Serbian translator in Tbilisi

Serbian translation in Georgia begins with one unusual sign: the Serbian document lying on our desk may be written in Cyrillic, in Latin, or in both at once, the stamp in Cyrillic and the text in Latin, and both are one and the same Serbian. The second sign is familiar to a Georgian: a Serbian birth certificate and identity documents carry the name of a parent, almost in the way a Georgian document carries the father's name. For Serbian translation we are approached by Georgian students of the universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad, by Georgian employees of the Serbian IT sector, by Georgian-Serbian families, by the sports clubs and athletes of both countries, by Serbian tourists and investors in Georgia, by exporters of Georgian wine and by the companies that use Belgrade as their way into the Balkan market. We translate from Serbian into Georgian and from Georgian into Serbian, in Cyrillic and in Latin alike, certify the translation before a notary and attach the apostille at the House of Justice. On this page we explain what makes Serbia different: two alphabets in one language, the institution of the court interpreter, the apostille issued by the basic court, the JMBG, and the single permit of 2024, which turned the residence and work procedure into a single case.

Two alphabets in one language: Cyrillic, Latin and what a Georgian authority asks for

Under the constitution of Serbia the official script is Cyrillic, but the Latin alphabet is used equally in everyday life, in business and on the internet, and state documents often appear in both: a birth certificate in Cyrillic, a bank statement in Latin, a company stamp in Cyrillic and a contract in Latin. For a Georgian client this means two things. First: when translating from Serbian the translator must read both alphabets with equal ease, and a name that is Ђорђевић in one document and Đorđević in another is one person; we give both forms in a note to the translation, so that the Georgian official asks no questions. Second: when translating a Georgian document into Serbian the alphabet is chosen according to the recipient: for state authorities, courts and civil registry offices Cyrillic is the safe choice, for companies and universities Latin will do, and we clarify this before the order. Serbian differs from Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin in the ekavian pronunciation (mleko, not mlijeko), in the Latin names of the months (januar, februar) and in its own administrative terminology, and a "Serbo-Croatian" translator offering all four at once is a risk in an official document: a Serbian authority notices at once a translation written with ijekavian forms and Croatian vocabulary.

The court interpreter (sudski tumač) and what that means for a Georgian document

In Serbia an official translation is performed by a permanent court interpreter (stalni sudski tumač or sudski prevodilac), appointed by the Ministry of Justice for a language pair, holding a stamp of their own, whose translation is under Serbian law an official document. Serbian authorities, the Ministry of the Interior (MUP), the civil registry offices and the courts require the translation of a foreign document from a court interpreter, although, unlike Poland and Slovakia, part of the Serbian authorities does in practice accept a translation certified before a notary in Georgia, to which the apostille gives the force of a foreign public document, especially universities, employers and some MUP departments. A court interpreter for the Georgian language practically does not exist in Serbia, and Serbian bureaus translate a Georgian document through Russian or English. So towards Serbia we have two routes: a Serbian translation of the Georgian document made in Georgia directly, with notarial certification and an apostille, which is enough for most authorities, or an English translation, which a court interpreter of English in Serbia, of whom there are many, converts into Serbian quickly for those authorities that ask for a court interpreter's stamp. Which route a particular case needs we establish before the order.

Who comes to us for Serbian translation

• Students at the University of Belgrade, the University of Novi Sad and the universities of Nis and Kragujevac, where medicine and engineering taught in English are popular among Georgians
• IT specialists in the technology companies of Belgrade and Novi Sad, where Serbia's IT sector is one of the largest in the region
• Athletes and coaches: Georgian footballers, basketball players, judoka and wrestlers in Serbian clubs, Serbian coaches in Georgia
• Georgian-Serbian families: marriage, registration of a child in both countries, divorce, inheritance
• Georgians living in Serbia who need a Serbian certificate, court decision or register extract in Georgia
• Serbian investors and companies in Georgia: real estate, hotels, agriculture, IT
• Exporters of Georgian wine, hazelnuts and mineral water on the Serbian market and with Balkan distributors
• The churches, cultural organisations and universities of both countries that cooperate with each other

The apostille in Serbia: the basic court, not a ministry

Serbia applies the Hague Apostille Convention as the legal successor of Yugoslavia, and the apostille on a Serbian document is issued by the basic courts (osnovni sud), each on the documents issued by the authorities of its territory: a birth certificate issued in Belgrade is apostilled by the basic court of Belgrade, a diploma issued in Novi Sad by that of Novi Sad. For a Georgian in Serbia this matters in one detail: you must take the document to the court of the city where it was issued, not where you live. A private document, including a court interpreter's translation made in Serbia and a power of attorney, receives the apostille by the same route, because a court interpreter's stamp is official in Serbia; a copy certified before a notary goes first to the notary and then to the court. One nuance often disregarded: an extract from the Serbian civil registers (izvod iz matične knjige) has no period of validity, but many Serbian and Georgian authorities do not accept an extract older than six months, and we plan the apostilling according to the deadlines. The Serbian extract is also issued in the international multilingual form under the Vienna Convention, but Georgian is not among the languages of that form, so a translation is still needed. In the opposite direction a Georgian document receives the apostille at the House of Justice, which we handle within the order.

The parent's name in a document: a Serbian and Georgian parallel

A Serbian birth certificate, the data of an identity card and many certificates carry, together with the person's name and surname, the name of one parent (ime jednog roditelja), usually the father's, in brackets or in a separate field: Petar (Jovan) Petrović. This resembles the Georgian system, where the father's name is part of the documents, and it is one of the rare cases where a Georgian and a foreign document coincide structurally. In the translation we keep the parent's name in the place of the original and explain in a note that this is a parent's name, not a second name or a surname, because a Georgian official accustomed to the documents of other countries sometimes reads a name written in brackets as a middle name. In the opposite direction the father's name from a Georgian document fits exactly into that field in a Serbian translation, and a Serbian authority accepts it without difficulty. The Georgian and Serbian systems also resemble each other in the JMBG: the Serbian unified civil number (jedinstveni matični broj građana) has thirteen digits, with the date of birth and a regional code, and MUP assigns it to a foreigner together with residence; the Georgian personal number has eleven digits, and both stay unchanged in the translation, with a note saying which belongs to which system.

Residence in Serbia: MUP and the single permit of 2024

From February 2024 Serbia introduced the single permit (jedinstvena dozvola) for foreigners, which unites temporary residence and the work permit in one procedure, one electronic application and one card, for up to three years, and which MUP administers together with the national employment service. This change simplifies the procedure considerably, but many instructions on the internet still describe the old, two-stage system, and we prepare the package of documents under the new rules. A Georgian citizen enters Serbia without a visa for 90 days, and the application for the single permit is often sent from Serbia itself, through the online portal; the package of documents includes a Georgian diploma or vocational certificate, an employment contract or a letter from the employer, a criminal record certificate, health insurance and, in the case of a family, marriage and birth certificates, with an apostille and a Serbian translation. MUP asks for a court interpreter's stamp on the translation or for an apostilled certified translation, and here a Serbian translation prepared in Georgia with notarial certification and an apostille is accepted in most departments. A student residence requires proof of enrolment and a financial certificate, while for IT specialists Serbia also plans to introduce digital nomad and startup visas, which will change the procedure again.

Educational documents: from 5 to 10, nostrification and ENIC/NARIC

In Serbian higher education marking runs from 5 to 10, where 10 is the best, 6 the pass minimum and 5 a fail, while at school there is a five-point system in which 5 is the best and 2 the pass. This differs from the Georgian system, with its 100-point scale at university and 10-point scale at school, and an explanation of the scale is attached to the Georgian translation of a Serbian diploma and its supplement (dodatak diplomi); the average mark (prosečna ocena), which a Serbian diploma always states and which ranges from 6.00 to 10.00, is explained separately for a Georgian recipient, otherwise an 8.50 will be read as a low result on the Georgian 100-point scale. The recognition of a Georgian diploma in Serbia is handled by two bodies: by the university itself for the continuation of studies, and for employment by the ENIC/NARIC centre of the qualifications agency (Agencija za kvalifikacije), which accepts documents in Serbian, translated by a court interpreter, and asks for the supplement or the transcript together with the diploma; the recognition of secondary and vocational education documents is carried out by the Ministry of Education or by the agency. The English-language medical programmes of Belgrade and Novi Sad are popular with Georgian students, and for admission the school certificate, the transcript and a language certificate are translated into English, while after the return a Serbian diploma is submitted to Georgia's National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement with the apostille of the basic court and our Georgian translation.

Marriage and family: matičar, a church wedding and double registration

In Serbia a marriage is concluded by the civil registrar (matičar) in the municipality, and the foreign partner must submit a birth certificate, a certificate of family status and, in the case of a previous marriage, a divorce document, with an apostille and a Serbian translation, ordinarily not older than six months; the registrar also checks the foreign partner's residence status and sometimes asks for a court interpreter to attend the ceremony if the partner does not command Serbian. A church wedding in Serbia, as in Georgia, takes place after the civil registration and carries no legal force, but the Orthodox churches of both countries ask for each other's wedding documents, and church certificates appear regularly in our translations, in Cyrillic and with ecclesiastical terminology. The birth of a child in Serbia means a double registration for a Georgian parent: the Serbian birth extract (izvod iz matične knjige rođenih), with its field for the parent's name, goes with the apostille of the basic court and our Georgian translation to the consulate or the House of Justice. The Serbian system grants a child Serbian citizenship by birth if at least one parent is a citizen of Serbia, and dual citizenship is permitted in both countries, which a Georgian parent should take into account when preparing documents.

Serbian documents we translate most often

• Extracts from the civil registers (izvod iz matične knjige rođenih, venčanih, umrlih) and the citizenship certificate (uverenje o državljanstvu)
• The certificate of residence (uverenje o prebivalištu) and the data of the residence card
• The criminal record certificate (uverenje da lice nije osuđivano) from the police and the certificate that no criminal proceedings are pending, from the court, which Serbia issues as two separate documents
• Diploma, supplement, school certificate, description of the study programme, the nostrification decision
• Certificates of the tax administration, certificates of the pension and disability insurance fund (PIO) on length of service and pension
• Documents of the health insurance fund (RFZO), medical prescriptions, discharge summaries
• Court decisions on maintenance, guardianship, divorce and inheritance cases, a notary's inheritance resolution
• Extracts of the business registers agency (APR), the founding act, the decision appointing a director
• Sports contracts, transfer agreements between clubs and certificates of the federations

Business with Serbia: d.o.o., APR and the gateway to the Balkans

The Serbian limited liability company (d.o.o., društvo sa ograničenom odgovornošću) is the counterpart of the Georgian Sh.P.S., and the a.d. of the joint stock company; both are registered at the business registers agency (APR, Agencija za privredne registre), which issues extracts online, in Cyrillic or in Latin. A Serbian company has two numbers, the eight-digit registration number (matični broj) and the tax number (PIB), and both stay unchanged in the translation, with a note saying which is which. The particularity of Georgian-Serbian business is that Serbia is not a member of the European Union but has a stabilisation and association agreement with it, CEFTA and a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union, and Georgian companies often use Belgrade as the gateway into the Balkans and, through those agreements, into wider markets, which means the regular translation of founding documents, distribution agreements and customs documents in both directions. Serbian investors in Georgia work in real estate and hotels, Serbian agricultural products and furniture come into Georgia, and Georgian wine, hazelnuts and mineral water go to the Serbian market, where Georgian wine brands have established themselves well in recent years. Sports contracts are a subject of their own: Georgian footballers and basketball players in Serbian clubs and Serbian coaches in Georgia, whose contracts, transfer agreements and federation certificates are translated from and into Serbian, with the terminology of sports law.

Transliteration: Serbian names in Georgian

Serbian names are carried into Georgian from both alphabets by one rule: Ђорђевић and Đorđević are alike rendered Jorjevichi, Ћирић and Ćirić become Chirichi, Живковић and Živković become Zhivkovichi, Јована and Jovana become Iovana, Београд and Beograd become Belgradi, Нови Сад becomes Novi-Sadi, Ниш becomes Nishi, Крагујевац becomes Kraguevatsi. The letters ђ/đ sound as j, ћ/ć and ч/č as ch, џ/dž as j, љ/lj and њ/nj are each a single sound, ш/š is sh and ж/ž is zh, while most Serbian surnames end in -ић/-ić, which in Georgian is always -ichi, never -itsi or -iki. Once chosen, a form stays unchanged in every document of that person or place, and if a name has a form established in Georgian (Belgradi), we keep it. Serbian also declines surnames, and in a document a name often stands in the genitive or dative (diploma Petra Petrovića, Petru Petroviću); in the translation we return the name to the nominative and compare it with the passport. In the opposite direction a Georgian name goes into Serbian in Cyrillic or in Latin, according to the recipient, and the transliteration rests on the Latin spelling of the passport; a Serbian authority compares the name with the passport, and we always give the Latin form in the translation, beside the Cyrillic.

Typical mistakes in Serbian translation

When we check other people's translations, the same mistakes recur: translating one and the same name written in Cyrillic and in Latin as two people; translating a Georgian document into Serbian with Croatian vocabulary, ijekavian forms and Slavic month names; reading the parent's name as a middle name or a surname; a name left in a case form that no longer matches the passport; writing -ić as -itsi; looking for the apostille at a ministry or at the court of the wrong city; translating an extract older than six months, which the authority will not accept; equating an average mark of 8.50 directly with the Georgian 100-point scale; translating only one of the two separate criminal record certificates; describing the old, two-stage residence procedure instead of the single permit of 2024; translating d.o.o. as "joint stock company"; and submitting a church wedding certificate as a civil one. Every one of these points is on our checklist, and the editor checks every Serbian translation against that list.

What sets our Serbian translation apart

• Both alphabets in one translator's hands, Cyrillic and Latin, according to the receiving authority, to the Serbian norm and not to "Serbo-Croatian"
• We know which Serbian authority requires a court interpreter and which is satisfied with a translation certified in Georgia or with English, and we tell you before the order
• Knowledge of the basic court apostille, of the JMBG, of the parent's name and of the rules of the single permit of 2024
• Study, sports and corporate packages following the requirements of APR, ENIC/NARIC and MUP
• Notarial certification by a translator registered in the Georgian-Serbian pair and the apostille at the House of Justice within one order
• A standard personal document in 1 working day, express in 1-2 hours, the process fully remote, from Belgrade and from Novi Sad as well

Frequently asked questions