People search for “translate my medical records” for very different reasons, and the right answer depends almost entirely on who is going to read the translation.
- An official body, such as Immigration Service Delivery deciding an application, or an authority abroad.
- A doctor: a new GP here, or a clinic overseas.
- You, or family, trying to understand what a letter actually says.
Those three need different things, and paying for the wrong one is common. A certified translation of a long hospital file takes time and money. A translation in an app is quick, and will not meet an official body’s rules.
Disclosure
I am a doctor, and I founded exora, a personal health record app that can show your record in another language 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:
- An Irish visa or immigration application, where medical evidence from another country has to be in English or Irish.
- Moving to Ireland and joining a GP practice, with years of records in another language.
- Moving abroad, or having treatment abroad. A surgeon or clinic overseas asks for your Irish letters and results before they will see you.
- An insurer, here or abroad, that wants your history in its own language.
- A parent or relative whose English is not strong enough for the details of a clinic letter.
The first question is always the same: is the reader an official body with rules, or a person who just needs to understand?
Who certifies translations in Ireland
Many countries have sworn translators appointed by a court or a ministry. Ireland’s immigration service describes something less formal. Its guidance says “a translator or translation company with an established professional reputation and strong relationships with official organisations may qualify to make certified translations” (Irish Immigration Service Delivery).
The professional body to know is the Association of Translators and Interpreters Ireland (ATII). If you have seen the name ITIA, the Irish Translators’ and Interpreters’ Association, it is the same organisation: it changed its name to ATII in 2023.
The ATII runs a qualification called ATII Certified Legal Translator, introduced as an examination in 2006 and renamed in 2016. Only members in its top Professional category can sit the exam, and it is passed one language pair at a time. The ATII’s guidance on certified translation sets out the rules that come with it:
- A certified legal translator may only certify their own translations, and only in the language pair they are certified for, such as French into English.
- They must be given the original documents or certified copies, and may not certify a translation made from a scanned or faxed copy.
- Only members with this status are permitted to use their ATII membership to certify translations.
The ATII publishes an up-to-date list of its certified legal translators by language pair, and a search on its site. You contact the translator directly.
What “certified translation” means in practice
The ATII defines a certified translation as one “stamped and signed by the translator” with a statement confirming that it is “a true, accurate and correct rendering” of the document. It adds that a certified translation must reflect the layout of the original.
Irish immigration’s own guidance on certifying is similar. It says a certified document is one “signed and dated by a recognised person or organisation as a true copy or translation of the original”, and asks the person certifying to:
- write “Certified to be true copy/translation of the original seen by me” on the document
- sign and date it
- print their name under the signature
- add their occupation, address and telephone number
For a certified copy, as opposed to a translation, the same page lists who may qualify: a solicitor, a notary public, a commissioner for oaths or a peace commissioner (Irish Immigration Service Delivery).
Visas and immigration: what Ireland asks for
The general rule on Irish visa applications is short. The Embassy of Ireland in Abu Dhabi’s visa page, for example, says all documents must be “original”, “legible”, “verifiable”, and “in English or Irish, or translated with a certified translation” (ireland.ie: visas for Ireland).
There is one useful exception for documents from elsewhere in Europe. Irish immigration says State-issued certificates, such as birth, marriage, death and divorce certificates, issued in the EEA or Switzerland do not need to be attested as genuine, and do not need translating if you also provide a multilingual standard form, which the issuing country supplies on request (ISD). That covers civil certificates, not hospital records.
Three practical points follow.
- Send the original with the translation. A certified translation says it is a translation “of the original seen by me”. Keep the two together, and never send a translation on its own.
- Translate what is asked for, not everything. If an application needs one medical report, ask whether that one report is enough, rather than translating a twenty-page file.
- Read the checklist for your exact application. Embassies and visa offices publish their own checklists, and some add requirements. The application you are making sets the rule, not a general article like this one.
Given the stakes, a professional translator who will put their name, signature, contact details and credentials on the translation, such as an ATII Certified Legal Translator for your language pair, is the safe choice.
Using Irish records abroad: the apostille
Sometimes a country abroad wants proof that an Irish document is genuine. That is done by the Department of Foreign Affairs, which checks the signature, seal or stamp on an Irish public document and attaches an authentication or apostille. What it says:
- It works on Irish documents only. “We cannot legalise foreign documents.” A medical record from another country has to be dealt with in that country.
- Medical reports can be apostilled, if they are originals, “signed and dated by a doctor on the Medical Council of Ireland Register, and stamped with an original wet ink stamp”.
- Translations have their own rule. A translated document must be translated by an Irish registered translator, meaning one registered with the ATII or an Irish registered translation company with a CRO number, and then notarised. The translator signs, dates and states their qualification, and the documents are bound together.
- The fee is €40 per authentication or apostille stamp. The DFA issues physical stamps on paper documents, from its offices in Dublin and Cork, and does not currently offer a digital service.
- Ask first. The DFA says it “cannot tell you if your document needs to be legalised for use abroad”. The authority that asked for the document will tell you. Within the EU, certain public documents, such as birth certificates, no longer need an apostille at all.
Moving to Ireland with records in another language
Your records from abroad will not follow you automatically. Bring copies of what matters most: a summary of conditions and operations, your current medicines and doses, allergies, vaccinations, and recent results and specialist letters. Our guide to moving countries with your medical records covers what to request before you leave.
Do you have to pay to translate them all first? I could not find an HSE rule saying either way. In practice a new GP may only need the discharge summary from your heart operation, not your childhood vaccination book. So ask the practice what they would like before you pay for anything, and keep the originals: they are the record.
At the GP or hospital: you may need an interpreter, not a document
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.
Interpreters are part of Irish healthcare. The HSE’s Emergency Multi-Lingual Aid, for example, is a staff tool “intended for use prior to requesting the services of an interpreter or while awaiting the interpreter’s arrival” (HSE). If you are Deaf or hard of hearing, Citizens Information says you are entitled to interpretation services in public hospitals, and should tell the hospital before your visit so it can arrange this (Citizens Information, page edited June 2023).
Beyond that, I could not find a current HSE page setting out, for every patient, when an interpreter is provided and whether it is free. So the practical advice is to say you need an interpreter, and in which language, when you book, and ask whether the practice or hospital can arrange one and whether it costs anything. A longer appointment is often needed too, so ask about that at the same time.
As a doctor, I would ask you not to rely on a child to interpret. A child should not be carrying a parent’s diagnosis, and people often cannot say everything with family in the room.
Overseas treatment and insurance
Here the reader is outside the Irish system, and the receiving organisation sets its own rules. A hospital in Lisbon may be happy with your English letters. A government or insurer abroad may want a translator certified in their own country, or an apostille from the DFA. Ask, in writing, exactly which documents they need and in what form, before you pay twice.
Two things worth knowing first. You can get copies of your records from the HSE, your GP or a private provider with a subject access request under the GDPR, and the first copy is free; our Ireland records guide walks through it. But a doctor writing a medical report for an insurer is a separate piece of work, and may carry a fee, so a records copy and an insurer’s report are not the same request.
Where machine translation helps, and where it does not
For anything official, machine translation is simply not an option. It cannot sign, stamp or date a certifying statement, give an occupation and address, or hold an ATII certification, which is what the bodies above ask for.
But there is a third reader, who just needs to understand. Your mam reading her own discharge summary. A sister in Madrid helping decide about an operation. A doctor abroad who reads English slowly and would rather not guess at “bd prn”.
None of them needs a certificate. They need the content in their language, accurately, and a way to check it. A good translation for reading has three properties:
- 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.
- The original should travel with it, one tap or one page away, so anyone who doubts a line can check. It is the same principle a certified translation follows, for the same reason.
Pasting a whole medical record into a general translation website handles none of those reliably, and hands your health information to a service never built to hold it. Under the GDPR, health data is special category data for exactly this reason; I wrote more about that in chatting to AI about your medical records in Ireland.
Where exora fits, and where it does not
exora is a personal health record app, and it is for the third reader. You upload documents, such as PDFs, photos or scans, and exora reads them for you, with a reading system built for medical records. It builds one record from them, and that record reads in English, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese. Change the language and your conditions, medicines and allergies change with it, and so do many sentences, once a translation has been checked. Visit summaries and some medicine explanations stay in English for now. Tap “Original wording” and the document’s own words are underneath. exora is free to start, with an optional membership.
exora writes each translation, checks it a second time, and settles any doubt separately. Then every number is compared with the original. A translation that changes a number is never shown; you see the original wording instead. A doctor you share your record with can choose their own language in the viewer; names switch, and longer sentences stay as written for now. It does not translate the document you uploaded, which stays exactly as it was. The translation feature page has the details.
Where it does not help, plainly:
- It is not a certified translation. Nothing exora produces will satisfy Irish immigration, an embassy, the Department of Foreign Affairs, a court, an insurer or anyone else that asks for a certified translation. For those, use a professional translator, such as an ATII Certified Legal Translator. For a GP appointment, ask for an interpreter.
- It can misread. The reading and translating are automated, so check anything that matters against the original. That is why the original is always one tap away.
- No HSE connection. exora has no link to the HSE Health App, your GP’s system or any HSE service, and no Irish health-data certification.
- Your data is stored in Sydney, Australia, outside the EU. How we handle it is on our security page; read it before you upload anything.
- It is not medical advice. It organises and explains your information. It does not diagnose or tell you what to do.
If you are translating for a parent or child, my guide to managing family health records in Ireland covers what you are allowed to see on their behalf.
The short version
Work out who will read the translation. Irish immigration wants documents in English or Irish, or with a certified translation signed and dated by a translator with a professional reputation, sent with the original. To use an Irish document abroad, the DFA can apostille it for €40 a stamp, and a translation it apostilles must come from an ATII-registered translator or a registered Irish translation company and be notarised. Anyone else official sets its own rules, so ask them first. A conversation with your GP needs an interpreter, so ask when you book. 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
- Irish Immigration Service Delivery: how to make a certified translation of a document (who can certify, wording, EEA certificates and multilingual standard forms)
- ireland.ie: visas for Ireland (documents in English or Irish, or with a certified translation)
- Department of Foreign Affairs: authentication and apostille of Irish public documents (Irish documents only, medical reports, translations, fees, ask the requesting authority)
- ATII: about certified translation (definition, Certified Legal Translator rules, register) and ATII: history (formerly ITIA, renamed 2023)
- HSE: Emergency Multi-Lingual Aid
- Citizens Information: hospital services (interpretation for Deaf and hard of hearing patients)
- GDPR, Article 15 (right of access to your records)
Claims about Irish immigration, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the ATII and HSE services are sourced to irishimmigration.ie, ireland.ie, atii.ie, the HSE and Citizens Information, linked inline, and were checked on 9 November 2026. Rules, fees and guidance change; this page will be updated as they do. This article is general information, not medical, legal or immigration advice. How exora handles your information is in our privacy policy.
