LITS has spent more than 20 years translating and certifying documents for UK offices, in more than 300 languages, and we work to the requirements of the office that asked for yours.
Translation, checking and certification of a standard document take 12 to 48 hours, and the quote tells you when yours will be ready. Send your enquiry any time between 9am and midnight, seven days a week, and you will have a quote back generally within the hour.
The first thing we ask about your document is where it’s going. The Register Office at the Civic Centre on Glebe Street wants your original documents in front of it; the University of Staffordshire’s visa finance check wants the translator’s or company’s name, a signature and the date. Tell us which desk yours is heading for, and we prepare it for that reader. A certified translation is the whole document in English, stamps and all, with a signed statement from us that it is complete and accurate.
We produce them for government departments, NHS trusts, councils and national employers, and for thousands of people who need one certificate ready for one appointment. Each one is dated and signed by one of our directors, and when it goes out on paper, LITS stamps every page. As an ATC Accredited Member, we’ve been checked by the Association of Translation Companies and work to its code.
"Thanks for such an efficient service. Documents were accurate and exactly as needed."
Lauren C., Head of Family Law · Urdu legal translation
The version the office wants. Plenty of countries issue more than one form of the same record, and a shorter extract can leave out the parents’ names or the place of registration an office needs. Before a translator begins, we look at what you’ve sent against what it’s for, so if it’s the wrong version you find out from us at the quote, before you’ve paid anything.
Everything on the page, translated. We translate every stamp and seal, front and back, the printed labels, the handwriting and the notes added later in the margin. A detail the office can see on the original but not in the English becomes a query, and a query stops the application until it’s answered. If part of a document genuinely can’t be read, the translation says so. We don’t fill the gap with a guess.
One spelling, matched to your passport. An Urdu or Arabic name can be written in English more than one way, which is how the same family appears as Hussain on one document and Husain on another. We ask how your passport spells it, or the form the translation is supporting, use that spelling throughout and show the original script alongside. If your papers already disagree with each other, we tell you before we carry on.
The Stoke-on-Trent Register Office at the Civic Centre on Glebe Street is plain about it: every document for a notice appointment must be the original, and electronic copies won’t do. It asks for evidence of how any earlier marriage or civil partnership ended, says paperwork for a change of name may be needed, and warns that a divorce granted in another country may need clearing before you can marry. GOV.UK’s notice rules add that a document not in English needs a translation.
That clearance happens before the wedding can go ahead, so a foreign divorce decree that is still waiting for its translation on the day of your appointment holds everything up. So we translate from a clear photo or scan while your originals stay with you, and if the set includes a divorce order or a deed poll, we translate it with your birth certificate as one job. The office won’t take documents on a screen, so for the appointment itself take a certified hard copy, which we can send by tracked special delivery. You go in with each original and its certified translation side by side, your name spelled the same way throughout.
Worth knowing
Notice is given in the district where you live, so a ceremony in Stoke-on-Trent can still mean an appointment at Staffordshire County Council's registration office at Castle House in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Let us know which office you're seeing, and we check what it asks for before we quote.
International applicants to the University of Staffordshire on College Road upload financial evidence for a visa finance check, and any document not in English has to come with an official translation that confirms it is accurate and shows the date it was done, the translator’s full name or company name, a signature and contact details. Where a parent’s bank account is part of the evidence, that can mean your own birth certificate as well, to show the relationship. A translation missing any one of those details doesn’t meet the check.
Our certificate of accuracy covers the whole list: it is signed, stamped and dated, and it carries our full company name and contact details. A qualified translator does the work into their mother tongue, and it is checked in-house before it leaves us. So the file you upload already has every detail the university’s page lists.
Worth knowing
Keele University, just outside the city beside Newcastle-under-Lyme, sets its own rules: a degree certificate not in English needs an officially certified translation from the awarding institution or a professional translator, with a statement that it is accurate, the date, contact details, and the translator's or an authorised company official's full name and signature. Its medical school teaches at a Clinical Education Centre on the Royal Stoke site, so a letter with a Royal Stoke address can still be a Keele application. Tell us which university wrote to you, and we'll raise any point on its list before you pay.
Take a clear photo or scan. Every page, and the back of any page with writing or a stamp on it. If the office gave you instructions, add those too.
We reply with the price and the timing. Quotes generally within the hour, 9am to midnight, seven days a week. We also flag anything to settle before we start, such as how your name should be spelled.
The certified translation reaches you as a checked PDF. Its certificate of accuracy carries our signature, our stamp and the date. Where the office wants paper, a certified hard copy can follow by tracked special delivery.
How much will it be? The price of a birth certificate translation is on our birth certificate translation page. For any other document, or several together, send them over and you’ll have the price in writing before anything starts. What every certified translation includes is on our certified translation page.
Residents by main language, Stoke-on-Trent, Census 2021
| Language | Stoke-on-Trent residents |
|---|---|
| Romanian | 3,417 |
| Urdu | 2,819 |
| Polish | 2,779 |
| Punjabi | 1,058 |
| Language | Stoke-on-Trent residents |
|---|---|
| Arabic | 921 |
| Slovak | 651 |
| Hungarian | 489 |
| Portuguese | 462 |
ONS Census 2021, TS024, Stoke-on-Trent local authority (E06000021), usual residents aged three and over.
"Thanks to the team for their swift response and turnaround, it is very much appreciated!"
F. Master, Litigation Executive · Persian legal translation
Is the translation going to court? A court normally expects more than the translation itself, and our guide to submitting foreign-language evidence to a UK court explains what else goes with it.
To get started, send us a photo of your document and say which office wants the translation and your deadline. We’ll check what you’ve sent against that office’s requirements before we price it, so anything needing your attention comes up before you’ve paid. Quotes generally within the hour, 9am to midnight, seven days a week. If you’d like to talk to someone first, call 01254 674514.
Is it a conversation rather than a document, a GP appointment or a meeting with your solicitor? Our interpreters in Stoke-on-Trent cover that. If the documents are for an office outside Stoke-on-Trent, browse our other locations.