Translating Academic Transcripts, Diplomas, and Certificates

Common use cases

Academic transcripts, diplomas, and certificates are frequently translated for university applications, professional licensing, and visa or immigration processes — each with its own formatting and certification expectations. A student applying to a foreign university typically needs a certified translation submitted alongside the original transcript, sometimes routed through a credential evaluation service that assesses how a Brazilian degree or grading scale compares to the receiving country's system. A professional seeking to have a foreign license or degree recognized in Brazil goes through a different process entirely — often involving a Brazilian federal university's diploma revalidation procedure — which typically has its own translation and certification requirements, separate from what a foreign university or immigration office would ask for.

Formatting matters

Academic documents often include grading scales, course titles, and institutional seals that need to be represented clearly in the target language, sometimes alongside the original layout. Brazil's typical 0-to-10 grading scale, for instance, does not map onto a 4.0 GPA scale or a UK-style degree classification by simple arithmetic conversion, so a careful translation represents the original scale accurately and leaves any conversion or equivalency judgment to the institution or credential evaluator receiving the document, rather than attempting to convert it during translation. Course titles need to be rendered consistently when a transcript lists the same course across multiple semesters, and institutional seals, signatures, and letterhead should be described or represented in a way that preserves what a receiving registrar needs to see to validate the document's origin.

Certified translation versus sworn translation

This distinction matters more for academic documents than people expect. STIB provides certified translation of transcripts, diplomas, and certificates, with independent second-linguist review — accepted by many foreign universities, employers, and immigration authorities that ask for a certified translation with a translator's certification statement. Some Brazilian government processes, however — including certain diploma revalidation procedures at federal universities — specifically require a sworn (juramentada) translation performed by a tradutor público juramentado registered with a state Junta Comercial, which is a distinct, government-registered function that STIB does not provide. Confirming which one a specific receiving institution requires, before translation begins, is the single most useful step in avoiding delay. Because the sworn-translator role is government-registered rather than something any qualified translator can perform, a document that turns out to require sworn translation cannot simply be re-certified after the fact — it needs to go through that separate, registered channel, which is exactly the kind of rework a short upfront check is meant to prevent.

Apostille and cross-border recognition

Since Brazil joined the Hague Apostille Convention in 2016, a Brazilian academic document intended for use in another member country can often be apostilled to simplify its legal recognition abroad, and the reverse applies to a foreign diploma or transcript being used in Brazil. An apostille addresses the document's legal authentication, not its translation — the two are separate requirements that are frequently both needed, and it is worth checking with the receiving institution whether it wants the apostille applied to the original document, the translation, or both.

Volume and consistency across a full academic record

A single application often requires more than one document translated together — a diploma, a full multi-year transcript, and sometimes supporting certificates or reference letters — and these need to describe the same institution, the same degree title, and the same dates consistently across every page. A transcript that lists a course by one title in year two and a slightly different translation of the same course title in year four creates exactly the kind of inconsistency an admissions officer or credential evaluator is trained to question, even when the underlying academic record is not actually in doubt. Treating the full set as one project, with one glossary of institution and course names applied throughout, avoids that problem.

Check requirements before you start

Different institutions and agencies have different requirements for how a translated academic document should be certified or formatted — it's worth confirming those requirements before translation begins to avoid a second round of work. A credential evaluation service, a university admissions office, an immigration authority, and a Brazilian federal university's revalidation committee can each specify a different combination of certified translation, sworn translation, and apostille, and finding that out after a document has already been translated the wrong way costs more time than a short confirmation call at the outset.