Urdu to English
Urdu to English Translation
This is the direction almost every visa and immigration file needs. Your Nikah Nama, NADRA certificates, board certificates, and affidavits are in Urdu, and the embassy, university, or employer reading them is not. Most of the difficulty is not the language — it is that Pakistani official documents are pre-printed forms completed by hand.
What is Urdu to English translation?
Urdu to English translation converts Pakistani documents into English for embassies, universities, and foreign employers. It is the direction most visa files need. Translation starts from Rs. 1,500, forms are reproduced as forms rather than prose, and names are transliterated to match your passport rather than spelled phonetically.
Starting price
Rs. 1,500
Direction
Urdu → English
Handled
In house
Our fastest and cheapest pairs
Documents we handle in this pair
- Nikah Nama and marriage records
- NADRA birth and family certificates
- Board and university certificates
- Police character certificates
- Affidavits and legal deeds
- CNIC and identity documents
The direction most files need
If you are preparing a visa, immigration, university, or foreign employment file from Pakistan, this is the pair you need. The documents you hold are in Urdu; the people assessing them read English.
What we translate most often:
- Nikah Nama and NADRA marriage certificates for spouse and family visas
- NADRA birth certificates, FRC, and Form B for family files
- Board and university certificates, where issued in Urdu
- Police character certificates for employment and immigration
- Affidavits, deeds, and talaq nama where a previous marriage has to be accounted for
- CNIC and identity documents
Why the difficulty is not the language
Urdu to English is not linguistically hard. What makes it hard is the form factor of Pakistani official documents.
Most of them are pre-printed government forms completed by hand, often years ago, sometimes by someone with difficult handwriting, and frequently stamped over the text. A translator who converts that into flowing English paragraphs has made it harder to verify, because the officer reading it is looking for column 14.
So the translation reproduces the form: the column number, the printed heading rendered in English, and the handwritten entry. Blank columns are marked blank rather than dropped. Illegible entries are marked illegible rather than guessed.
For the Nikah Nama specifically, columns 13 to 17 — prompt and deferred dower, special conditions, and delegated divorce — get the closest attention, because they are the longest handwritten entries and the ones that get questioned. Full detail is on the Nikah Nama translation page.
Transliteration is where files fail
The same Urdu name romanises several ways. Muhammad, Mohammad, Muhammed. All defensible. Only one matches your passport.
An officer comparing your translated certificate against your passport cannot confirm they refer to the same person if the spellings differ. This costs people appointments, and it is free to prevent: send a passport copy with the job and every document in the file gets the same spelling.
The same applies to waldiyat — the father’s name field — which is checked across the CNIC, the Nikah Nama, board certificates, and the passport. Send the whole set together rather than one document at a time, so the consistency check happens before submission rather than after.
Roman Urdu terms, and what they are in English
Clients ask for these by their Urdu names, so for clarity:
| Urdu term | What it is |
|---|---|
| Nikah nama / nikahnama | Marriage contract |
| Talaq nama / talaqnama | Divorce deed |
| Halaf nama / halafnama | Affidavit |
| Wakalat nama / mukhtarnama | Power of attorney |
| Shanakhti card | CNIC, national identity card |
| Waldiyat | Parentage or father’s name field |
| Sanad | Degree or certificate |
| Tasdeeq shuda tarjuma | Certified translation |
Price and turnaround
From Rs. 1,500 for most single documents. Nikah Nama and legal documents start from Rs. 3,000. Legibility is the main variable. Standard delivery is at the normal rate, 24-hour delivery at 1.5x to 2x, same-day at 2x subject to availability.
Send the full set together and it is quoted as a set rather than page by page, which is both cheaper and safer for consistency.
Related
Going the other way, see English to Urdu translation. For Gulf submissions that want Arabic rather than English, Urdu to Arabic goes directly rather than through English. Where a signed statement of accuracy is required, see certified translation. Before you order anything, why translated documents get rejected lists the twelve reasons files come back, and the top three all apply to this pair.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Urdu to English translation cost?
From Rs. 1,500 for most single documents, with Nikah Nama and marriage documents from Rs. 3,000 and legal documents from Rs. 3,000. Legibility drives the final figure more than page count does, because a faded handwritten form takes longer to read than a clean printed one takes to translate.
How should my name be spelled in the English translation?
Exactly as it appears on the passport you are submitting, not phonetically. Muhammad, Mohammad, and Muhammed are all defensible transliterations of the same Urdu name, and a mismatch between your translated certificate and your passport is the most common avoidable rejection on a visa file. Send a passport copy with the job.
My document is handwritten and hard to read. Can you still translate it?
Usually, but tell us before ordering. Send the clearest daylight photographs you can, flat, with all four corners and the margins visible. Where an entry genuinely cannot be read we mark it illegible rather than guessing, because a guessed reference number or date defeats the document's purpose.
Do you translate the stamps and seals?
Yes, described in position rather than omitted. Stamps, seals, registrar endorsements, and marginal notes are frequently the part the receiving office is verifying, so a translation that silently drops them looks incomplete against the original.
Will the translation keep the form layout?
Yes. A Nikah Nama or a board certificate is a numbered form, and an officer reading it is looking for a specific column, not a narrative. We reproduce the column number, the printed Urdu heading in English, and the handwritten entry, marking blank columns as blank.
Does an Urdu to English translation need to be certified?
For most embassy, university, and employer submissions, yes. A certified translation carries a signed statement of accuracy. Some authorities go further and require a sworn or approved-panel translator in the destination country, which no Pakistani translation can satisfy. Read your checklist wording and send it to us.
What is waldiyat and why does it matter?
Waldiyat is the parentage or father's name field on Pakistani documents. It is checked across your CNIC, Nikah Nama, board certificates, and passport, and an inconsistency between them, such as a full name on one and a shortened form on another, is a routine cause of a file being questioned. Send the whole set together so one spelling is applied throughout.
Need Urdu to English translation?
Send the document, the deadline, and the name of the office it is going to. We confirm the price and turnaround before any work starts.