French Translation Services

DHCTranslations provides certified French translations from £40 per document, prepared for the Home Office, UK courts, universities and professional regulators. Each translation carries a signed certification statement with the translator's details. Notarisation can be arranged separately if the receiving body asks for it.

Certified French translations start at £40 per document, from £0.09 per word after the first 400 words. Notarisation, apostille and postage are quoted separately because they depend on the document and the authority. Send the pages for a fixed, itemised quote before you pay.

Yes. We handle European, Canadian, Belgian, Swiss and African French. A Quebec birth certificate, for example, is issued by the provincial registrar and carries different headings from a French one, so the translation follows the document as issued. Tell us the country of issue when requesting a quote.

Yes. Every French order is issued with a signed statement of accuracy carrying the translator's name and contact details, which is what UKVI asks to see. The decision itself belongs to the caseworker on your route, and the evidence list differs between routes. We have not had a certified French translation rejected for the way it was certified.

Express orders can be returned the same day when the order and cleared payment are confirmed before 4pm on a working day, and standard turnaround is confirmed in your quote once we have seen the document length and content. A certified PDF is emailed first, with a hard copy posted afterwards if the authority requires a paper copy.

Not the French original. Notarisation of the English we produced is the step we can arrange, and the FCDO then apostilles that notarised translation; a document issued in the UK is the only other thing it will cover. A French original is legalised in France.

The apostille stage is 6-7 working days on our Express Service or 3-4 on our Urgent Service, plus courier time. Before that, the notarised translation needs a notary appointment, which depends on availability. A French original is not apostillable in London; only the notarised English translation is, so the notary step sits inside the timeline. Each stage is priced and timed separately in your quote.

Our English translation of a French document once a notary has certified it, and documents issued in the UK. Nothing else - a French original cannot be apostilled from here and is legalised in France.

No. Scans or clear photographs are all we need to start, and the originals stay with you. The notarised document must then travel to the FCDO for the apostille, and we manage that submission and the courier back to you. Originals are only needed where a notary insists on seeing them, and we tell you before anything is posted.

No. Legalisation is the old consular route, where each embassy stamps the paper; an apostille is the single certificate used between countries that signed the Hague Convention. For your file the practical difference is that the FCDO apostille attaches to a UK-issued document or to our own notarised translation, and a French original goes through legalisation in France.

Yes. Haitian Creole has its own grammar and spelling, so Creole pages are quoted to a linguist who works in the language, while French-language papers from Haiti are translated as French. The two are never treated as interchangeable.

Yes. French documents are translated into English as certified translations for UK authorities, signed with a statement of accuracy, or as standard translation for commercial files. Certificates, contracts and transcripts are all covered, from £40 per document, with longer files from £0.09 per word past 400 words.

Yes. English documents are translated into French for French-speaking employers, authorities and businesses, with certification where the recipient accepts a UK certificate. Contracts, marketing copy, manuals and personal records are quoted from £40 per document, or from £0.10 per word after 400 words, with outbound work priced above the into-English rate.

Either is accepted, because the whole page is translated whichever you hold. The full copy carries the notes in the margin, which record a later marriage, a divorce or a death, and a receiving body often asks for those, so send the full copy where you have it. Where only the short version was issued, that is enough for the birth itself.