USCIS Translation Services

Prism Language Solutions translates the foreign-language documents that go into USCIS filings: civil records for family petitions, police and identity documents for adjustment of status, marriage and court records for naturalization, evidence packets for asylum. Each translation is complete, laid out to match the original, and carries the certification 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) requires. Single certificates are usually back within 24 hours; the written quote arrives within the hour on business days.

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

A USCIS packet is only as strong as its weakest exhibit. An adjudicator does not read the foreign birth certificate; they read the translation, glance at the original to confirm the layout matches, and check that a translator has signed for it. If the translation skips a stamp, condenses a paragraph, or arrives without a certification, the file stops and a Request for Evidence goes out. This page is for the person assembling the packet, usually a paralegal or the applicant’s relative; the general mechanics of certification are on the certified translation page.

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

What USCIS Requires in a Translation

The rule is short. 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) says that any document containing a foreign language submitted to USCIS must be accompanied by a full English translation that the translator has certified as complete and accurate, plus the translator’s certification that he or she is competent to translate from that language into English. The USCIS Policy Manual adds one line that matters in practice: a summary of a document prepared by a translator is not acceptable. Every word, every field, every seal.

Notice what the rule does not say. It does not require a notary, an ATA-certified translator, or a translation agency at all, and it does not say the translation has to be produced in the United States. A legible copy of the original is the norm unless USCIS asks for the original itself. Our certificate names the translator and gives the language pair, the date and our contact details, because the I-589 instructions ask for exactly that.

USCIS Translation Documents by Form

The forms below account for most of the USCIS translation we do. The document lists come from the USCIS checklists and form instructions; your attorney may ask for more depending on the facts of the case.

Foreign-language documents that commonly need translation, by USCIS form
Form	Purpose	Documents that usually need translating
I-130	Petition for Alien Relative	Birth certificates, the marriage certificate, divorce decrees or death records ending earlier marriages, adoption decrees
I-485	Adjustment of status	Birth certificate, passport biographic page, foreign police clearances and court dispositions, vaccination records taken to the civil surgeon for Form I-693, foreign income evidence behind Form I-864
N-400	Naturalization	Current marriage certificate, every prior divorce, annulment or death record, foreign arrest and court records with their dispositions
I-589	Asylum	Passport and national ID, birth and marriage records for included family, police and medical reports, threat letters, membership cards, news articles, witness statements
I-751	Removal of conditions on residence	Foreign bank statements and property records held jointly, children’s birth certificates, affidavits from relatives abroad, a foreign divorce decree for a waiver filing

Asylum packets are the outlier. An I-589 file can run to hundreds of pages of clippings, hospital reports and handwritten letters in a language such as Dari, Tigrinya or Burmese, on a deadline the instructions fix at one year from arrival. We triage those with the attorney: identity documents and the declaration first, corroborating evidence in order of weight, country-condition articles last or by excerpt if counsel decides a full rendering is not needed.

Request for Evidence for a Translation

When USCIS issues an RFE on translation grounds, the notice identifies the exhibit and says why it fell short, and the Policy Manual allows up to 84 days to respond. The defects we see fall into four patterns.

The translation is partial. Names, dates and places were rendered; the registrar’s attestation, the marginal notes and the back page were not. An original with three stamps and a translation with none looks incomplete, because it is. The certification is missing or defective. A bare translation, or a statement that vouches for accuracy but says nothing about the translator’s competence, fails the second half of the regulation. The translation is a summary. Long judgments and medical files tempt people to abstract them; the Policy Manual rules that out. An extract was translated where the long form was needed. Some countries issue short civil extracts that omit the parents’ names; the translation is fine but the record is not. We flag that when we see it.

USCIS Translation Format

USCIS publishes no template, so the working standard is whatever an adjudicator can review fastest. The translation follows the original page for page and field for field; a form stays a form. Seals and stamps are rendered in square brackets with their text translated, for example [Round seal: Civil Registry of the State of Jalisco]. Illegible passages are marked [illegible] rather than guessed. Names cause the most trouble: the spelling should match the applicant’s passport even where a strict transliteration from Arabic, Russian or Korean would give something different, so we ask for the passport spelling at intake and add a note where the script permits more than one romanization. The signed certificate, the translation and a copy of the original go out as one PDF in that order.

Can I Translate My Own Documents for USCIS?

The regulation does not name who may translate, and USCIS has never published a ban on applicants or relatives doing it. That is the honest answer. The practical answer is that we would not recommend it for anything that matters to the case. An officer reviewing a marriage-based petition sees a translation certified by the beneficiary’s spouse and has reason to weigh it as evidence produced by an interested party; the attorneys we work with will not file self-translated exhibits for that reason alone. The certification is also a statement of competence, and the small errors bilingual relatives make (a mistranslated marital status, a place name in its modern rather than its recorded form) are the ones that produce follow-up questions.

USCIS Translation for Immigration Attorneys

Most of our USCIS volume comes through law firms, so delivery is built around how a firm files. Each document arrives as its own text-searchable PDF, named by client and exhibit, with the certificate as the first page, so it drops into an exhibit list without re-ordering. Firms that send work every week get a consistent translator on their recurring language pairs, a shared glossary of client name spellings, and one invoice per matter. Filing-deadline service is on the rush translation page, an interpreter for the appointment on USCIS interview interpreting, and the wider picture on our page for immigration attorneys.

USCIS Translation Cost

Short civil documents are priced per page, as a guide from around $24.95, covering the translation, a second-linguist check and the signed certification. Multi-page exhibits are priced per source word, and for a common language such as Spanish or Portuguese that sits towards the bottom of the $0.10 to $0.25 range on our pricing page. USCIS does not require notarization, so we add it only when you ask.

Ready to start? Send the document or the booking details through the quote form, call +1 (833) 282 8883, or email info@prismlinguistics.com. You get a fixed written price within 60 minutes during business hours.

Questions we get asked

Does USCIS require the original document or a copy with the translation?

A clear copy is standard. USCIS asks for originals only when it issues a specific request for them. We translate from your scan and attach a copy of the source to the certified translation so the officer can compare the two.

Does the translator certification for USCIS need to be notarized?

No. 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) asks for a certification signed by the translator, not for a notary. We notarize on request for clients who will use the same translation with a consulate or a state court that wants it.

What if USCIS already sent an RFE about my translation?

Send us the notice and the documents. It names the exhibit and the defect, and a compliant certified translation of a single document is usually back within 24 hours. If the problem is the underlying record, for example a short-form extract where the long form is required, we say so before you order anything.