5 November 2026 - Xavier Flanagan, Founder

How to get medical records translated in Australia

People search for “translate my medical records” for very different reasons, and the answer depends almost entirely on who is going to read the translation.

A government department deciding a visa or a claim.
A doctor who reads another language, here or overseas.
You, or family, trying to understand what a letter actually says.

Those three need three different things, and paying for the wrong one is common. A certified translation of a twenty-page discharge summary takes time and costs money. An app translation is quick, and will not meet Home Affairs’ translation requirements. This guide sorts out which is which.

Disclosure: I founded exora, a health-record app that translates records for reading. It appears once, near the end, and I am explicit there about what it is not.

When you need a translation at all

The usual situations:

Moving overseas. A new doctor needs your history, and it is in English.
Moving to Australia, or applying for a visa. Medical evidence from another country has to reach an Australian department in English.
Treatment abroad. A surgeon or a clinic asks for your scans, results and specialist letters before they will book you.
A doctor here who speaks your language better than you speak English - or the other way round, a parent whose English is not strong enough for the details.
Family overseas who help with care decisions and need to know what the hospital actually said.

The first question in every case is the same: is the reader an official body that has rules about translations, or a person who just needs to understand?

When it has to be certified: NAATI

In Australia, the body that certifies translators and interpreters is NAATI, the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. NAATI does not translate anything itself. It certifies the people who do, and keeps an online directory where certified practitioners can choose to be listed, searchable by language.

NAATI’s own guidance is that most government agencies in Australia require documents to be translated by someone who holds NAATI certification, where one is available in that language. Some, including government departments, will only accept a stamped translation. NAATI’s guidance on DFAT requirements says the stamp carries the translator’s practitioner ID, their language and type of certification, and their name, and can be physical or digital.

For immigration, the Department of Home Affairs’ standard wording on translated documents sets out the rule:

In Australia, use a translator accredited by NAATI.
Translators outside Australia do not have to be NAATI accredited.
Every translation must include the translator’s full name, address and telephone number, and their qualifications and experience in the language - all in English.

Two cautions. Some individual Home Affairs forms say all non-English documents need a NAATI translation without mentioning the overseas exception, so read the instructions on the exact form you are filing. And Home Affairs says plainly that if satisfactory evidence is not provided, the application may be refused. A medical report you cannot use is worse than one you never paid for.

If the document is going overseas and needs to be legalised - an apostille or an authentication from DFAT - the rules are stricter again. Since 1 July 2018, DFAT only accepts translations by translators holding current NAATI certification. The stamp details must appear on every translated page, and a copy of the original must be attached.

Two practical tips that save money:

Ask the receiving organisation first exactly which documents they need translated. A visa case officer may want a single specialist report, not your whole history.
The destination country sets its own rules. A NAATI translation is the Australian standard. A hospital or government overseas may want a translator certified in their country instead, so check before you pay twice.

When you need a person, not a document: TIS National

A lot of searches for “translate medical records” are really about a conversation. Someone needs to understand their GP, or explain their history to one. A written translation is the wrong tool for that. An interpreter is the right one.

The Australian Government’s Translating and Interpreting Service, TIS National, is run by the Department of Home Affairs. You can call 131 450 from anywhere in Australia to ask for an interpreter, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. From overseas the number is +61 3 9106 3162.

For doctor’s appointments there is something most people never hear about. Under the government’s Free Interpreting Service, private medical practitioners - GPs, nurse practitioners, endorsed midwives and approved specialists - can use TIS National interpreters for Medicare-rebatable services, for anyone in Australia who is eligible for Medicare. That covers phone interpreting within a few minutes of calling, pre-booked phone interpreting, video and on-site interpreters.

Two limits are worth knowing. It covers private practice: it cannot be used for government-funded public health services and programs. And it is the practitioner who registers for it and calls the interpreter, so tell the clinic when you book that you need an interpreter, and in which language. TIS National itself suggests pre-booking for planned appointments, and an on-site interpreter when a consultation is particularly complicated.

Please do not rely on a child or a relative to interpret a medical appointment. Consent, a new diagnosis and medicine instructions are exactly the moments where a word missed or softened matters, and it is the situation the service exists for.

When reading it is enough

Then there is the third reader: a person who just needs to understand. Your parent reading their own discharge summary. A sister in Lima helping decide about an operation. A doctor in Madrid who reads English slowly and would rather not guess at “bd prn”.

None of them needs a stamp. They need the content in their language, accurately, and some way to check it against the original. For this, a translation for reading is the right tool, and it is worth being clear about what a good one looks like:

Numbers must survive. A dose, a date or a result changed in translation is the error that hurts people.
Medical names should be the real names, not a literal word-for-word rendering. A medicine’s brand name also changes by country, which the travel guide covers in detail.
The original should be one tap or one page away, so anyone who doubts a line can check it.

Pasting a whole medical record into a general translation website is the option most people reach for. It handles none of those three reliably, and it means handing your health information to a service that was never built to hold it.

Where exora fits, and where it does not

exora is for the third reader. You upload your documents and it builds one health record from them, and that record reads in English, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese. Change the language and your conditions, medicines, allergies and operations change with it, and so do sentences like a medicine’s instructions, once a translation has been checked. Tap “Original wording” and the document’s own words are underneath.

Every sentence translation is checked by a second pass, with any objection decided by a different model, and compared number by number with the original. One that changes a number is never shown, and a line that has not passed shows as the document wrote it. A clinician you show the record to through the viewer can switch its names into their own language. And if you ask the chat a question in Spanish, it answers in Spanish - an AI explanation you can copy, not a translated document. The translation feature page has the details, including the limits.

What it is not: a certified translation. Nothing exora produces will satisfy Home Affairs, DFAT, a court or an insurer that asks for one. For those, use a NAATI-certified translator. For a conversation with your GP, ask for a TIS National interpreter.

If you are moving countries rather than visiting, moving countries with your medical records covers what to request before you leave.

The short version

Work out who will read the translation. An Australian government department usually wants a NAATI-certified translation, often stamped, and DFAT wants the stamp on every page. A conversation with your doctor needs an interpreter: call 131 450, or ask your GP to book one through the Free Interpreting Service. And for you, your family or a doctor who just needs to understand, a careful translation for reading, with the original beside it, is enough.

Sources

Checked against official sources in November 2026. This is general information, not medical or legal advice. How exora handles your information is in our privacy policy.