Home › Guides

IRCC translation requirements for Chinese documents

Updated 2026-09-09

IRCC's rule disqualifies people rather than crediting them. A certified translator who happens to be your cousin cannot translate your documents — and that is the sentence most applicants discover too late.

The rule in one line

Any supporting document that is not in English or French must be submitted with a translation, plus either a certified translator's seal or an affidavit from the translator — and the translation may not be done by the applicant, a family member, or the applicant's immigration representative.

Notice the structure. The disqualification is about interest in the outcome, not ability. IRCC excludes family members explicitly even when they are certified translators.

Who cannot translate

IRCC reads "family member" broadly. The excluded list covers:

• parents, guardians, siblings
• spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner
• grandparents, children
• aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins

Plus the applicant themselves, and the applicant's immigration consultant or lawyer.

If you were planning to have a bilingual relative handle this, that plan does not work for Canada. It is worth checking early, because it changes who you need to find and how long it takes.

The two acceptable routes

Route 1 — a certified translator

A translator certified by a professional body may translate and seal the document. IRCC's current application instructions (the Express Entry guide, revised June 2026) define the person precisely: "a member in good standing of a professional translation association in Canada or abroad", whose certification "can be confirmed by a seal or stamp that shows the translator's membership number".

Three things in that sentence are worth reading twice.

• "Or abroad." The definition is not limited to Canadian bodies. In Canada it means the provincial and territorial associations — ATIO in Ontario, OTTIAQ in Quebec, STIBC in British Columbia and their equivalents. Outside Canada, a translator who is a member in good standing of a recognised professional association and stamps the translation with their membership number is, on the face of IRCC's wording, on this route too. For a translator in China that means asking whether they hold membership of a professional translators' association and whether their stamp carries the number. If they do, no affidavit is needed; if there is any doubt, the affidavit route below costs little and removes the question.
• "In good standing." Lapsed membership is not membership. IRCC adds that a translator "in the process of receiving their certification or accreditation is not considered a certified translator" — a student member or a candidate awaiting exam results goes down the affidavit route.
• The seal does the work. A certified translator's stamp with the membership number is the certification. No affidavit, no notary.

If your documents are in China and you cannot find a translator who meets that definition, the second route exists for exactly that case.

Route 2 — any competent translator, plus an affidavit

A translation by a non-certified translator is acceptable if it is accompanied by an affidavit in which the translator swears to their proficiency in both languages and to the accuracy of the translation.

The affidavit must be sworn before someone authorised to administer oaths:

In China this means a notary office (公证处). The affidavit is sworn by the translator, not by the applicant — a point that trips people up, because the applicant is the one at the counter.

For a study permit, the full document list and the GIC decision that removes most of this problem are in Chinese documents for a Canadian study permit.

Where this collides with the Chinese notarial route

Chinese families usually arrive at IRCC with a 公证书 — a notarial certificate booklet, often bilingual, sometimes apostilled. It feels like it should satisfy everything, and it may not.

The reason is that IRCC's requirement is about the translator, and a notarial certificate primarily attests to a fact or to a copy's conformity with an original. If the booklet does not identify a translator and carry either their certification seal or their sworn affidavit, it has not answered IRCC's question about who translated the document.

In practice, notarial booklets from Chinese notary offices are frequently accepted. But "frequently accepted" is not the same as "meets the stated rule", and if a request for more evidence arrives, this is the gap it will be about. When you order the booklet, ask the notary office whether the translator's details and attestation appear in it. See notarial certificates for how the booklet is built.

What the package must contain

For each non-English, non-French document, IRCC's online-application instructions ask for:

1. The translation, into English or French, either stamped by a certified translator or accompanied by the translator's affidavit.
2. A scan of the original document, or a scan of a certified photocopy of it. IRCC adds one detail that is easy to miss: if the translator worked from a certified photocopy rather than from the original, upload that photocopy, so the officer is comparing the translation with the page it was actually made from.

A translation submitted on its own — without the source document beside it — is incomplete regardless of who made it. And the original may still be asked for: the citizenship instructions say plainly that "original documents may be requested later in the process by an officer".

What IRCC does with a translation it doubts

The citizenship processing manual states the consequence in one line: "Should the accuracy of the translation appear suspect, IRCC reserves the right to request a retranslation." That is the whole enforcement mechanism, and it tells you what the rules above are protecting against. An officer who doubts a translation does not argue with it; they ask for another one, from someone else, at your expense and on your timeline.

The things that make a translation look suspect are predictable: a name romanised differently from the passport, a date that reads as two different days, a seal that has vanished, a page missing from a booklet. None of them is a translation-quality problem. All of them are the cross-document consistency problems this page keeps returning to.

Completeness

Same standard as everywhere else, and the same failure modes on Chinese documents:

• Seal text. Red round seals name the issuing authority. They belong in the translation as bracketed descriptions.
• Every page. A household register is a booklet, and the pages you did not submit are the ones that prove the relationship.
• Change records. The amendment table on the back of a hukou page carries name and status changes.
• Handwritten annotations. Present on the document, present in the translation.

Names, and the consistency problem

Canadian applications frequently involve multiple family members and many documents, which makes cross-document consistency the practical risk rather than translation quality.

Fix the romanisation of every name once, from the passport, and use it in every document. A father who is Zhang Wei on the birth certificate, ZHANG Wei on the hukou and Wei Zhang on the bank statement has generated a question that someone will have to answer with more paperwork.

The same applies to dates (write 5 March 1998, not 03/05/1998), identity numbers, and addresses.

Does IRCC need an apostille?

Separate question, separate answer. The apostille authenticates a document's signature and seal; IRCC's translation rule is about who translated it. Canada joined the Apostille Convention on 11 January 2024 and China on 7 November 2023, so the apostille route between the two now exists — but obtaining one does not satisfy the translator requirement, and satisfying the translator requirement does not need one. See apostilles on Chinese documents.

Whether your particular stream wants documents authenticated is a question for the application guide for that stream.

FAQ

Can my cousin, who is a certified translator, translate my documents?

No. IRCC excludes family members explicitly, and the exclusion applies even when the family member holds a translation certification. The disqualifier is the relationship.

Can I use a translator in China?

Yes — via the affidavit route. The translator swears an affidavit before a notary public in China attesting to their proficiency and to the accuracy of the translation, and that affidavit accompanies the translation.

Does the affidavit have to be in English?

It needs to be usable by the officer reading it. An affidavit sworn in Chinese would itself need translating, which is circular, so ask the notary office for it in English.

Is a Chinese notarial certificate enough on its own?

Often accepted in practice, but it does not by itself answer the question IRCC's rule asks — who translated this, and what did they attest to. If the booklet names the translator and carries their attestation, you are on solid ground. If it does not, be ready for a request.

Do I need to translate documents that are already in French?

No. English and French are both acceptable to IRCC.

Sources

• IRCC help centre — what language should my supporting documents be in
• IRCC — Express Entry: apply for permanent residence, "Translation of documents"
• IRCC operational manual — citizenship applications: translation of documents
• HCCH — Apostille Convention enters into force for Canada

Related guides

• Certified, notarised, sworn, apostilled — which one do you actually needFour words that get used interchangeably and mean four unrelated things. What each one certifies, who can produce it, roughly what it costs, and how to tell which your case requires.
• Can you translate your own documents? A straight answer per countryFor USCIS the regulation does not forbid it but the conflict of interest is real. For Canada it is explicitly not allowed. Here is the rule for each destination, and what to do instead.
• Apostilles on Chinese documents — and why they do not solve translationSince 7 November 2023 Chinese public documents get an apostille instead of consular legalisation. What the apostille certifies, what it does not, and where the English translation has to come from.