ivan Petrovich holds a Moldovan passport reading Ion, and Dumitru turns up as Dmitri. Add the patronymic, which Russian-language records carry and Romanian ones do not, and one person can appear under three names across five documents.

Our practice is to spell the applicant to the travel document being filed, print the source form exactly as each original has it, and set the relationship out in a note the officer can read. We do not quietly harmonize the certificate to the passport. Where the difference is real rather than a transliteration artifact, the attorney needs to see it.

Moldovan Records for a Romanian Citizenship Application

A large share of this document work is not aimed at the United States at all. Around 850,000 citizens of Moldova have reacquired Romanian citizenship since 1991, and Romania's National Citizenship Authority still holds very large numbers of pending files. Families in Sacramento and Brooklyn assemble those applications from here.

Two things are worth knowing before you order. Romanian and Moldovan are the same language for this purpose, so a Romanian authority does not need a document already in Romanian translated at all. What does need work is the Soviet-era Cyrillic or Russian record, and that translation is into Romanian rather than English. Tell us which authority the file is going to and we quote the right direction the first time.

Apostille, Interpreters and Moldovan Translation Prices

Moldova has been a contracting party to the Apostille Convention since 16 March 2007, so a Moldovan public document can be apostilled at home and used abroad without consular legalization. The apostille is its own page and carries no English of its own, so it is translated with the record rather than instead of it. Order it first and the whole bundle is done once. See apostille translation.

Short certificates are quoted from around $24.95 per page as a US market guide and are usually back within a business day; handwritten Soviet forms and multi-page judgments take longer and are priced by the source word from about $0.10. Ranges sit on the pricing page. For a hearing, note that a speaker may answer in Romanian and quote a document in Russian in the same breath, so ask for a court interpreter who works in both.

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