Passport and ID Card Translation - Notarized From a Photo, No Office Visit Required

Why a passport translation can be made from a photo

Passports and national identity cards are standardized documents with a fixed layout, security features and a machine-readable zone, and Georgian notarial practice allows a translation of such a document to be certified from a legible photo or scan without presenting the original; the notary certifies the translator's signature, and the translation records that it was made from a copy. This is what makes our exclusive online service possible: you send a photo on WhatsApp or Telegram, we translate and notarize, and the finished document reaches you as a scan within the hour and by courier the same day, anywhere in Georgia or abroad. The same applies to ID cards and driving licenses. Every other personal document - a birth certificate, a police clearance certificate - must be presented in the original or as a legalized copy at the notarization step, and that difference is explained on each document's page.

Who needs a passport or ID card translation in Georgia

Georgian authorities work in Georgian, and a foreign passport is the first document a foreigner presents to almost every one of them. The Public Service Development Agency requires a notarized translation of the passport with every residence permit application - work, study, family, property, entrepreneurship - and with every renewal; the House of Justice requires it for company registration and for marriage, where it is the identity document of a foreign spouse; the National Agency of Public Registry requires it for property purchases and for founders and directors of companies; Georgian banks require it for account opening, and increasingly for compliance reviews of existing accounts; the Revenue Service for tax registration; notaries for every notarial act a foreigner signs; schools for enrollment; and mobile operators, landlords and employers ask for it routinely. Foreign national ID cards - the German Personalausweis, the Italian carta d'identità, the Turkish kimlik, the Kazakh identity card, the Malaysian MyKad, the Chinese resident identity card - are accepted by many of these offices in place of or alongside the passport, and are translated the same way.

Georgian passports and ID cards for use abroad

In the other direction, a Georgian passport is in Georgian and English and rarely needs translation, but the Georgian ID card, the old-format internal documents and the passport's stamps and visas sometimes do: consulates processing visa applications ask for translated ID cards of family members, foreign registries ask for a translated Georgian ID card when the passport has expired, foreign banks and employers ask for translated identity documents in their own language, and foreign courts and notaries ask for the passport's visa and entry stamp pages translated to prove residence history. We translate Georgian passports and ID cards into any of our 49 languages, notarize the translation and apostille it where the receiving country requires, and we translate the Georgian entry and exit stamps that immigration lawyers abroad use to document time spent in Georgia.

The machine-readable zone, transliteration and personal numbers

A passport translation is short, but three things on it are checked against every other document in your file. The machine-readable zone at the bottom of the data page carries the name in a fixed Latin transliteration, and we take the spelling of your name in Georgian, Russian, German or any other target script from that line rather than from the printed field, then record the spelling in your file so that every later translation - your birth certificate, your diploma, your police clearance certificate - matches it; a mismatch between documents is the most common reason a residence permit or visa file is queried. The personal number, passport number, dates of birth, issue and expiry, place of birth and issuing authority are reproduced exactly and re-checked by a second reader, because Georgian and foreign offices use them as identifiers. Where a document carries a name convention foreign to the receiving office - the Mongolian father's name in the surname field, the Malay bin and binti, the Icelandic patronymic, the Arabic four-part name, the Thai title that encodes marital status - we add a translator's note explaining it, which registrars accept.

Expired passports, old passports and unusual identity documents

Not every identity document is a current passport. Belarusian citizens who cannot renew passports abroad present expired passports with valid Georgian residence permits; we translate both together with a note, and advise which procedures accept the combination. Stateless persons and refugees present travel documents issued under the 1951 and 1954 Conventions, which have their own layout; people from countries with resident registration systems present internal passports or household registers alongside the international passport; older Georgians present Soviet-era documents in Russian; seafarers present seaman's books; and children present birth certificates in place of ID cards, or ID cards issued from an early age in countries that do so. We translate all of these, and where an office is unfamiliar with a document type we describe it in a translator's note.

Pricing, delivery and how to order

Passport and ID card translations are priced at a fixed rate per document, whatever the language, with a modest supplement for rare languages, plus the notary's fee per act; an e-Notary certified PDF with a qualified electronic signature is available at the same price for online submissions, and the apostille, where a foreign office asks for it on a passport translation, is charged at the state fee plus handling.

To order, send a clear photo of the data page - and of any pages with stamps or visas that the receiving office needs - on WhatsApp or Telegram, tell us the target language and the receiving office, and the quote arrives within 15 minutes. The notarized translation is ready within 1-2 hours, delivered as a scan the moment the notary signs, by collection at Agmashenebeli 117 near Marjanishvili Metro, by same-day courier in Tbilisi or by courier to Batumi, Kutaisi and any other city. Clients abroad receive it by email and, where paper is needed, by DHL with tracking.

Frequently asked questions

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