Polish translation is one of the most requested European languages in Georgia, and the reason is in the figures: over the last decade Poland has become the main European destination for Georgian workers, students and entrepreneurs, while Polish tourists are one of Georgia's largest European flows. To this is added history: in the 1920s Georgian officers served in the Polish army, families of Polish origin live in Georgia who are entitled to the Pole's Card (Karta Polaka), and Poland is one of the most active supporters of Georgia's European integration. We translate from Polish into Georgian and from Georgian into Polish, notarise the translation and attach the apostille at the House of Justice. On this page we explain what makes Poland different: the institution of the sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły), which Polish authorities require almost without exception, an apostille that is divided between four different authorities according to the type of document, the PESEL number, and the voivodeship office, where residence cases drag on for months.
The sworn translator in Poland and what this means for a Georgian document
In Poland an official translation is performed by a sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły), whom the Ministry of Justice enters on a list after an examination, who has their own seal and a repertory of translations and whose translation is an official document under Polish law. Voivodeship offices, civil registry offices (USC), courts, ZUS and most universities require the translation of a foreign document from exactly this sworn translator, and a translation notarised in Georgia, unlike in other countries, is often not accepted by a Polish authority, even with an apostille. Sworn translators of the Georgian language exist in Poland but are few, mostly in Warsaw, and their deadlines are measured in weeks. So towards Poland we have three routes, and we clarify the right one for the specific case before the order: sending the apostilled Georgian original to a sworn translator in Poland; our Polish translation, which a Polish sworn translator certifies and stamps under the power given to them by law, which shortens the deadlines several times over because they have to check a finished text rather than translate it; or, for those authorities that accept English, some universities and private employers, an English translation with notarisation and an apostille. In the opposite direction, when translating a Polish document into Georgian, the Georgian system applies: a Georgian notary certifies our translator's signature, and a Georgian authority accepts this.
The apostille in Poland: four authorities for one stamp
Poland has applied the Hague Apostille Convention since 2005, and the issuing of the apostille is divided according to the type of document, which is the most frequent source of confusion for a Georgian in Poland. On civil status certificates, criminal record certificates, ZUS and tax certificates the apostille is attached by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ) in Warsaw, in person or by post; on higher education diplomas, since 2019, by the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA); on school certificates by the education superintendent of the relevant voivodeship (kuratorium oświaty); and on notarial and court documents, including a sworn translator's translation, by the president of the regional court (sąd okręgowy), after which in some cases the MSZ apostille is needed too. If you take a diploma to the MSZ, they will turn you away; if you take a school certificate to NAWA, the same will happen. We tell the client in advance which document is apostilled where and what prior certification it needs, and in Warsaw this means saving a week and several visits. In the opposite direction everything is simple: a Georgian document for Poland receives the apostille at the House of Justice, which we carry out within the order.
Who comes to us for Polish translation
- Workers in Poland's construction, logistics, manufacturing and service sectors: a diploma, a professional certificate, a certificate of experience, a criminal record certificate for the work permit
- Drivers in Polish transport companies who need driver qualification and employment contract documents
- Students at the universities of Warsaw, the Jagiellonian in Krakow, Wroclaw, Poznan, Lodz and Gdansk, especially in medical and IT programmes
- Doctors, nurses and carers from whom Poland's medical chambers require documents for registration
- Georgian-Polish families: marriage, registration of a child in both countries, divorce, inheritance
- Georgians of Polish origin who apply for the Pole's Card (Karta Polaka) and prepare their ancestors' documents
- Georgians living in Poland who need a Polish certificate, court decision or register extract in Georgia
- Georgian and Polish companies: tourism, wine, construction materials, furniture, IT, logistics, Polish development programmes in Georgia
PESEL, ePUAP and mObywatel: Polish administration for a Georgian
Everyone living in Poland has a personal number (PESEL), of eleven digits, in which the date of birth and the sex are encoded and without which health insurance, tax relations, a bank account and online dealings with the state through the ePUAP or mObywatel application are impossible. A foreigner receives the PESEL at the municipality (urząd gminy) when registering their place of residence (zameldowanie), and at this stage they need a passport, a residence document and often a tenancy agreement; the birth certificate and the marriage certificate come later, when marital status is recorded, with a sworn translator's translation. The Georgian personal number also has eleven digits, and this coincidence sometimes causes confusion: in the translation both numbers stay unchanged and a note explains which belongs to which system. Polish certificates, from ZUS, the tax office (urząd skarbowy), the criminal record register (KRK), are today often issued electronically, with a qualified signature or through an ePUAP profile, while a Georgian authority requires a printed version with an apostille; we tell the client in advance which document must be requested on paper so that the MSZ can attach the apostille.
Residence and work: the voivodeship office, the employer's declaration and months of waiting
A Georgian citizen going to work in Poland starts with a simplified procedure: the employer registers at the district labour office (powiatowy urząd pracy) a declaration entrusting work (oświadczenie o powierzeniu wykonywania pracy), which applies to citizens of Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine and gives the right to work for up to twenty-four months; for longer work a work permit (zezwolenie na pracę) or a single residence and work permit (zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy i pracę) is needed, which the voivodeship office (urząd wojewódzki) issues. Waiting for cases at voivodeship offices is a well-known Polish problem, with months and in some voivodeships more than a year, and a defect in the package of documents, including the wrong form of translation, delays the case by further months. So we prepare the package, the diploma, the certificate of work experience, the criminal record certificate, the marriage and birth certificates, with an apostille and with the sworn translator's requirements taken into account, so that the case is complete at the very first submission. The residence card (karta pobytu) is prepared separately after the decision, and its data appears regularly in our translations for Georgian authorities.
The Polish language in translation: cases, three letters for zh and a surname that inflects
Polish is a West Slavic language with seven cases, and every name, including a foreign one, is inflected: the Georgian Giorgi Beridze becomes Giorgiego Beridze, Giorgiemu Beridze in a Polish text, while Polish surnames, especially with the endings -ski/-ska and -cki/-cka, are written in different forms for a man and a woman (Kowalski and Kowalska) and change by case (Kowalskiego, Kowalskiej). In a document the name is often in the genitive (dyplom Jana Kowalskiego), and in the translation we return it to the nominative and compare it with the passport; the woman's -ska form we keep in the Georgian translation, with a note that this is the surname of one family. Polish spelling conveys sounds with its own letters, and reading them by the logic of English always goes wrong: sz is sh, cz is ch, rz and ż are zh, ś and ć are soft s and ch, ł is like the English w, w is v, ch is kh, ó is u, and ą and ę are nasal vowels. The Polish official style uses long, complex sentences and chancery formulas, and in the Georgian translation this structure must be unfolded without losing the sense. Our Polish translators command the language directly, with the experience of studying or living in Poland, and never translate via Russian, though the Slavic similarity often creates that temptation.
Education documents: from 2 to 5, NAWA and nostrification
In Polish higher education marking runs from 2 to 5, where 5 (bardzo dobry) is the best, 3 (dostateczny) the passing minimum and 2 a fail, while some universities use half marks (3.5, 4.5); at school the system runs from 1 to 6, where 6 (celujący) is an outstanding mark. The Georgian system uses a 100-point scale at university and a 10-point one at school, so an explanation of the scale is attached to the Georgian translation of a Polish diploma and its supplement (suplement do dyplomu). Recognition of a Georgian diploma in Poland has two routes: NAWA's written information about the diploma, which is enough for an employer and a university and is requested online, and nostrification (nostryfikacja), which a specific Polish university carries out and which is mandatory for regulated professions, medicine, law, architecture. In both cases the diploma, the supplement or mark sheet and the description of the curriculum are submitted with a sworn translator's Polish translation, and this is exactly where our Polish translation is useful, checked by a Polish sworn translator. A Polish school certificate (świadectwo dojrzałości) records the three-year or four-year system and the matura in percentages, which is explained separately in the translation of the certificate.
The Pole's Card: Georgians with Polish roots
The Pole's Card (Karta Polaka) is a document that confirms belonging to the Polish nation and gives its holder a simplified route to work, study and permanent residence in Poland, and since 2019 it applies to citizens of every country, Georgia included. Families of Polish origin have lived in Georgia since the 19th century, the descendants of exiles, engineers, doctors and soldiers, and for the card an applicant must prove that their parent, grandparent or both great-grandparents were Polish. This means a chain of documents: birth and marriage certificates of the Soviet period where the nationality is written as "Polish", archival extracts, parish records, old passports, and every one of these documents, Georgian or Russian, is translated into Polish for the consulate. The consulate requires the translation from a sworn translator or certifies it itself, and we prepare the package so that every link of the chain, including every variant of the surname, is explained with notes, because in archival documents one family's surname is often written in three ways. The card application is accompanied by an interview on basic knowledge of Polish and a connection with Polish traditions, for which we prepare the client in advance.
Marriage and family: the USC and double registration
In Poland a marriage is registered by the civil registry office (Urząd Stanu Cywilnego, USC) or, in the case of a concordat marriage, by the Catholic Church, which passes the act to the USC. The foreign partner must present a birth certificate and a certificate that under the law of their country there is no impediment to the marriage, and if this certificate cannot be obtained, a Polish court issues an exemption. The Georgian certificate of marital status, the birth certificate and, in the case of a previous marriage, the divorce document are prepared with an apostille and a sworn translator's Polish translation, and the USC allows no exception to this requirement. The birth of a child in Poland means double registration for a Georgian parent: the extract of the Polish birth act (odpis aktu urodzenia), which the USC issues in a full (zupełny) and an abridged (skrócony) version and in the European multilingual form too, goes with the MSZ apostille and our Georgian translation to the consulate or the House of Justice. A Georgian authority usually needs the full extract, where the parents' data is given in detail, and we clarify this before the order; Georgian is not in the multilingual form, so a translation is needed anyway.
The documents of Poland we translate most often
- Extracts of civil acts (odpis aktu urodzenia, małżeństwa, zgonu), full and abridged
- A criminal record certificate from the National Criminal Register (KRK), on paper or electronic
- Residence card data, voivodes' decisions, work permits and employers' declarations
- Diploma, supplement, school certificate, matura certificate, description of a curriculum, nostrification decision
- ZUS certificates on service, contributions, sickness and maternity leave, PIT-11 and tax declarations
- NFZ insurance documents, medical discharge summaries and epicrises
- Court decisions in cases of child support, guardianship, divorce and inheritance, a notarial act of inheritance
- An extract of the National Court Register (KRS), articles (umowa spółki), directors' decisions, a CEIDG extract for a sole trader
- Documents of the Soviet and pre-war periods for the Pole's Card, archival certificates, parish records
Business with Poland: sp. z o.o., the KRS and tourism
A Polish limited liability company (sp. z o.o., spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością) is the analogue of a Georgian LLC, while since 2021 a simple joint-stock company (P.S.A.) also exists for start-ups; both are registered in the National Court Register (KRS), whose extract is issued online and with legal force. Sole traders are in a separate register (CEIDG). A Polish company has three numbers, the KRS, the NIP (tax) and the REGON (statistical), and all three stay unchanged in the translation, with a note on which is which. The main directions of Georgian-Polish business are tourism, where the flow of Polish tourists calls for Polish-language contracts, websites and safety instructions from Georgian hotels, tour operators and airlines; wine, for which Poland is one of the largest markets in the EU; construction materials, furniture and agricultural machinery from Poland; and IT outsourcing in both directions. Polish development cooperation programmes finance local self-government, agriculture and education projects in Georgia, and the contracts, reports and audit conclusions of these projects are translated from Polish and English.
Transliteration: Polish names in Georgian
The rendering of Polish names in Georgian follows pronunciation, not letters: Grzegorz is Gzhegozh in Georgian, Krzysztof Kshishtof, Łukasz Lukash, Wojciech Voitsekh, Małgorzata Malgozhata, Kowalski Kovalski, Wrocław Vrotslav, Łódź Luj, Rzeszów Zheshuv, Szczecin Shchetsin. A form chosen once stays unchanged in all documents of that person or place, and if a name has an established form in Georgian (Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk) we keep to it. A name standing in an inflected case (Kowalskiego, Beridzego) is returned to the nominative and compared with the passport. In the opposite direction a Georgian name goes into Polish by the Latin record of the passport, and we do not change this record even if Polish spelling would write it differently; a Polish authority compares the name with the passport, not with the pronunciation, and only adds the case ending, which we explain in a note in our translation.
Typical mistakes in Polish translation
When checking other people's translations the same mistakes repeat: presenting a translation certified in Georgia to a voivodeship office or the USC, which does not accept it without a sworn translator, and losing months because of it; looking for the apostille on a diploma at the MSZ and on a school certificate at NAWA; a surname left in an inflected case that no longer matches the passport; translating the -ska form as a different surname; a Polish name read by the logic of English (Krzysztof as "Krzisztof"); translating the abridged extract where the full one was needed; printing and translating an electronic KRK certificate without an apostille; equating a Polish 4 directly with the Georgian 100-point scale; translating sp. z o.o. as a "joint-stock company"; "correcting" the variants of a surname in the archival chain for the Pole's Card into one form; and translating a Polish document via Russian, where the names of Polish authorities pass by Russian logic. Each of these points is on our checklist, and the editor checks every Polish translation against this list.
What sets our Polish translation apart
- We know which Polish authority requires a sworn translator and for which English or our certification is enough, and we tell you before the order
- A Polish translation that a Polish sworn translator checks, which shortens the deadlines several times over
- Knowledge of the four apostille authorities in Poland and one order in Georgia: notarisation by a translator registered in the Georgian-Polish pair and the apostille at the House of Justice
- Packages for the voivodeship office, NAWA, the USC and the consulate complete at the very first submission, including the archival chain for the Pole's Card
- Correct rendering of Polish cases, surname forms and spelling, compared with the passport, without passing through Russian
- A standard personal document in 1 working day, by express in 1-2 hours, the process fully remote, from Warsaw and Krakow too
Frequently asked questions
Will a Polish authority accept a Polish translation certified in Georgia?
The voivodeship office, the USC, courts and ZUS usually will not: they require a sworn translator's translation. Some universities and private employers accept English or our certified translation. So we prepare the Polish translation so that a Polish sworn translator can check and stamp it, which is much faster than translating from scratch.
Who issues the apostille in Poland?
It depends on the type of document: on civil acts and certificates the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on higher education diplomas NAWA, on school certificates the kuratorium, on notarial and court documents the regional court. On a Georgian document the apostille is attached by the House of Justice, which we carry out within the order.
Which Georgian documents do I need to work in Poland?
To start work on an employer's declaration a passport and a visa or the visa-free regime are often enough; for a residence and work permit a diploma or certificate, a certificate of experience, a criminal record certificate and family documents, all with an apostille and a translation meeting the sworn translator's requirements. Because of the waiting at the voivodeship office the package must be complete at the very first submission.
In the Polish document my surname is written Beridzego. Is that a mistake?
No, that is the genitive case form; Polish inflects a foreign surname too. In the translation we return the surname to the passport form and explain the rule of inflection in a note.
What must be translated for the Pole's Card?
The birth, marriage and death certificates of ancestors where the nationality is written as "Polish", archival extracts, parish records and old passports, from Georgian and Russian into Polish. We explain every link of the chain, including the variants of the surname, with a note, because the consulate checks exactly the continuity.
The child was born in Poland; which extract do I need for the Georgian passport?
Usually the full extract of the birth act (odpis zupełny), with the MSZ apostille and our notarised Georgian translation, at the consulate or the House of Justice. The multilingual European form does not contain Georgian, so a translation is needed anyway.
Do I need nostrification for the recognition of a Polish diploma?
For a Georgian diploma in Poland: NAWA's information is enough for an employer and a university, while nostrification is mandatory for a regulated profession. For a Polish diploma in Georgia: NAWA's apostille and our Georgian translation at the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement.
Polish marks run from 2 to 5; will a Georgian authority accept them?
Yes, an explanation of the scale is attached to the translation: 5 is the best, 3 the passing minimum, 2 a fail, including the half marks. The school 1-6 system is explained separately.
I have the KRK certificate electronically; will it be accepted in Georgia?
A Georgian authority requires a printed version with an apostille. The certificate is issued on paper at a KRK information point, the MSZ attaches the apostille, then we translate and notarise it.
How long does a Polish translation take?
A personal document in 1 working day, by express in 1-2 hours. The apostille by the House of Justice's deadlines. A sworn translator's certification in Poland by their deadlines, which we agree in advance. Corporate, medical and archival packages by volume.