Was your child born in Spain? This is the job we do more than any other. A Spanish birth certificate translation into English is what HM Passport Office asks for before it will issue a first British passport, and the same page is needed for visas, register offices and school places.
We translate the Certificado Literal de Nacimiento and every other Spanish civil document into English for UK offices. Send us a photo of both sides and tell us who asked for it. We are ATC accredited, with ITI and CIOL member translators, and those details print on your page.
Send the Certificado Literal — the short one gets refused
Child born in Spain? Our most common job by far
Digital certificates from Spain are fine
Apostille page translated at no extra cost
Both Spanish surnames shown and explained
Back with you in 24 to 48 hours
UK offices check a short list on a translated certificate and move on. The wording, the date, the translator's name and signature, their professional membership, and contact details they can actually use. All five are on every page we issue.
The part people get wrong comes earlier. Spain issues two versions of a birth certificate and only one works here. The Certificado Literal names both parents. The Certificado en Extracto does not, and a UK caseworker matching parents' names has nothing to work with.
If you send us the wrong one, you hear about it at the quote stage rather than after a refusal. That check costs you nothing.
Order your certified birth certificate translation and we will tell you what your office actually needs before you pay.
Different offices ask for an English translation of your Spanish birth certificate for different reasons. A passport office is checking who your parents are. A registrar is checking whether you are free to marry. A council is checking a child's age. Below is what each one actually looks at, so you know what your file needs.
Our busiest job. A baby born in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia or Malaga to a British parent needs their Spanish certificate in English before HM Passport Office will look at the form. Send the Literal — it carries both parents' names, which is the whole point.
Some families register the birth here as well as holding the Spanish record. A register office works from the translated certificate, and wants to see both parents named on it just as the Passport Office does.
Home Office and UKVI files need the certificate in English to confirm who you are related to. Your name has to match the spelling on your BRP or passport exactly, because the department already holds a version of it.
Marrying in the UK means giving notice, and the registrar checks your papers at that appointment. If either of you was born in Spain, the certificate goes in translated, usually alongside a divorce decree if there has been a previous marriage.
Councils use the certificate to confirm a child's age and the parents' names on a school place application. Universities and UK ENIC ask for it alongside qualifications. One certified translation normally covers all of them.
Right to work checks, DBS applications and registration with bodies like the GPhC all ask for identity documents. The same certified format works for each, so one translation usually does the lot.
Three steps, and the first takes a minute on your phone. Your original certificate stays with you, which matters because a UK office may want to see it beside the translation.
Spanish certificates translated into English for UK offices.
Mostly British parents whose child was born in Spain.
ITI and CIOL member translators, with the numbers printed on your page.
One fixed price agreed before you pay, with nothing added after.
A birth certificate is a record, not a piece of writing. What decides whether it passes is detail, and Spanish certificates carry detail that English ones do not. These six things are where Spanish files usually go wrong.
The short certificate is the single most common reason a Spanish file comes back. We check which one you have sent before quoting, so you never pay to translate a document that cannot be used.
Spanish children carry the father's surname then the mother's. A British form carries one. We show both exactly as they appear and add a note explaining the convention, so nobody is left guessing.
A name stripped of its accent can read as a different name. We keep them where they belong, and we use the spelling from your passport so the two documents never disagree.
Spain issues certificates electronically now and many parents have never held a paper one. Send the full PDF including the CSV verification code — that code is part of the official record.
If your certificate arrives with an apostille attached, it goes into the same certified set at no extra charge. Left in Spanish, it looks like a missing page to whoever is checking.
Every UK office takes a certified translation. None of them ask for a notary. If you were about to buy one, we will tell you — even though it costs us the sale.
One customer asked us for “confirmation of certified translation” before ordering her daughter's Spanish birth certificate, which is a fair thing to want in writing.
You get the English translation of your birth certificate with a signed certification page attached to it. That page states the translation is true and accurate, carries the date, the translator's full name and signature, their ATC, ITI or CIOL membership, and our UK address and phone number.
The officer reading your file does not have to take anything on trust. Everything they need to verify us is printed on the page in front of them.
Yes, and it is worth asking for rather than assuming.
A customer applying for citizenship sent us two files — her Spanish birth certificate and a Hague Apostille that was already in English — and asked for the complete set certified as one package. That is exactly how we do it.
The birth certificate translation and the apostille page are bound together under a single certification, so nothing arrives loose or looks like it came from two different places.
Yes. Give us the address when you order and the signed copy goes directly there instead of to you.
One parent came to us after the Passport Office wrote asking for the birth certificate to be sent again with a translation. We posted it to the office and emailed him the PDF the same day, so he was not stuck forwarding paperwork himself.
This works for a register office, a council or your solicitor too. We post anywhere in the UK, and to Spain if you have not moved back yet.
We can give you a rough figure, but not a fixed one, and it is worth understanding why.
A single clean printed birth certificate and a forty-year-old one covered in registry stamps are very different pieces of work. We cannot price what we cannot see.
Sending the file is also how we catch problems before you pay — the short certificate, a missing page, a notary you do not need. If privacy is the concern, your birth certificate is opened only by the translator and the person checking their work.
It changes our advice, not the price, so pick the closest one and tell us the rest in the message box.
People mix these up constantly. One father selected HM Passport Office for his child's Spanish birth certificate while his purpose said visa application, and ticked notarisation as well. Neither was quite right, and none of it was his fault — the names are genuinely confusing.
Just write one line saying who asked for the birth certificate. A passport office, a council, a registrar, the Home Office. We will work out the rest.
Yes, and it is cheaper and safer done together. A Spanish file rarely holds the birth certificate alone.
One customer sent us four Spanish documents running to nine pages for a single Home Office file. Handled by one translator, every name, date and place is written the same way across all of them — which matters more than the saving, because a bundle that contradicts itself is what a caseworker notices.
Yes. Your finished translation stays on our system, so the Spanish birth certificate itself never has to be dug out twice.
This comes up more than people expect. One customer ordered for a student visa and came back to us months later when a second office wanted its own signed set.
One email is enough. We reissue the PDF or post a fresh signed copy without you sending the certificate again.
We tell you, and nothing is charged.
It happens regularly. One parent uploaded only the apostille page, which proves the birth certificate is genuine but is not the certificate itself. Others send the short version without realising Spain issues two.
A person reads what you send before any price is given. If it is the wrong file, or a page is missing, you hear about it at that point rather than after your application has come back.
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