Certified translation in Dhaka: what actually needs translating

Start by translating nothing

The most useful thing in this article is a list of documents you should not pay to translate. Bangladesh issues a surprising amount of its official paperwork in English already, and translation agencies are not in the business of talking you out of an order.

Two of those rows are worth saying out loud. The digital birth certificate can simply be printed in English from the national register — see the 17-digit digital birth certificate. And most bank branches will issue a statement or solvency certificate in English if you ask at the counter, which is free and avoids both the translation fee and an extra attestation. The bank documents themselves are covered in bank statements for a European student visa.

Who counts as certified

There is no single European definition, which is the source of most of the confusion. In practice a mission in Dhaka will accept one of these, and you have to find out which:

1. 1A translator or agency on the mission's own list. Several missions keep one. A translation from outside the list can be refused regardless of how good it is.
2. 2A translation with a notarised declaration from the translator, stating their competence and that the translation is faithful. This is the common Bangladeshi route, and the notary's role here is explained in notary, magistrate or MOFA.
3. 3A sworn translator in the destination country. Italy and Greece in particular have formal sworn-translation systems, and some universities will only accept a translation produced there.

Ask the mission — or the visa application centre handling that country — before you pay anyone. It is one email, and it is the difference between a translation you can use and one you cannot.

⚠️ The order that saves you paying twice

Attest first, translate second, certify the translation third.

The reason is that the translation has to include the stamps and signatures that the attestation chain added. Translate a bare certificate in January, attest it in March, and the translation no longer describes the document you are submitting — so you pay for a second one. This is the single most common way translation money is wasted, and it follows directly from the logic of the chain described in the attestation and apostille guide.

What it costs

Roughly BDT 500 to 1,500 per page in Dhaka, depending on the language pair, the urgency and whether a notarised declaration is included. A page here means a page of the source document, so a two-page transcript with a full attestation block is often billed as more than two pages.

Get the quote in writing, page by page, before handing anything over, and ask specifically whether the notarial declaration is included or billed separately.

Country notes

• Italy — translation into Italian is typically required for enrolment documents, and it interacts with the Declaration of Value, so the sequence has to be planned together rather than in pieces. See Declaration of Value versus CIMEA.
• Greece and Cyprus — translation into Greek is often required, and the accepted route can be a translation certified by the mission or produced by an authorised translator there.
• Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Malta — English is normally accepted for academic documents, so if your certificates are already in English you may need no translation at all. Confirm on the university's own admissions page.

Practical rules

1. 1Look at every document you hold and mark the ones that are genuinely Bengali-only. Usually it is a short list.
2. 2Ask the bank for English versions of financial documents before doing anything else.
3. 3Confirm with the mission which translators it accepts.
4. 4Attest, then translate, then certify — never the other way round.
5. 5Keep the original, the attested original and the translation together as one bundle, and scan the lot before it leaves your hands.