Turkish Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Turkish documents into English and English into Turkish for use in the United States. The document at the center of almost every immigration file is the nüfus kayıt örneği, the population registration extract, because Türkiye does not issue a standalone birth certificate. Extracts, court decisions, diplomas and commercial papers come back as complete English translations with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy.

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

Turkish files are usually tidy and usually misread. The paperwork from Türkiye is well organized, barcoded and easy to obtain, and the mistakes that cost time happen on this side: the wrong version of the extract is ordered, a column of registrar shorthand is skipped as boilerplate, or a surname is spelled three ways across four documents.

• 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

Turkish Population Registration Extract Translation

The nüfus kayıt örneği is a table, not a certificate. It is held by the civil registration directorates and can be pulled with a barcode from the e-Devlet portal, and it sets out the person's national identity number, place and date of birth, the province, district and village of registration, the parents, and depending on the version the whole family line. The event-by-event version, the vukuatlı extract, adds every marriage, divorce, death and name change recorded against the household.

Order the event-by-event version if a relationship is being proved, because the plain one leaves out exactly what an officer is checking. Every line gets translated, including the abbreviations registrars use in the remarks column. Render the names and dates, treat the rest as formatting, and the document comes back with a question attached.

Certified Turkish Translation for USCIS

Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) any Turkish document filed with USCIS needs a full English translation, certified by the translator as complete and accurate. There is no requirement for a Turkish sworn translator, a notary in Türkiye or an apostille on the original, which is worth knowing before someone pays for all three. What is required is that the English says everything the Turkish says.

The certificate we attach names the translator and is signed and dated; acceptance is decided by the receiving office. Details are on the certified translation and USCIS translation pages.

• Population registration extracts standing in for a birth certificate
• Marriage records and court decisions in divorce and custody cases
• Identity cards, passports and driver’s licenses
• Criminal record certificates from the Ministry of Justice
• Bank statements, title deeds and employment letters

Turkish Name Spelling on a Certified Document Translation

Turkish uses six letters that American systems quietly discard: the dotless ı, the cedilla on ç and ş, the breve on ğ, and the umlauts on ö and ü. A surname printed Şahin or Çağlar in Türkiye lands here as Sahin or Caglar, which is also what a machine-readable passport shows. That leaves a person carrying two defensible spellings of one name, plus whatever a US clerk typed years ago.

We render the Turkish exactly as printed and give the passport spelling alongside it, so an adjudicator can see that the two are the same name rather than a discrepancy. We do not silently standardize, and we do not add marks back onto a name a US record has already stripped.

Translating Older Turkish Records from the Ottoman Script

The alphabet changed under a law adopted on 1 November 1928, and the Latin script became compulsory for public use shortly afterwards. Anything written before that is in Ottoman Turkish in Arabic script, which is a different skill from modern Turkish translation and a different rate. Estate files, old land records and family research are where these turn up.

Registry material from the first decades after the change has its own problem: it is handwritten Latin script with vocabulary that has since been replaced, and place names that were renamed later. We keep the historical name and add the current one in a note, which is what a court or a land registry needs in order to match the record.

Apostille and Turkish Court Document Translation

Türkiye has been in the Apostille Convention since 1985, and the authority depends on the document. Administrative papers are apostilled by the provincial governor's office or the district equivalent; judicial documents go through the judicial commission at the centers with heavy penal courts, with the Ministry of Justice handling some at central level. If a US body asks for an apostille, that is who issues it, and we translate the apostille with the document.

Turkish court decisions are the other regular item, mostly divorce judgments needed for a later US marriage or a petition. A Turkish judgment is not final until the finality annotation is on it, and a translation of the judgment without that annotation is missing the part that makes it usable. Send the annotated copy. See apostille translation and legal translation.

Turkish Diploma and Academic Transcript Translation

Turkish diplomas and transcripts go to US credential evaluators for admissions, licensing and employment-based petitions. Grades come on a four-point scale or a hundred-point scale and sometimes both, and the faculty name carries more meaning than the department name. We translate the credential as issued and add a note on the scale rather than converting it.

Denklik runs the other way and people conflate the two. It is the equivalence certificate the Council of Higher Education issues in Türkiye for a degree earned abroad, so it matters when an American or European diploma is going back to Türkiye for recognition, or when a Turkish professional produces one alongside a foreign degree. See diploma translation and academic transcript translation.

Turkish Translation Cost and Turnaround

Turkish is a mid-range pair with a reasonable pool of US-based translators, so it is quoted close to the common European languages. A one-page registry extract follows the per-page guide, from around $24.95 per page as a market figure, and is usually back within 24 hours of a confirmed quote. Court decisions and transcripts are priced per source word and run two to four business days. Ottoman-script material is quoted separately because it needs a specialist. Ranges are on the pricing page, and if the matter also needs someone in the room, see court interpreting.

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