Polish Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Polish documents into English and English documents into Polish for use in the United States. The certified work is mostly civil registry extracts from an Urząd Stanu Cywilnego, court judgments, police certificates and academic credentials, each delivered complete with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. One-page extracts are usually back within 24 hours; judgments and transcripts take a few days.

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

Polish civil documents are straightforward to read and easy to order incorrectly. Everything comes from a civil registry office, the Urząd Stanu Cywilnego, signed by its head or a deputy, and because certificates are printed from the register on request, any extract the office issues counts as an original rather than a copy. The State Department reciprocity schedule says so explicitly. What varies is how much of the register entry you asked for.

• 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

Polish Odpis Skrocony and Odpis Zupelny Record Translation

Two forms of extract exist and choosing between them is the single most consequential decision in a Polish file. The odpis skrócony is the abridged extract: the essential facts, on one page, in the current state of the record. The odpis zupełny is the full extract: the register entry as written, plus every subsequent annotation, so a later correction, an adoption, a name change, an acknowledgement of paternity or a divorce all appear.

For immigration purposes the full form is what to ask for, and for death records the reciprocity schedule accepts only the full form. Both can be requested at any civil registry office, by post, or through the government portal. We translate whichever you send, annotations and all, and if the abridged version is missing the fact the recipient wants, we say so on delivery rather than after the rejection.

Certified Polish Translation for USCIS and US Courts

Immigration filings, probate and family matters make up most of the volume: a birth extract for a family petition, a divorce judgment from a Polish district court before a remarriage, a criminal record certificate, an inheritance file where a Polish property is in issue. Polish courts write long and cite statutes by article and paragraph, and those citations stay in the translation rather than being turned into loose description.

Certificate wording is described on the certified translation page and the requirement for each USCIS form on the USCIS translation page.

• Birth, marriage and death extracts from any USC office
• Divorce judgments and court orders
• Krajowy Rejestr Karny criminal record certificates
• Passports, identity cards and driver’s licenses
• Notarial deeds, wills and powers of attorney

Polish Surname Forms in Certified Translation

Here is where a well-meaning translator causes a Request for Evidence. A woman's Polish birth extract may give her surname as Nowakowska while her husband's passport reads Nowakowski and a US driver’s license carries whichever version the clerk typed. These are one family name in masculine and feminine form. Older records add a layer, because an entry can decline the name into a case ending that appears on no identity document.

Our rule is to print the name exactly as the Polish document gives it, transliterate nothing, and add a note stating the base form and explaining that the ending reflects gender or grammatical case rather than a different person. Changing the ending to match the passport would be the easy option and it would be a misrepresentation of the record.

Polish Apostille and Certified Document Translation

Poland is a party to the Apostille Convention and the apostille on most documents comes from the Legalisation Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, in person or by post. There is a step before it that trips people up. Notarial acts and court documents have to be authenticated first by the president of the competent regional or appellate court, and higher education diplomas have to be authenticated by the National Agency for Academic Exchange before the ministry will apostille them.

That means an academic file can need two separate trips through two institutions before it is ready to translate. Plan for it, get the apostille attached first, and send us the whole set so every stamp appears in English. See apostille translation and notarized translation.

Polish Diploma and Academic Transcript Translation

Polish degree titles are professional titles and we keep them. First cycle studies of three to four years lead to the licencjat or, in technical fields, the inżynier. Second cycle studies lead to the magister, and an engineering path produces magister inżynier. Long cycle programs in fields such as medicine and law run four and a half to six years to a magister-level title in one stretch.

Marks run on a scale where 5 is very good, 3 is satisfactory and 2 is a fail, which is close enough to an American scale to mislead a reader who assumes it runs to 100. We translate the title as awarded, print the numeric grade with its scale, and leave the US equivalence to the credential evaluator. See diploma translation and academic transcript translation.

Polish Legal and Business Document Translation

Attorneys and companies send us contracts, KRS company register extracts, employment documentation, tax filings and litigation material. The recurring technical point is the register extract: a KRS printout identifies a company by number and lists its officers and share capital, and a translation that renders only the headline company name strips out the evidence someone actually needed. We translate the fields and keep the numbering.

Commercial and litigation material is described on the legal translation and business translation pages, and where a Polish-language hearing or deposition is coming up, on court interpreting.

Polish Translation Cost and Turnaround

Polish prices a little above the largest European languages: certified pages from around $24.95 as a US market guide, running text from roughly $0.11 per source word. Two things stretch a job. Court judgments are long, because Polish judgments set out reasoning at length. And handwritten pre-war or immediate post-war parish and registry records, which turn up in genealogy and estate work, need a transcription pass before translation and are quoted separately. A one-page extract goes out inside 24 hours. Ranges are on the pricing page.

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