NAATI-Certified Thai Translation — for Australian & International Filings

NAATI — the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters — is the sole body that credentials translators for Australian government use. Each Certified Practitioner has a seven-digit CPN listed on naati.com.au. The Department of Home Affairs, AHPRA, ACS, VETASSESS, TRA and every state health/teacher registrar accept a NAATI-stamped translation as prima facie evidence that the English rendering is accurate. Consular attestation, notarisation and MFA legalisation certify signatures, not translation quality — that is why NAATI is the correct product for Australian visa, migration, skills-assessment and registration files.

No. NAATI permits translation from a scanned copy provided every character, signature, stamp and serial number is legible. The certificate we return states 'translated from a scanned copy of the original', which Home Affairs accepts on every subclass. Post the physical original only if the receiving body has specifically demanded a hardcopy set — email us a photo of their request and we will confirm before you courier anything.

The translation itself has no statutory expiry — a NAATI-stamped birth certificate remains valid indefinitely under Home Affairs policy. The underlying source document may have a shelf-life set by the receiving authority: police clearances are usually 6–12 months old, bank statements 3 months, medicals 12 months. Confirm the freshness rule with the specific case officer or registrar handling your file.

Fixed per-page fees start at THB 400 for identity documents, THB 500–700 for civil-registry certificates, THB 700–1,500 for academic transcripts and THB 900–1,500 for legal instruments. A standard file returns as a signed PDF in 24–48 business hours. Rush lanes: 24-hour delivery adds 30–50%, and 4–6 hour express is available for short standard documents. We lock the exact quote and turnaround in writing within 15 minutes of receiving your scan.

For Australian visas (500, 820/801, 309/100, 189, 190, 482, 186, 143, citizenship) the NAATI stamp is sufficient — no MFA/consular step is required before lodging in ImmiAccount. If the same translated document is being filed in Thailand (Thai marriage registration, Thai passport renewal, Thai court proceedings) it may still need MFA authentication of the Thai original plus embassy attestation of the NAATI certificate. We route each file through the correct chain when we quote you.

New Zealand (INZ), the United Kingdom (UKVI treats NAATI as an equivalent certified translation), Canada (IRCC accepts on most streams), Singapore (ICA), UAE, Ireland and most EU states that accept a 'certified translation' without a sworn-translator monopoly. For destinations that require a locally sworn translator — Germany's beeidigter Übersetzer, Spain's traductor jurado, Italy's traduzione asseverata — we route the file through our sworn-translator network instead. Ask before ordering and we will confirm coverage in writing.

A Certified Practitioner (CPT) has passed the NAATI certification exam and is required to recertify every three years by logging professional-development points. This is the level accepted for all government submissions in Thai↔English. A Recognised Practitioner is a lower tier used only for languages where NAATI has not yet built a certification pathway; it is not accepted for most Home Affairs use cases. Our roster is Certified Practitioner only for Thai↔English.

The industry standard is 250 source words = one billable page. A Thai birth certificate typically bills as one page even though the paper has content on both sides. A four-year Thai bachelor's transcript usually runs 2–4 pages depending on subject density. We count the pages on your scan and confirm the final number in the fixed quote before starting — you never pay more than the locked figure.

The core practice is Thai↔English NAATI Certified. Through our practitioner network we also cover Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Khmer, Burmese, Bahasa Indonesia, Tagalog, Hindi and Arabic paired with English under NAATI credentials. Ask before ordering and we will confirm the exact practitioner CPN we will assign to your file.

A valid stamp shows the practitioner name, seven-digit CPN, language pair, direction, certification level and — since 2018 — a QR code that resolves to naati.com.au/online-verification. Enter the CPN there and the record must return the same name, pair and 'currently certified' status. Absent QR codes, mismatched CPNs, expired certificates and stamps issued in the practitioner's own PDF are the most common forgery signals. Home Affairs case officers run this check routinely.

Send scans by email, LINE, WhatsApp, or the website form. We reply with a fixed quote within 15 minutes during business hours (GMT+7). Pay by international card, PayPal, TransferWise/Wise, PromptPay or Thai bank transfer. The signed PDF returns in 24–48 hours; hardcopy sets ship the same or next business day via DHL Express to any Australian address, typically 2–4 business days.

For 1–3 pages of a standard civil-registry document (birth certificate, ID card, driver licence, household registration) we can return a signed PDF in 4–6 hours when the file arrives before 15:00 Bangkok time. Longer transcripts and legal instruments are quoted case-by-case — a full four-year transcript will not be safely delivered in 4 hours regardless of the fee. We will tell you honestly at quote time whether the deadline is realistic.