Vietnamese translator in Tbilisi

Vietnamese is a rare but increasingly necessary language in Georgia: the export of Georgian wine to Asian markets, the import of Vietnamese coffee, rice, seafood and textiles, the first groups of Vietnamese tourists, mixed Georgian-Vietnamese families, Vietnamese students at Georgian medical universities and Georgian specialists working in Vietnam create more documents every year. Since 11 September 2026 Vietnam has been a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, which fundamentally changes the movement of documents between the two countries: instead of multi-stage consular legalisation, an apostille becomes sufficient. This page describes how we work with Vietnamese, what has changed with the introduction of the apostille, how we write Vietnamese names without tone marks and which body requires what.

Who orders Vietnamese translation in Georgia

Vietnamese-language orders with us fall into several groups. The first is business: exporters of Georgian wine, mineral water and agricultural produce who work with Vietnamese importers, distributors and trademark registration; importers of Vietnamese goods who need Vietnamese certificates, invoices and contracts in Georgian. The second group is personal documents: Vietnamese citizens' residence, marriage to a Georgian citizen, registration of a child, Vietnamese students' diplomas and certificates, Georgians' employment and residence documents for Vietnam. The third group is tourism and culture: Vietnamese-language tourist materials, hotel information, cultural projects. The Vietnamese-Georgian pair is rare, and many clients come to us precisely because they do not want a double translation via English.

11 September 2026: Vietnam in the Apostille Convention

Vietnam's accession to the 1961 Hague Convention has been in force since 11 September 2026, and this date changes everything in the Vietnamese direction. Until that day a Vietnamese document went through full consular legalisation to be submitted in Georgia: notarisation in Vietnam or confirmation by a local body, legalisation at the Consular Department of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then legalisation at Georgia's consular representation, which, because there are no resident embassies between the two countries, took weeks and months. Now Vietnam's competent authority (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its authorised territorial structures) places an apostille, and the document is accepted in Georgia with a Georgian notarised translation; for a Georgian document going to Vietnam, the Public Service Hall places the apostille. The practice is new: in autumn 2026 some Vietnamese and Georgian bodies still ask for the old legalisation chain out of habit, and we prepare the client for both routes, clarifying the current requirement of the specific body.

Vietnamese names: surname first, tones lost

A Vietnamese name consists of three parts and begins with the surname: in Nguyễn Văn An, Nguyễn is the surname, Văn the middle name, An the given name, and almost 40% of Vietnamese carry the surname Nguyễn. In the Latin line of a Vietnamese passport the tone marks and diacritics are lost (NGUYEN VAN AN), and different names (for example Hải, Hài, Hãi, Hại) are written identically. In the Georgian translation the name must be rendered so that a Georgian official correctly identifies the surname and the given name (Nguyen Van An, surname "Nguyen"), matches the Latin form of the passport and is identical in every document. Georgian forms often ask for the given name before the surname, and reversing the Vietnamese order in one document while keeping it in another creates "two versions" of the same person; so in the title of the translation we mark the surname and the given name unambiguously. In the Vietnamese text the original spelling with diacritics stays in brackets, to make identification easier for the Vietnamese side.

The Vietnamese document system: công chứng and chứng thực

In Vietnam there are two different certifications, and confusing them is a typical mistake for a foreigner: "công chứng" (notarisation, performed by a state or private notary office on contracts, powers of attorney and transactions) and "chứng thực" (confirmation of a copy or a signature, performed by the commune or ward People's Committee and the justice division). Certification of translations in Vietnam takes place at the justice division ("Phòng Tư pháp"), where a registered translator's signature is confirmed, which is an exact parallel of the Georgian notarial system. In the translation of a Vietnamese document the type of certification must be reflected exactly ("notarised" or "copy confirmed by the People's Committee"), because that is how a Georgian notary determines what force the document has. After the 2025 administrative reform, when provinces in Vietnam were merged and the district level abolished, the name of the issuing body differs between old and new documents, which the translation reflects with a note.

Business: wine in Asia, coffee and rice in Georgia

When entering the Vietnamese market, Georgian wine companies prepare a distribution contract with a Vietnamese importer, a Vietnamese version of the label (alcohol labelling in Vietnam requires mandatory Vietnamese-language fields), certificates of origin and quality, and trademark registration documents. Importers of Vietnamese goods (coffee, rice, seafood, textiles, furniture, electronics) translate Vietnamese invoices, packing lists, phytosanitary and veterinary certificates and quality documents for Georgian customs. Vietnamese company forms partly match Georgian ones: "Công ty TNHH" (limited liability company, with one or several members) is the analogue of the LLC, "Công ty cổ phần" a joint-stock company, "Doanh nghiệp tư nhân" a private enterprise, "Hộ kinh doanh" a household business, which has no Georgian analogue. The enterprise registration certificate ("Giấy chứng nhận đăng ký doanh nghiệp") with the enterprise code ("mã số doanh nghiệp") performs the function of the Georgian extract.

Vietnamese citizens in Georgia: residence, marriage, study

Vietnamese citizens need an electronic visa to enter Georgia, and for a longer stay a residence permit, issued by the Public Service Development Agency, for which the apostilled original and a notarised Georgian translation of the Vietnamese documents (birth certificate "Giấy khai sinh", marriage certificate "Giấy chứng nhận kết hôn", criminal record certificate "Phiếu lý lịch tư pháp", diploma) are submitted. The Vietnamese criminal record certificate comes in two types: No. 1 (current convictions) and No. 2 (full, including expunged ones), and foreign bodies usually require No. 2, which we must tell the client in advance. For marriage, the Public Service Hall requires the Vietnamese certificate of marital status ("Giấy xác nhận tình trạng hôn nhân"), issued by the commune People's Committee. Vietnamese students are enrolled at Georgian medical and technical universities with a translation of the school certificate ("Bằng tốt nghiệp THPT") and transcript.

Georgians in Vietnam: work, residence, business

Vietnam is a growing destination for Georgian specialists (English teachers, IT, tourism, restaurants) and entrepreneurs, and since 2023 Vietnam's electronic visa has been available to citizens of all countries for 90 days, which simplifies the visit. For a work permit ("Giấy phép lao động") Vietnam's labour authorities require the apostilled original and a Vietnamese translation of the Georgian diploma, certificate of work experience (at least three or five years, depending on the position), criminal record certificate and health certificate, and the translation is re-certified in Vietnam at the justice division. For the residence card ("Thẻ tạm trú") and for founding a company an analogous package is needed. The Vietnamese translation of Georgian documents is prepared with Vietnamese administrative terminology so that a Vietnamese official sees a familiar form, and the apostille is placed on the original at the Public Service Hall before translation.

The Soviet and post-Soviet link: Vietnamese in Georgia since the 1980s

The Vietnamese-Georgian link is not new: in the Soviet period hundreds of Vietnamese students graduated from Tbilisi and other Georgian universities, and mixed families and their children live in both countries today. This creates a separate flow of documents: Soviet-era Georgian diplomas that need recognition in Vietnam (often for a pension or professional status), Soviet marriage and birth certificates on bilingual Georgian-Russian forms submitted to a Vietnamese body in citizenship or inheritance cases, and Vietnamese papers that these families need in Georgia. Such documents are handwritten, with Russian entries, and the translation reflects the entries in both languages, while the Russian, Georgian and Vietnamese forms of names are linked to each other with a note.

The Vietnamese language: tones, dialects, orthography

Vietnamese is a tonal language with six tones (in the north) or five (in the south), with a Latin-based orthography (chữ Quốc ngữ) in which diacritics mark both vowel quality and tone, and the loss of one mark changes the meaning of a word. The northern (Hanoi) and southern (Ho Chi Minh City) variants differ noticeably in pronunciation and vocabulary, though the written standard is uniform. In Vietnamese documents the administrative terminology is saturated with vocabulary of Chinese origin (Sino-Vietnamese), which differs from everyday language and creates the official style ("Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam", "Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc" head every official document). In the translation these formulas are rendered as standard, the Vietnamese original with diacritics stays in brackets, and technically the correct encoding and font of the Vietnamese text in the PDF are checked separately.

Vietnamese-Georgian directly or via English

The Vietnamese-Georgian language pair is rare, and the common practice on the market is double translation: from Vietnamese into English, then from English into Georgian, with two translators and two certifications. This route is legitimate, but it is twice as slow and doubles the risk of error: the English intermediate version loses the Vietnamese nuance, and the Georgian repeats the calque of the English. We work directly in the Vietnamese-Georgian pair, with translators who command Vietnamese at a professional level and are registered with a notary in this pair, and a Vietnamese-speaking editor checks translations from Georgian into Vietnamese. Where the Vietnamese side also requires an English version (common in international contracts), we prepare a trilingual package within one project, with a shared terminology base.

Tourism and culture: the first Vietnamese guests

Vietnamese tourists' interest in Georgia has emerged in recent years (the Caucasus, wine, the European-Asian space, an accessible electronic visa), and travel companies, hotels and wine cellars are preparing Vietnamese-language materials for the first time: website pages, tour descriptions, menus, safety information. Vietnamese tourist text requires a warm, polite tone, with correct use of Vietnamese forms of address (anh/chị, quý khách) and wine terminology that is still new on the Vietnamese market and needs explanation. In the opposite direction, Vietnamese travel companies inviting Georgian tourists to Ha Long Bay, Hoi An and Phu Quoc order materials in Georgian. Such texts do not need notarisation, but they do need a native editor.

Education: Vietnamese students in Georgia and recognition

Vietnamese students' interest in Georgian medical, technical and business programmes (English-language instruction, affordable fees, European recognition) has emerged in recent years, and their Vietnamese school certificate ("Bằng tốt nghiệp trung học phổ thông"), transcript and, in the case of a transfer, the academic certificate of a Vietnamese university are translated into Georgian for the university and the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement. The Vietnamese 10-point grading system ("giỏi" 8.0-8.9, "xuất sắc" 9.0-10) is compared with the Georgian one with a note, and the results of the Vietnamese national exam ("kỳ thi tốt nghiệp THPT"), which determine university admission, are the functional analogue of the Georgian Unified National Exams. In the opposite direction, a Georgian diploma is submitted in Vietnam for a work permit and recognition with an apostille and a Vietnamese translation.

What we translate into and from Vietnamese most often

• Giấy khai sinh, Giấy chứng nhận kết hôn, Căn cước, Hộ chiếu for residence and civil status acts
• Phiếu lý lịch tư pháp (No. 1 and No. 2), Giấy xác nhận tình trạng hôn nhân, Giấy xác nhận thông tin về cư trú
• Bằng tốt nghiệp, Bằng cử nhân, Bảng điểm for university and the NCEQE
• Giấy chứng nhận đăng ký doanh nghiệp, Điều lệ công ty, Hợp đồng ủy quyền for business and property
• Hợp đồng phân phối, Hóa đơn, Giấy chứng nhận xuất xứ, phytosanitary certificates for export and import
• Giấy ra viện, Tóm tắt bệnh án, Giấy xác nhận khuyết tật for the clinic and the social agency
• Georgian diploma, criminal record certificate, certificate of work experience for a Vietnamese work permit
• Georgian company extract, articles of association, power of attorney for business in Vietnam

How the order proceeds

The process starts online: you upload the document on the website and indicate which body you will submit it to. The same day you receive the deadline and information on whether the document needs an apostille (since September 2026 this is the default route in the Vietnamese direction) and what the current requirement of the specific body is in the transitional period. A standard document is ready in 1-2 working days, because the number of Vietnamese-Georgian translators is limited, and express mode is possible by prior arrangement. The translation is done by a translator registered with a notary in the Vietnamese-Georgian pair, and a Vietnamese-speaking editor checks translations from Georgian into Vietnamese. Vietnam is three hours ahead of Tbilisi, which shifts communication with clients in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to the morning hours. You receive the finished document electronically and by courier, in Vietnam by international courier. All documents are handled under a confidentiality agreement.

Frequently asked questions