Vietnamese Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates Vietnamese documents into English and English documents into Vietnamese for use in the United States. Most of the certified work is immigration evidence: the Giấy Khai Sinh birth certificate issued by a People's Committee, marriage and divorce records, police certificates, diplomas and household paperwork. Each translation is complete and carries a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy, and a single certificate is usually ready within 24 hours.

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

Vietnamese documents are unusually well organized and unusually easy to damage in transit. A birth certificate is issued once, as a single original, and everything else the family holds is a certified copy. The State Department reciprocity page describes the original as green with a red seal at the lower right and copies as white or orange, and since February 2022 an official electronic copy with a QR code has been valid alongside the paper. Knowing which you hold changes what you send us.

• 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 Vietnamese Translation for USCIS

Family petitions out of Vietnam are steady work and the document set barely changes. The Giấy Khai Sinh is issued by the People's Committee of the commune or district and signed by its chairman or a vice chairman, and a translation that renders the signature block as a generic registrar loses the only indication of which office issued it. Marriage certificates, divorce judgments and police records come from their own authorities and each carries its own seal, which we translate rather than describe.

Send every page, front and back, including the certified-copy endorsement if you are sending a bản sao rather than the original. What the certification looks like is on the certified translation page; the packet for each form is on the USCIS translation page.

• Birth certificates and certified copies from a People's Committee
• Marriage certificates and divorce judgments
• Judicial record certificates from the Department of Justice
• Passports and citizen identification cards
• Medical and vaccination records for the immigration medical examination

Vietnamese Diacritics and Name Order in Certified Translation

Two conventions cause most of the trouble on Vietnamese files. The first is order: the family name comes first, then a middle name, then the given name, and Vietnamese speakers are addressed by the given name rather than the family name. A form filled in by someone assuming the American order produces a person whose first and last names have swapped places, which then disagrees with the birth certificate.

The second is the diacritics themselves. Because a very large share of the population shares a handful of family names, the marks and the middle name often carry the only distinguishing information on the page. We reproduce the Vietnamese exactly, including every tone mark, and show the passport spelling next to it where the passport has dropped them. If the goal is a clean-looking translation, that is the wrong goal. The point is for a reviewing officer to match two documents without having to assume anything.

Vietnamese Household Record Translation After the 2023 Change

Older Vietnamese immigration files lean heavily on the Sổ Hộ Khẩu, the household registration book that recorded everyone at an address and their relationship to the head of household. It was excellent secondary evidence of a family relationship, which is why attorneys asked for it. It is also, since 1 January 2023, no longer issued: Vietnam moved residence records into the national population database, and residence is now proved by the chip-based citizen identification card, a residence information certificate, or a notice of personal identification number.

In practice that means two things. Historic household books still in a family's possession remain worth translating when they evidence a relationship that predates the change. For anything current, ask your client for one of the replacement documents instead of a book that can no longer be obtained, and send it to us in full rather than as the one page that seemed relevant.

Vietnamese Legalized Document Translation

Vietnam is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so a Vietnamese public document heading for use abroad goes through consular legalization rather than carrying an apostille. Clients who have dealt with Korean or Brazilian paperwork expect the simpler route and lose time looking for it. Where the receiving body in the United States has asked only for a certified translation, none of this arises; where it has asked for legalization, do that first, because the legalization stamps then get translated with everything else.

Court judgments, powers of attorney and company records for US use are handled on the legal translation page, and the sequencing question is covered under apostille translation.

Vietnamese Diploma and Academic Transcript Translation

Vietnamese higher education documents come in pairs as well: the degree certificate and the separate transcript listing subjects, credits and marks. Grading normally runs on a ten-point scale, and a 7 is a respectable result rather than the mediocre one an American reader assumes, so the translation carries a note on the scale instead of a converted letter grade. Institution names have often changed, particularly where a college was absorbed into a national university, and we translate the name as printed with the current name in a note. See diploma translation and academic transcript translation.

Vietnamese Translation Cost and Turnaround

Vietnamese sits a little above the major European languages on price: certified pages from around $24.95 as a US market guide, running text quoted per source word from about $0.12. Scans are what slow this work down. A phone photograph of a green certificate taken at an angle, with the red seal washed out by flash, has to be queried before anyone can start, and that costs a day. Send a flat scan and a one-page certificate goes out inside 24 hours; transcripts and judgments take two to four business days. Ranges are on the pricing page.

Vietnamese Interpreters for Court, Hospital and USCIS Appointments

The written language is uniform, so translation raises no regional question. Speech does. Northern and Southern Vietnamese differ in pronunciation and in a set of everyday words, and while speakers understand each other, an interpreter far from the speaker's own variety works slower under pressure, which is exactly when accuracy is tested. Tell us where the person is from: see Vietnamese interpreters for hearings, clinics and immigration interviews.

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