Certified translation of Macedonian documents: what it is and how to verify it

If a document issued in North Macedonia has reached your desk — or you are the one who has to send it — it is almost certainly in Macedonian Cyrillic, carries one or more round official stamps and follows a layout your institution has never seen. What turns it into something usable is a certified translation: a translation that a person authorised to do so has declared complete and accurate, under their own name, seal and signature.

This guide explains what that means when the translation is produced in North Macedonia, who may issue it, and how to check that the person who signed it is who they claim to be.

Who may certify a translation in North Macedonia

North Macedonia has a sworn-translator system. The person entitled to certify is a permanent court translator (постојан судски преведувач), appointed by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of North Macedonia for named languages. Appointments are published in the Official Gazette and recorded in a public register kept by the Ministry.

Three things follow from this:

• The authority is personal. It belongs to the named translator, not to an agency. An agency can arrange the work, but the person who signs and seals it must hold the appointment for that language pair.
• It is language-specific. A translator sworn for German is not thereby sworn for English. Each language must appear in the register.
• There is no notary in the chain. In North Macedonia the sworn translator’s own seal and statement are the certification. A notary is involved only if the receiving institution separately asks for the translator’s signature to be notarised.

In English the same person is variously called a sworn translator, court translator, court-appointed translator or certified translator. All four describe the one Macedonian status.

At Lingua Assist every certified translation is produced and signed by Vane Milkovski, appointed in 2023 for German and English (reg. no. УП1 08-894/2023).

What a certified translation from North Macedonia contains

A translation certified in North Macedonia arrives as one bound set:

1. The source document — the original, a certified copy or a plain copy, depending on what the receiving institution requires.
2. The translation, following the layout of the source. Every stamp, seal, signature, revenue stamp and handwritten entry is rendered or described in square brackets. Nothing is summarised, and nothing is left out because it looks unimportant.
3. The certification clause — a statement that the translation corresponds to the source, with the translator’s name, working languages, registration number, round seal and signature.

Names are written as they appear in the person’s passport unless the institution specifies another transliteration. Grades on academic documents are reproduced as printed, not converted to another scale; that distinction matters enough to have its own guide.

For institutions: a translation without a registration number, or with a seal that names no languages, is not a certified translation in the Macedonian sense — whatever the letterhead says. The number is what lets you check.

How to verify the translator

The register of court translators is published by the Ministry of Justice of North Macedonia and is open to anyone. Find the translator by name; the entry gives the languages and the decision number. Compare that with the number on the seal. That is the whole check, and it takes a minute.

If you would rather not search, ask the translator for the decision reference and the Official Gazette issue in which the appointment was published. A sworn translator has both to hand.

Will your institution accept it?

This is the honest part, and the part that varies most.

Whether a translation certified by a translator sworn in the country of origin is accepted, or whether it must come from a translator sworn in the destination country, depends on the country and often on the individual institution.

• Countries with their own sworn-translator systems — Germany, Austria and Switzerland among them — sometimes insist on a translator sworn there, particularly for civil registry and court matters. Many of their embassies, universities and employers nevertheless accept a translation certified in the country that issued the document.
• Countries without a sworn-translator system — the United Kingdom and Ireland, for example — generally define a certified translation as one accompanied by a statement of accuracy and the translator’s name, credentials and contact details. A Macedonian court translator’s certification normally satisfies that definition, but the institution decides.
• Some immigration authorities and credential evaluators have their own definition of who counts as a certified translator, and may require an affidavit or a translator accredited in their country. Check the current guidance of the specific body.

So the question to ask before ordering is not “is this translation valid?” but: “Do you accept a translation certified by a court-appointed sworn translator in North Macedonia?” Institutions answer that quickly, and the answer saves you from paying twice.

Whether the source document itself also needs legalisation for your destination is a separate question — confirm it with the receiving institution.

Practical points if you are the applicant

Send us a legible photo or scan of every document at once rather than one at a time; consistent spelling of names across a set is easiest to guarantee in a single order. You can estimate the price before you send anything, and we confirm it once we have seen the documents.

Tell us three things: which institution and country will receive the translation, whether names should follow the passport or another transliteration, and whether the translation is to be bound with the original, a certified copy or a plain copy. Each of these is easy to get right before the work starts and awkward to fix afterwards.

The finished set can be collected in Skopje, sent by courier abroad, or — where the institution accepts it — delivered as a scan first with the paper original to follow.