Spanish Interpreter

Updated: September 2026

A Spanish interpreter is most often needed when a document has to move from one country to another: the family documents of a Georgian living in Spain, the birth certificate of a Mexican or Colombian spouse, a diploma obtained in Argentina, a power of attorney issued to sell an apartment. Spanish is the state language of twenty countries. The language is the same everywhere, but the document looks different everywhere.

That is why our work does not start with a dictionary. First we answer three questions: which country's institution issued the document, what type of extract it is, and where you have to submit the translation. The terms, the form of certification and sometimes even whether you have the document you were asked for at all depend on these answers.

Below we have gathered what we come across every day when working with Spanish documents. If something in your document is unclear, the answer is very likely here.

What we translate from Spanish and into Spanish

Most of the work is official documents that have to be submitted to a state agency, a consulate, a court or a university. Such a translation is usually notarized. Besides these, we translate contracts, company documents, medical reports, instructions and correspondence. Here certification is often not needed, but accuracy matters just as much.

Spanish translation is done in both directions: from Spanish into Georgian and from Georgian into Spanish. The second direction has its own difficulties, which we write about separately below.

The documents we are sent most often

• Birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates
• The Spanish family book (Libro de Familia) and civil registry extracts
• Criminal record certificate (certificado de antecedentes penales)
• Certificate of registration of the place of residence (certificado de empadronamiento)
• ID card, passport, foreigner's residence card (TIE)
• Diploma and its supplement, transcript of grades, school leaving certificate
• Power of attorney (poder notarial) and other notarial deeds
• Contracts, company articles of association, extract from the register of entrepreneurs
• Medical report, discharge summary, test results
• Court decisions and rulings
• Bank statement, salary certificate, tax documents

If your document is not on the list, that means nothing. Send us a photo and we will tell you what it needs.

Notarized Spanish translation

In Georgia a notarized translation works like this: the translator translates the document and signs it, and the notary certifies the authenticity of the translator's signature. The notary does not check the content of the translation itself, so the translator is responsible for its accuracy.

The translation is attached to the original or to its notarized copy. Which option is better depends on whether you can leave the original. The original of a diploma, for example, is rarely left, so often a notarized copy is prepared first and the translation is attached to it.

Seals, signatures, handwritten notes and the apostille are part of the document and are reflected in the translation too. If the text of a seal is partly illegible, the translation states this directly. Guessed text is not written into an official document.

Apostille: when a Spanish document needs one

Spain and most Latin American countries, like Georgia, are parties to the 1961 Hague Convention. This means that the official documents of these countries do not need consular legalization. An apostille is enough.

The apostille is placed in the country where the document was issued, not where you submit it. A certificate issued in Madrid is apostilled by the competent Spanish authority, while a Georgian document is apostilled in Georgia, through the Public Service Hall. That is why the order matters: first the apostille, then the translation, so that both are translated together.

In Spain some certificates and apostilles are issued electronically. In that case a verification code or link appears on the printed version, and it too is carried over into the translation unchanged, so that the receiving party can check the authenticity of the document itself.

Translation for Spain: the question of the sworn translator

If a Georgian document is going to Spain, one question has to be asked in advance: will the specific agency accept a notarized translation done in Georgia? Spain has the institution of the sworn translator (traductor jurado). This status is granted to translators by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and some agencies accept translations only from them.

In Mexico a similar role is played by a court-authorized translator-expert (perito traductor); other countries have their own rules.

That is why we recommend asking the receiving party before ordering what form of translation it expects. Often a Georgian document with an apostille and a translation certified in Georgia is enough, sometimes not. If this question is asked in time, you save both time and money. If you do not know whom to ask, call us and we will figure it out together.

Two surnames and their order

In Spanish-speaking countries a person has two surnames. Traditionally the first is the father's first surname and the second is the mother's first surname. If the father is García López and the mother Martín Ruiz, the child will be García Martín. Neither of them is a middle name.

In Spain parents have been able to change the order of the surnames since 1999, and since 2017 the father's surname no longer has automatic priority. If the parents cannot agree, the registry decides the order in the best interests of the child. That is why in new Spanish documents the first surname is not always the father's.

Two surnames are the most common source of errors. In forms that have one field for the surname, the second surname is either dropped or entered as a middle name. Then one and the same person appears as two different people in two documents, and it is you who has to explain this at the agency.

In Spain a woman does not change her surname on marriage. Spouses have no common surname, and the surnames of mother and child match only partly. In some Latin American countries, especially in older documents, you may come across the form María López de García, where the husband's surname follows the "de". Such an entry is carried over into the translation exactly as it is in the original.

There are also compound surnames, with a hyphen or the conjunction "y": Ortega y Gasset is one surname, not two separate ones. In the translation both surnames are written in full and in the same order. If another document has only one, we will warn you about the inconsistency in advance.

The letter ñ, accents and writing names in Georgian

In Spanish ñ is a separate letter, not an n with an extra mark. Peña and Pena are two different surnames, just like Muñoz and Munoz. In automated systems, bank cards and airline tickets ñ often turns into n, and the same person's surname appears differently in different documents.

The accent shows where the stress falls: Martín, Ramírez, Gómez. On official forms names are often written in capital letters and the accent is lost. In the translation the form of the original is kept, and the difference is noted.

In Georgian a name is written according to its pronunciation, and the Latin form of the original is given in brackets so that identification is unambiguous. The Spanish j corresponds to the Georgian letter ხ (kh), so José is ხოსე (Khose) and not ჯოზე (Joze), and Juan is ხუანი (Khuani). The h is silent: Hernández is ერნანდესი (Ernandesi). ll and y sound different from country to country, so when writing an Argentinian's name we also take the local pronunciation into account.

One more detail: José María is a man's name, while María José is a woman's. Both are two-part names, and neither part is lost in the translation.

The Spanish civil registry and the 2021 change

In Spain the family book (Libro de Familia) was used for years to prove family status. It brought together the records of the marriage and of the children's births.

Since 30 April 2021, after the new Civil Registry Law came into force, such a book is no longer issued. Instead, separate certificates are requested from the registry: of birth, marriage or death. That is why one family's documents are often in two formats, the old book and the new certificates. Both are valid.

The registry issues extracts of different completeness. The full extract (certificado literal) contains the whole text of the entry and the later annotations, for example about a divorce or a change of surname. The abridged one (certificado en extracto) contains only the main facts. Many agencies ask for the full extract, so before translating we check which one you have.

Spain and Latin America: one language, different terms

This is the most practical difficulty of Spanish documents. The same type of document has a different name in different countries, and the issuing authority is different too. In Spain the civil registry is a single system, in Mexico records are kept by the registry of each state, and in Argentina by that of each province.

The table shows the general picture. Even within one country old and new forms may differ. In the translation the name of the institution is specified according to the particular country and is not replaced with the Spanish equivalent. The Mexican Registro Civil is not the equivalent of the Spanish one, even if the name is the same.

Identification numbers

In Spain the citizen's number, the DNI, consists of eight digits and a check letter. The foreigner's number, the NIE, begins with the letter X, Y or Z. They look alike, but they belong to different persons and different statuses, and mixing them up in a translation is unacceptable.

In Mexico many official documents contain the CURP, an 18-character code that encodes letters of the surname and first name, the date of birth, the sex and the state of birth. In Chile a person is identified by the RUT, whose last, check character may be the letter K. It is not replaced with a digit.

Every such number is carried over into the translation character by character, with dots and hyphens, as in the original. Checking whether a number is correct is not the translator's job, but if one and the same number is written differently on two pages, we will definitely tell you.

Educational documents and grading scales

In Spain grades usually run from 0 to 10, and the mark comes with a word grade: suspenso (fail), aprobado (from 5), notable (from 7), sobresaliente (from 9), while the best students are awarded matrícula de honor. In Latin America the picture is more varied: in Chile the scale runs from 1 to 7, in Peru from 0 to 20, and in Mexico and Argentina it is a ten-point scale.

The word grade is part of the document and is carried over into the translation in words too. Grades are not converted into the Georgian system in the translation; that is the job of the assessing institution. If the scale is stated in the document itself, it is translated as well, so that a comparison is possible.

If you are translating a Georgian diploma for recognition in Spain (homologación or equivalencia), the requirements for the form of the translation are set by the ministry's rules. It is worth checking them in advance so that the translation does not have to be redone.

Dates, amounts and numbers

In Spanish documents the date is in day-month-year order, as in Georgian. The month is often written as a word, which reduces ambiguity but makes handwritten text harder to read. In notarial deeds the date and amount are sometimes written entirely in words, and they are translated in the same form.

There is one trap with numbers. In Spain and most South American countries the decimal is separated by a comma and the thousands by a dot: 1.250,50 means one thousand two hundred and fifty and fifty cents. In Mexico it is the other way round, as in English. That is why, when carrying over an amount in a bank statement or a salary certificate, we first establish which country the entry comes from.

Medical documents

Spanish medical texts contain many abbreviations, and some of them are mirror forms of the English ones: VIH is the equivalent of the English HIV, and SIDA of AIDS. Anyone who does not know this can easily make a mistake.

The brand names of medicines differ from country to country. In the translation the brand name stays as it is in the document and is not replaced with an analogue available on the Georgian market. Doses, units and laboratory values are carried over with the precision of the original, including commas and dots.

Translation from Georgian into Spanish

In the opposite direction the main issue is how Georgian names are written. If a Latin form already exists in the passport, that is the one used in the translation. Creating a new variant in Spanish spelling creates inconsistencies with other documents.

A Georgian document has one surname, while Spanish forms often have fields for two surnames. The second field is not filled in with invented data; the translation reflects the original. A separate issue is the patronymic (father's name), which often appears in Georgian documents. Spanish forms have no such field, and in the translation it goes in as the father's name (nombre del padre), not as a second surname.

The Georgian personal number is 11 digits and is carried over into the translation unchanged. The same rule applies to Georgian institutions: if an organization has an official foreign-language name, that name is used.

Notarial and court documents

In Spanish-speaking countries a notarial deed (escritura pública) is a long document. It contains a formal introduction, the full identification of the parties, the agreement itself and the notary's certification part. A single sentence that runs for half a page and combines several subordinate constructions is common.

In the translation the main thing is that the legal links are not lost: who does what, on whose behalf, on what condition and for what period. In a power of attorney (poder notarial) this is especially important, because one omitted power becomes a reason for refusal at a bank or a registry.

Court documents contain case numbers, names of instances and procedural terms. The Spanish Juzgado de Primera Instancia is not an automatic equivalent of a Georgian district court, so the name is translated according to the system of the country where the document was issued. The notary's seal, the registration number and the certification entry are reflected in full in the translation.

Consular and immigration documents

In consular and immigration matters the most common documents are certificates of criminal record, family status and place of residence. Such certificates have a period of validity, which is often either stated in the document itself or set by the rules of the receiving agency. In the translation the date of issue and the validity period are reflected unchanged.

In Spain the certificate of registration of the place of residence (certificado de empadronamiento) is issued by the municipality. It is often confused with a civil registry extract, although it proves an entirely different fact: where you live, not who you are. For family status there is a separate certificate, the fe de vida y estado.

That is why before translating we check exactly which certificate you have and what it proves. This often saves you from translating the wrong document and paying again.

How to order a Spanish translation

1. Photograph or scan the document with all its pages, including the seals and the apostille. The photo must be clear and the edges must not be cut off.
2. Call us on 501 113 200 or write to us and tell us where you will submit the translation. The form of certification depends on this.
3. We establish the country and the type of document and tell you the price and the turnaround time. The price depends on the number of pages, the complexity of the text and the urgency.
4. To confirm first names and surnames we may ask you for a copy of your passport, so that the Latin form is the same in all documents.
5. Once the translation is finished, we arrange notarization where needed and hand you the finished document.

Frequently asked questions