Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and for a Georgian client this means that "Spanish translation" can concern more than twenty different jurisdictions: Spain, where thousands of Georgians live and work, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru and other Latin American countries with which Georgia's business, sports and education ties grow every year. Each of these countries has its own administrative terminology, its own system of official translation and its own document forms. This page describes how we work with Spanish, what Spain's Extranjería, the Ministry of Universities and the Registro Civil require, how Latin America differs, and which details determine whether the receiving party accepts your translation.
Who orders Spanish translation in Georgia
Spanish-language orders with us fall into three groups. The first and most numerous are Georgians living in Spain or preparing to go there: legalisation of residence (arraigo), family reunification (reagrupación familiar), citizenship by residence or marriage, enrolling a child in a Spanish school, pension and medical matters. The second group are students and professionals who need homologation or equivalence of a diploma, a declaration of equivalence of the grade point average, a UNEDasiss access credential or recognition of a doctor's or nurse's qualification. The third group is business: Spanish companies working in Georgia's water supply, energy and tourism sectors, exporters of Georgian wine and agricultural produce, and Latin American partners. Spanish and Latin American citizens who live, marry or run a business in Georgia stand apart.
The sworn translator (traductor jurado) and the Spanish system
In Spain an official translation is done by a sworn translator-interpreter (Traductor-Intérprete Jurado), appointed and registered by the Office of Language Interpretation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; their stamp and signature give the translation official force without a notary, and since 2020 a digital translation certified with an electronic signature is also accepted. Spanish law allows an alternative too: a translation made abroad and legalised by the Spanish consulate or by that country's consulate in Spain. The practical problem is that a sworn translator for Georgian barely exists in the Spanish register, so most Georgian documents go either via an English translation (the two-stage scheme) or as a Georgian notarised translation of the apostilled original (in Georgia the apostille goes on the original and is translated together with it; no apostille is placed on a notarised translation), certified by the Spanish consulate where the body asks for it. When ordering we clarify which body you will submit the document to and prepare the package for either route.
Residence and Extranjería: arraigo, reagrupación, TIE
Spanish immigration law (the Ley de Extranjería and the new regulation in force since May 2025) knows several ways to legalise residence: social-labour, social-family and social-educational "roots" (arraigo), family reunification, work and study residence. In each procedure the Extranjería office requires the apostilled original and an official Spanish translation of the Georgian documents (criminal record certificate, birth and marriage certificates, certificate of family status). The residence card (TIE), the foreigner's identification number (NIE) and registration in the municipal register (empadronamiento) are the three pillars of Spanish bureaucracy on which every subsequent procedure rests, and the Georgian equivalents of these terms ("foreigner's residence card", "foreigner's identification number", "municipal registration") are rendered in the translation with the original kept in brackets.
Citizenship by residence: DELE and CCSE
Spanish citizenship by residence is obtained after ten years of legal residence (one year for the spouse of a Spaniard, two years for Latin Americans), and the applicant needs two Instituto Cervantes exams: the DELE A2 Spanish language exam and the constitutional and sociocultural knowledge test (CCSE). The application is uploaded on the online platform of the Ministry of Justice and includes the apostilled original and sworn translation of the Georgian birth certificate and criminal record certificate. The type of birth certificate is especially important here: the Spanish Registro Civil requires a "full" (literal) certificate with the parents' data, and a Georgian certificate that contains these data must be presented in the title of the translation as the equivalent of a "certificado literal de nacimiento". The validity of a criminal record certificate in Spanish practice is three months, so we plan the translation and the apostille as soon as the certificate is collected.
Homologation, equivalence and the grade point average declaration
Recognition of a foreign diploma in Spain follows two routes: homologation (homologación) for regulated professions (doctor, nurse, architect, lawyer), which the Ministry of Universities carries out by equating it to a specific Spanish degree, and equivalence (equivalencia) by academic level and field, for non-regulated professions. Both procedures require the apostilled original and a sworn Spanish translation of the diploma and its supplement. For admission to a Master's programme Spanish universities additionally require a declaration of equivalence of the grade point average (declaración de equivalencia de nota media), which is obtained in the ministry's online system and officially converts the Georgian scale to the Spanish 10-point system; for this, in the translation of the transcript every subject's grade, the maximum grade and the minimum passing grade must be unambiguous. For Bachelor's admission UNEDasiss issues an access credential (credencial de acceso), which relies on the translation of the Georgian school certificate and the results of the Unified National Exams.
Latin America: one language, twenty systems
Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru and other Latin American countries are parties to the Hague Convention, so they use an apostille instead of consular legalisation, but the system of official translation differs by country: in Argentina the "traductor público" is a member of a professional college and their translation needs the college's legalisation; in Mexico the "perito traductor" is authorised by the judicial council and differs by state; in Chile the translation department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs performs official translations; in Colombia the "traductor oficial" is recognised by a ministry resolution. Terminology differs too: the Spanish "DNI" is DNI in Argentina too, but in Mexico it is "INE" or "CURP"; the Spanish "empadronamiento" corresponds to the "domicilio" system in Latin America; "S.L." in Spain, "S.R.L." in Argentina and "S. de R.L." in Mexico are different names for the same form. When ordering we always ask in which specific country the document will be submitted and prepare the translation in that country's Spanish.
Spanish business in Georgia and Georgian export
The interest of Spanish companies in Georgia covers water supply, renewable energy, infrastructure and tourism, and the Tbilisi water supply system has been managed by a Spanish company since 2022. Georgian wine, hazelnuts and mineral water enter the Spanish market, while Spanish agricultural machinery, food products and building materials enter Georgia. In this cooperation the most frequently translated documents are the commercial registry certificate (certificación del Registro Mercantil or nota simple mercantil), the articles of association (estatutos sociales), the notarial deed (escritura pública), the power of attorney (poder notarial) and supply contracts. Spanish company forms partly match Georgian ones: an S.L. is a limited liability company, an S.A. a joint-stock company, and an "autónomo" (self-employed person) corresponds to the Georgian individual entrepreneur, but the social security regime differs.
Spaniards in Georgia: residence, marriage, property
Spanish and Latin American citizens living in Tbilisi and Batumi need translation in the opposite direction. For a residence permit the Public Service Development Agency requires a Georgian translation of the Spanish criminal record certificate (certificado de antecedentes penales, from the Ministry of Justice) and proof of income; for marriage the Public Service Hall requires the certificate of capacity to marry (certificado de capacidad matrimonial) and the full birth certificate issued by the Spanish Registro Civil; when buying real estate the Spanish buyer often uses a power of attorney drawn up before a Spanish notary, which is valid with an apostille and a Georgian notarised translation. The apostille on Spanish documents is issued, depending on the document type, by the College of Notaries (on notarial acts), the High Court of Justice (on court documents) or the Ministry of Justice (on the rest), and this difference is often unclear even to a Spanish client.
Names, two surnames and Spanish pronunciation
The Spanish system gives every person two surnames (the father's and the mother's), and Spanish forms, registers and databases ask for two surnames; a Georgian has one. This is a practical problem: in Spanish documents a Georgian's second surname field is sometimes left blank, sometimes filled with the mother's surname, sometimes part of the first name is taken as a surname, and the same person appears differently in different Spanish documents. So when translating from Georgian into Spanish we lay out the first name, surname and patronymic so that a Spanish official sees unambiguously which is the first name and which is the one and only surname, and if the person already has a Spanish NIE or TIE in a particular form, we repeat exactly that form. Pronunciation is not a matter for the document, but we know that a Spaniard will read "Javakhishvili" as "Havahishvili" and "Giorgi" as "Hiorhi": the passport spelling stays unchanged all the same. Spanish names are written in Georgian in the established transcription (José, Javier, Guillermo), keeping the Latin spelling.
Spanish administrative style and formulas
Spanish official language works with standard formulas: "CERTIFICA" in capitals at the start of a certificate, "Y para que conste y surta los efectos oportunos, expido la presente" at the end, "D./Dña." before a name, "con DNI/NIE número" for identification. A translation of a Georgian certificate that uses these formulas looks familiar and trustworthy to a Spanish official, while a word-for-word calque reads as "foreign". In the opposite direction, Spanish formulas are rendered with the established equivalents of Georgian administrative practice ("the certificate is issued for submission to..."), and the Spanish "autoridad competente", "órgano", "administración" with Georgian institutional terminology. The Spanish date format matches the Georgian one, but amounts with a decimal comma and a thousands point (1.250,50) need checking in the Georgian text.
Spanish in Tbilisi: DELE, universities, Catalan
Spanish language certificates (DELE, SIELE) are needed for citizenship, university and some professional recognitions and are taken in Tbilisi through accredited examination centres; the certificates do not need translation, but their notarised copy is often needed for online applications. Diplomas of the Spanish philology programmes of Tbilisi State University and other higher education institutions are prepared with a specific translation of the supplement, while a Spanish university degree (grado, máster, doctorado) is submitted for recognition in Georgia to the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement with a Georgian translation, where the Spanish 10-point grading system ("aprobado", "notable", "sobresaliente", "matrícula de honor") is explained with a note. Documents from Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia are often bilingual or in the regional language, and Catalan is a separate direction that we cover on a separate page.
Tourism, wine, gastronomy and brand text
The flow of Spanish tourists to Georgia grows every year, and the Madrid international tourism fair and the Barcelona food industry fair are regular venues for Georgian stands. Travel companies, hotels and wine cellars order Spanish versions of websites, menus and tour descriptions, where the wine terminology ("variedad autóctona", "maceración en ánfora", "crianza") must be natural for a Spanish sommelier. In the opposite direction, advertising text, product descriptions and consumer contracts of Spanish and Latin American brands are rendered into natural Georgian. Such texts do not need notarisation, but they do need a native editor, who works on the Spanish version and chooses the Spain or Latin America variant according to the client's market.
What we translate into Spanish most often
- Diploma, supplement and school certificate for homologation, equivalence and UNEDasiss
- Transcript for the declaration of equivalence of the grade point average
- Birth, marriage and divorce certificates for Extranjería and the Registro Civil
- Criminal record certificate, certificate of family status, bank statement for residence and citizenship
- Qualification documents of doctors, nurses and caregivers for the ministry and the professional college
- Extract from the Registry of Entrepreneurs, articles of association, power of attorney for work with Spanish and Latin American partners
- Discharge summary, medical report, disability documents for treatment in Spain and for the INSS
- Spanish certificación registral, antecedentes penales, sentencia de divorcio, poder notarial into Georgian
Ordering in the Spanish direction: choosing the route on day one
The first step of a Spanish order is not the translation but the choice of route, because the same document (for example a birth certificate) can go three different ways: a Georgian notarised translation of the apostilled original, where the body accepts it; the two-stage scheme via English to a Spanish sworn translator, where Extranjería or the Registro Civil requires the stamp; or consular legalisation. So when you upload the document we ask about the country and the body and the same day tell you which route is the shortest for your case, with the deadline. The translation is done by a translator registered with a notary in the Spanish-Georgian pair, and a Spanish-speaking editor checks the text in the variant of the specific country. A one-page document is ready in one working day, express in 1-2 hours; we arrange the apostille on the original at the Public Service Hall, and the second stage of the two-stage scheme we coordinate, at the client's wish, with Spanish colleagues. The finished document reaches you electronically and by courier, in Spain by international courier, and every order is protected by a confidentiality agreement.
Official sources
- Public Service Development Agency: apostille and legalization: which Georgian documents can get an apostille, which cannot, and how long it takes
- Hague Conference: Apostille Convention member states: the current list of countries: apostille or consular legalization
- Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: official list and search of sworn translators (traductor-intérprete jurado)
Frequently asked questions
Will the Spanish Extranjería accept a Georgian notarised translation?
Extranjería, as a rule, requires a sworn translator's translation or a translation legalised by the consulate. A sworn translator for Georgian barely exists in Spain, so we use the two-stage scheme or consular legalisation, which we plan together when ordering.
What is the declaración de equivalencia de nota media and what does it need?
It is the ministry's online declaration that converts a Georgian grade to the Spanish 10-point system for Master's admission. It needs a translation of the transcript in which every grade, the maximum grade and the minimum passing grade are unambiguous.
Will the same translation work for Latin America?
Linguistically largely yes, but the terminology and the official translation system differ by country. We prepare the translation for the specific country; almost every Spanish-speaking country of Latin America is a party to the Hague Convention, so as a rule an apostille is used; we check the specific country's status when you order.
How will my single surname be entered in a Spanish form?
In the translation we separate the first name and the one surname unambiguously so that the official does not take the patronymic or part of the first name as a second surname. If you already have a NIE or TIE in a particular form, we repeat exactly that form.
How do I use a Spanish birth certificate in Georgia?
The document must be apostilled in Spain (on Registro Civil certificates by the Ministry of Justice or the court), then translated into Georgian in Tbilisi and notarised. A "certificación literal" and an "extracto" are documents of different scope.
How long does a Spanish translation take?
A one-page document in one working day, express in 1-2 hours. A full homologation package or a medical history in 2-5 days depending on volume, with the apostille on a separate deadline.
Can you prepare materials for FITUR or Alimentaria?
Yes, catalogues, presentations, labels and stand materials are prepared in Spanish with a native editor involved, and we can also provide interpreting at the fair.