Turkey is Georgia's largest trading partner, and the Sarpi border crossing handles thousands of people and hundreds of trucks every day. That flow brings a flow of documents with it: invoices and delivery notes, residence applications, marriage certificates, diplomas, court judgments and hospital discharge summaries. We translate all of these document types from Turkish into Georgian and from Georgian into Turkish, certify them at the notary and, where needed, obtain the apostille at the Public Service Hall. This page describes what is specific about working with Turkish and how the document acceptance system is organised on the Turkish side.
The Turkish notary and the sworn translator: why it resembles the Georgian system
The Turkish system is based on continental law and looks remarkably like the Georgian model. In Turkey the notary (noter) is a lawyer to whom the state grants the authority to certify documents, and a translation is certified only with the signature of a translator who has taken an oath before that specific notary. Such a specialist is called a yeminli tercüman, the record of the oath kept in the notary's register is the yemin zaptı, and a notarised translation is a noter onaylı tercüme.
This similarity is useful in practice, because Turkish officials and notaries understand well what a Georgian notary's seal on a translation means. At the same time, one detail matters: many Turkish bodies, especially the Civil Registry Directorate (Nüfus Müdürlüğü) and the Migration Directorate (Göç İdaresi), require that the translation be made on Turkish territory by a translator sworn before a Turkish notary. So if the document is going to a Turkish state body, we first clarify whether Georgian notarisation is enough, or whether it is better to apostille the original and have the translation made in Turkey. We know both routes and advise you which one saves time.
Apostille between Georgia and Turkey
Turkey has been a member of the 1961 Hague Convention since 1985 and Georgia since 2007, so documents move between the two countries with an apostille and without consular legalisation. In Georgia the apostille is issued by the Public Service Hall; in Turkey, depending on the document type, by two different bodies: on administrative documents (birth and marriage certificates, diplomas, criminal record certificates) the apostille is placed by the district governor's office (Kaymakamlık) or the provincial governor's office (Valilik), while on court and notarial documents it is placed by the judicial commission of the court (Adalet Komisyonu Başkanlığı). This division often confuses clients who bring a document from Turkey without an apostille and then have to send it back.
Practical advice: if you are bringing a document from Turkey, have the apostille placed there, before you leave. Translation and notarisation in Georgia will then be done on an already apostilled original, and the document will be ready for the state body in one step.
Which documents are translated most often
The structure of orders in the Turkish direction differs visibly from, say, English: there are far more trade and family documents here and fewer academic ones.
- Trade and customs documents: invoice (fatura), delivery note (irsaliye), certificate of origin (menşe şahadetnamesi), ATR certificate, supplier contract
- Civil status documents: certificate of capacity to marry (evlenme ehliyet belgesi), civil registry extract (nüfus kayıt örneği), birth and divorce certificates
- Residence and work permit papers: criminal record certificate (sabıka kaydı), income certificate, residential lease agreement
- Educational documents: diploma, transcript, school certificate for the equivalence (denklik) procedure
- Medical documents: discharge summary, test results, operation report after treatment in a Turkish clinic
- Corporate papers: trade registry extract (ticaret sicil gazetesi), signature circular (imza sirküleri), constitutional documents
The Turkish Embassy in Tbilisi and Georgian consulates in Turkey
The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Tbilisi and the Consulate General in Batumi both work actively on civil matters: marriage registration, registration of a child's birth, powers of attorney for property located in Turkey. Georgia in turn has an embassy in Ankara and consulates general in Istanbul and Trabzon, where Georgian citizens can obtain passport and consular services. Many documents submitted to these institutions need to be translated and certified in advance, and we know which of them are accepted with Georgian notarisation and which require an additional step.
Mixed marriages are especially common: in Adjara, in Batumi and Kobuleti, marriage between Georgian and Turkish citizens is an everyday event. A Turkish citizen marrying in Georgia needs a certificate of capacity to marry from Turkey with an apostille and its notarised Georgian translation; a Georgian citizen marrying in Turkey needs the same certificate from the Public Service Hall, with an apostille and a Turkish translation.
Transliteration: ç, ş, ğ, ı and other traps
The Turkish alphabet is Latin, but several letters denote sounds that are rendered by separate letters in Georgian and are often written incorrectly. ç is always "ch" and never "ts", ş is "sh", c is "j" (Cengiz reads Jengiz, not Tsengiz), and ğ is not pronounced at all but lengthens the preceding vowel (Erdoğan became established in Georgian as Erdoghan, though phonetically it would rather be Erdoan). The dotless ı and the dotted İ are a separate problem: Işık and İşik are different names, and when a document from Turkey is printed in capital letters, reading a name correctly takes experience.
There is a difficulty in the opposite direction too: the Georgian letters q', dz, ts' and ch' have no direct match in the Turkish alphabet, so a Georgian's first name and surname must be written in a Turkish document exactly as they appear in the Latin line of the Georgian passport, not by Turkish phonetics. That is why, before starting work in the Turkish direction, we always ask for a scan of the passport.
The Turkish education system and diploma equivalence
Hundreds of Georgian students study at Turkish universities every year, mostly through the Turkish state scholarship (Türkiye Bursları) or the international student examination (YÖS). Istanbul University, Boğaziçi University, Middle East Technical University in Ankara (ODTÜ), Hacettepe and Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon appear most often in our orders. Enrolment requires a translation of the school certificate and grades, while recognition in Georgia of a diploma obtained in Turkey is carried out by the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement.
In the reverse direction, for recognition of a Georgian diploma in Turkey, there is the denklik procedure: a higher education diploma is examined by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK), a school certificate by the Ministry of National Education (MEB). Both bodies require the apostilled original of the diploma and its supplement plus a Turkish translation, and for both it matters that the name of the speciality is translated as it appears in the Turkish higher education classifier, otherwise the application is returned for clarification.
Turkish business language: the double layer of old and new vocabulary
Turkish legal and commercial language has two layers. After the language reform of the 1930s, many terms of Arabic and Persian origin were replaced by Turkish neologisms, but both variants are still used in parallel today: mukavele and sözleşme are both "contract", vekaletname and yetki belgesi are both types of power of attorney, and tebligat is the official term for service of notice, with no colloquial equivalent. Old contracts, court judgments and especially property documents (tapu) are often written in the vocabulary of the old layer, and the translator must know both registers.
A separate category is documents written in the Ottoman alphabet, in Arabic script, before 1928. Such papers are not rare in Georgia at all: descendants of the muhajirs, who trace ancestors who left Adjara, Samtskhe and Meskheti for Turkey, or who settle property matters, often come precisely with Ottoman registry entries. Translating such a text requires a separate qualification, and we cooperate with an Ottomanist who first renders the text into modern Turkish, after which we translate it into Georgian.
Business, investment and corporate documents
Turkish companies are present in Georgia in energy, construction, textiles and the resort business; the Tbilisi and Batumi airports are run by a Turkish operator, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway and the pipelines are the backbone of regional trade. In this environment a bilingual contract, with parallel Georgian and Turkish columns, is standard practice. We translate articles of association, minutes of partners' meetings, signature circulars, Turkish trade registry gazette extracts and tender documentation so that the terminology in both versions matches exactly.
To register a company or open a bank account on the Turkish side, a Georgian company's extract from the Registry of Entrepreneurs is needed with an apostille and a Turkish translation, and the director's power of attorney is often re-executed before a Turkish notary. In such cases we prepare the Turkish text of the power of attorney in advance, following the standard wording of Turkish notaries, so that it does not need to be redone on the spot.
Residence and employment in Turkey: the complete document package
A residence permit in Turkey (ikamet izni) starts in the electronic system, through e-İkamet, but the physical package of documents still has to be submitted to the Migration Directorate. The typical package for a Georgian applicant is: birth certificate, marriage certificate (for family residence), criminal record certificate, bank statement or income certificate, health insurance and a housing contract. Georgian papers are prepared with an apostille and a Turkish translation, while for a work permit (çalışma izni), issued by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, documents prepared by the employer and a translation of the diploma are added. We prepare the whole package with one transliteration table and one terminology, so that all the papers agree with each other.
There is a reverse flow too: Turkish citizens who apply for a residence permit, a business or real estate in Georgia. Their Turkish papers (nüfus kayıt örneği, sabıka kaydı, bank certificate) must arrive with an apostille and be translated into Georgian in Georgia with notarisation. In Adjara this is one of the most frequent orders.
Turkish and Azerbaijani: why they are not the same
We are often asked whether a Turkish translator can translate an Azerbaijani document, or vice versa. Both belong to the Oghuz group and are mutually intelligible in speech, but at document level they are two different languages: a different alphabet (Azerbaijani has the letters ə, x, q), different legal terminology, which in Azerbaijan comes from the Russian and Soviet tradition, and different administrative forms. An Azerbaijani-language paper from Kvemo Kartli will not pass in a Turkish office as a "Turkish translation", just as a Turkish document will not in Baku. So separate translators serve the two languages, and when a client needs both, we assign a specialist for each.
Tourism, hotels and marketing text
Turkey is one of Georgia's main sources of tourists, and Batumi hotels, casinos and restaurants offer Turkish guests a Turkish-language menu, website and service rules. This is no longer document translation but localisation: the text must sound natural to a Turkish reader, Georgian realities (supra, tamada, qvevri) must be carried over with an explanation, and prices, measurements and phone numbers must be written in the Turkish format. We work in the same direction on materials of Georgian wine producers, travel agencies and real estate companies targeting the Turkish market. Marketing text is checked by a native copywriter, because a text that is accurate but "sounds like a translation" does not work for advertising purposes.
Who translates: translator qualification in the Turkish direction
Turkish translators in Georgia are formed in three main ways: graduates of Turkish universities, specialists from the Turkology departments of Tbilisi State University and other Georgian higher education institutions, and practitioners who have worked in Turkey for years. At our agency only a translator registered with a notary in the Turkish-Georgian pair, with experience in the specific field (legal, medical or technical), works on translations to be notarised. On the Turkish side, when needed, we cooperate with sworn translators in Istanbul and Ankara, which lets the client receive the translation required by a Turkish body under our own coordination.
What is not included in the service and where we recommend another route
Honesty saves time, so we say directly what we cannot do. We cannot place an apostille on a document issued in Turkey, because only Turkish bodies can do that. We cannot "arrange" a Turkish notary's certification from Georgia, though we can prepare the text and send it to a partner in Turkey. We cannot translate an Azerbaijani document with a Turkish translator, because it is a different language. And we cannot promise that Georgian notarisation will be accepted by every Turkish body, because that depends on the practice of the specific office. In return, in every such case we tell you exactly which route works, and where needed we coordinate the process on the Turkish side ourselves.
Deadlines, format and confidentiality
A Turkish translation of a standard personal document with notarisation is ready in one working day, and in express mode in 1-2 hours. For voluminous contracts and technical documentation the deadline is calculated individually and communicated before the order is confirmed. The whole process is online: you upload the document on the website, receive the translation electronically or by courier, and the notarised original is delivered to any city in Georgia. Commercial contracts and medical records are handled under a confidentiality agreement, and at the client's request the files are deleted after completion.
Frequently asked questions
Will a Turkish body accept a translation notarised in Georgia?
Many private organisations, universities and banks will, if the original carries an apostille. However, the Civil Registry and the Migration Directorate often require a translation made in Turkey by a translator sworn before a Turkish notary. Before the order we clarify which route is right in your case.
Does a document brought from Turkey need an apostille to be submitted in Georgia?
Yes, if the document is going to a state body. The apostille must be placed in Turkey: on administrative papers at the Kaymakamlık or Valilik, on court and notarial documents at the judicial commission of the court. After that, only translation and notarisation remain to be done in Georgia.
Can you translate an old document written in the Ottoman alphabet?
Yes. Such a document is first rendered into modern Turkish by an Ottomanist, then we translate it into Georgian. The deadline is longer than usual and depends on the condition of the document, so we first look at the scan and then name the time.
How is my name written in the Turkish translation?
Exactly as it appears in the Latin line of the Georgian passport. The Turkish phonetic variant (for example with the letters Ç or Ş) is not used in the document, because the Turkish body compares the name with the passport and rejects the translation if there is a discrepancy.
How long does the translation of invoices and customs documents take?
A standard invoice and delivery note package is ready the same day, often within a few hours. For regular importers we keep a term base that saves time on every new shipment and ensures consistency.
Do you need the original document, or is a scan enough?
In most cases a clear scan or photo is enough. We need the original only if the receiving body requires the translation to be bound to the original, which we tell you in advance when confirming the order.