Documents: Turkish to English Turkish → English
Turkish passport translation (stamps, visas and observation pages)
Certified English translation of a Turkish passport: the bilingual data page, entry and exit stamps, visas, observation pages and extension notes in older passports, for ILR and naturalisation absence records, the Home Office and courts. From £10.
What the receiving body requires
“If you need to certify a translation of a document that's not written in English or Welsh, ask the translation company to confirm in writing on the translation: that it's a ‘true and accurate translation of the original document’; the date of the translation; the full name and contact details of the translator or a representative of the translation company.”
Source:
· checked 29 August 2026What needs translating in a Turkish passport
Turkish passports (umumi pasaport, the maroon ordinary passport; hususi, the green special passport; hizmet, the grey service passport) have carried a bilingual Turkish-English data page since the biometric series began in 2010, and the current series issued since 2018 follows the same pattern. The field labels, the machine-readable zone and the holder's details on that page are already legible to a UK caseworker, so a translation of the data page is rarely the reason people come to us.
What does need translating is everything else that the passport accumulates over ten years:
- entry and exit stamps of the Turkish border police, which show the border post, the direction (giriş or çıkış) and the date in day-month-year order;
- the observations page (gözlemler), where the passport office records a name change, a previous passport number or, in older passports, the renewal note (temdit) that extended validity;
- visas and residence stickers issued by third countries in languages other than English;
- handwritten notes and stamps added by Turkish authorities, for example customs or military-service annotations in passports issued before 2010;
- the data page itself, when a UK body asks for a certified translation of the whole document.
We produce a page-by-page schedule: each stamp is listed with its page number, the issuing post, the direction and the date, so that an absence calculation can be checked against the passport in minutes.
When a UK body asks for it
- Indefinite leave to remain and naturalisation. Both require a record of absences from the UK, and the Home Office may ask for the passports covering the qualifying period. Where the stamps are not self-explanatory, a translated schedule supports the dates you declare. See applying for ILR with Turkish documents.
- Spouse and partner visas, where the travel history and previous passports are part of the relationship and residence evidence.
- Asylum and protection claims, where the route and the dates of travel recorded in a passport are examined.
- Courts and tribunals, in family and immigration cases where the presence of a party in a country on a date is in dispute.
- Register offices, HM Passport Office and banks use the bilingual data page for identity and do not normally need a translation.
What the translation must contain
The Home Office applies the gov.uk wording quoted below; for leave to remain and ILR, Appendix FM-SE adds certification by a qualified translator and the company's credentials. Our certification page sets these out and identifies the company by its Ankara Trade Registry number. A copy of every translated page is attached in the same order, and blank pages are listed as blank so that the reader can confirm nothing was skipped.
Dates are the point of this document. A Turkish stamp reads 05.03.2023, which is 5 March; we write the date out in words in the schedule so that a reader used to month-first dates cannot misread it. Faded or overlapping stamps are marked as partially legible, with the parts we can read given and the rest left blank. Read how stamps, seals and handwriting are translated.
Apostille and expired passports
No apostille is possible or required for a passport; UK bodies verify it as an identity document in its own right. Expired passports are translated in the same way, and for an ILR absence record they are often the ones that matter. Scan every page, including the covers and pages that appear blank, so that the schedule is complete.
Price and turnaround
The data page on its own is one page of 1,000 characters and costs £10.00. Stamps are counted by the characters in the schedule rather than by passport page: a passport with a normal amount of travel comes to 2 to 4 pages of translation, so £20.00 to £40.00; a frequent traveller's passport with visas in other languages can reach 6. Certification is included and no UK VAT is charged. Standard turnaround is 1 to 2 working days for a certified PDF; the fast option halves that for 60 per cent more, and the economy option doubles it for 20 per cent less. Hard copies travel from Ankara by courier for £30. We have no UK office and do not offer collection.
What you receive
- Page-by-page schedule of every stamp, visa and observation, with border post, direction and date written out
- Translation of the data page where requested, with the machine-readable zone reproduced as printed
- Certification page in the gov.uk wording with Appendix FM-SE items, dated and signed
- Copies of all translated pages attached in order; certified PDF by e-mail, courier hard copy optional
Frequently asked questions
Do I need the data page translated when it is already in English?
Usually not for identity purposes. Some bodies ask for a certified translation of the whole passport, in which case we include the data page for completeness. If you are unsure, send us the request wording and we will tell you what is needed.
Do you translate the machine-readable zone?
No. The two lines of letters and chevrons at the foot of the data page are a code, not text, and are reproduced as printed with a note identifying them as the machine-readable zone.
Some of my visas are in French or German. Are they included?
Yes. We list every sticker and stamp regardless of language, and translate the non-English ones. Visas already in English are listed in the schedule with their dates so the record is complete.
My old passport has a temdit stamp. What is it?
Passports issued before 2010 could be extended rather than replaced, and the extension note (temdit) records the new expiry date. We translate it because it explains why the passport was valid beyond its printed expiry.
Can you produce a list of my absences from the UK?
We produce a schedule of the stamps as they appear. Turning that into an absence calculation is part of your application, and the Home Office expects you to declare the dates yourself; our schedule makes that straightforward.