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 New Zealand deciding a visa application.
- A doctor: a new GP here, or a clinic 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 long hospital file takes time and costs money. A translation in an app is quick, and will not meet Immigration New Zealand’s rules. This guide sorts out which is which.
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:
- Applying for a New Zealand visa, where a medical certificate or other medical evidence in another language has to reach Immigration New Zealand in English.
- Moving to New Zealand and enrolling with a GP, with years of records in another language.
- Moving abroad, or having treatment abroad. A surgeon or clinic overseas asks for your New Zealand 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 hospital letter.
The first question in every case is the same: is the reader an official body with rules about translations, or a person who just needs to understand?
Visas: what Immigration New Zealand accepts
Immigration New Zealand’s page on providing English translations of supporting documents sets out the rules, and they differ by visa type. Checked on 9 November 2026:
- Medical and police certificates need a certified English translation for every visa type, including visitor visas.
- Residence visas: all supporting documents must be in English or come with a certified English translation. For other visas, Immigration New Zealand recommends translating other evidence to speed things up.
- Visitor visas: other documents need a full English translation, but it does not have to be certified. The translation must include the translator’s full name, address, phone number, and something showing they understand both languages.
Who can do it:
- You cannot translate your own documents, and neither can a family member or the immigration adviser on your application.
- A certified translation can come from a reputable private or official translation business, or from a community member known for accurate translations. It should be on the business’s letterhead if possible, certified as a correct translation by the translator, and stamped or signed by the translator or business.
- Immigration New Zealand does not translate documents for you. Arrange it before you apply.
Two practical points follow.
- The original travels with the translation. Immigration New Zealand asks for both the original-language document and the English translation. Never send a translation on its own.
- Check the spelling of your name. The same page asks you to give the translator your name as it appears in English in your passport, and to list any other names in your translated documents in the “other names” section of the form. A mismatch between your passport and a translated medical report is an avoidable delay.
Your visa category may have its own requirements on top of these, so read the guidance for the exact application you are making.
Finding a translator: NZSTI and the Translation Service
Immigration New Zealand does not name a particular professional body. Two places to start:
The New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters (NZSTI) is the national professional body. Its website has a searchable directory of translators, which you can filter by language pair, region and speciality, so you can look for someone with medical experience. NZSTI’s membership categories tell you something about a translator: an “Accredited Practitioner” has “demonstrated a high level of certified and independently validated competency in translation or interpreting”, while “Practitioner” and “Provisional Practitioner” members are at earlier stages. Accredited Practitioner and Practitioner were formerly called Full Member and Affiliate.
You will also see NAATI mentioned. NAATI is Australia’s national certifying authority for translators and interpreters, and NZSTI says its certification is recognised by many New Zealand government agencies, many of which now require their interpreters to hold a NAATI credential. For a written translation for a visa, what Immigration New Zealand asks for is the certification set out above.
The Translation Service - Te Pūtahi Whakawhiti Reo is run by the Department of Internal Affairs and works for private individuals as well as government. It translates documents for citizenship and immigration, official documents to be used overseas, and others on request. It is a paid service: you email the document for a quote, and a private individual pays before the work begins.
The useful habit, whoever you use: get clear instructions on the form of translation from the organisation that asked for it, before you pay anyone.
At the hospital or GP: you need an interpreter, not a document
A lot of searches for “translate medical records” are really about a conversation. Someone needs to understand their doctor, or explain their history to one. A written translation is the wrong tool for that. An interpreter is the right one.
It is also a right. The Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights gives every consumer the right to effective communication in a form, language and manner they can understand, and “where necessary and reasonably practicable, this includes the right to a competent interpreter” (Right 5).
Hospitals can arrange one. Health New Zealand’s Christchurch Hospital page, for example, says: “We have a free interpreter service if you do not speak English as your first language”, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that you can ask your nurse or doctor to arrange one. Arrangements are set hospital by hospital, so check your own hospital’s page or ask the ward.
At a GP practice it is less clear-cut. I could not find a single national rule that makes interpreting free at every practice, so say you need an interpreter, and in which language, when you book, and ask whether there is a charge. Interpreters often need notice.
I would not rely on a child to interpret. A child should not have to carry a parent’s diagnosis, and a patient may not be able to speak freely with a family member in the room. A trained interpreter is there for both of you.
Moving to New Zealand: enrolling with a GP
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 first? Not necessarily. A 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.
Overseas treatment and insurance
Here the reader is outside New Zealand, and the receiving organisation sets its own rules. A hospital in Sydney is likely to be fine with your English letters. A government or insurer elsewhere may want a translator certified in their own country, or a document authenticated with an apostille. Ask, in writing, exactly which documents they need and in what form, before you pay twice.
Getting the records themselves is the easy part. Under rule 6 of the Health Information Privacy Code 2020, you have a right to your health information from any New Zealand provider, and it is usually free. Our New Zealand records guide walks through it.
Where machine translation helps, and where it does not
For anything official, machine translation is simply not an option. Immigration New Zealand will not accept a translation you produced yourself, and an app cannot certify its work, sign it or give a translator’s name and qualifications.
But there is a third reader, who just needs to understand. Your mum reading her own discharge summary. A brother in Manila 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 Immigration New Zealand applies, for the same reason.
Pasting a whole medical record into a general translation website handles none of those 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 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 Immigration New Zealand, a court, an insurer or anyone else that asks for one. For those, use a professional translator. For a hospital or 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 connection to Health New Zealand. exora has no link to My Health Record, your GP’s portal or any Health New Zealand system, and no New Zealand health-data certification.
- Your data is stored in Sydney, Australia, outside New Zealand. 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 keeping records for several people, such as a parent who reads another language, my guide to family health records in New Zealand covers who can see what.
The short version
Work out who will read the translation. Immigration New Zealand wants the original plus an English translation by someone other than you, your family or your adviser, and a certified one for medical certificates and for residence applications. The NZSTI directory and the Department of Internal Affairs Translation Service are good places to find a translator. A conversation with a doctor needs an interpreter, which is your right where necessary and reasonably practicable, and free at hospitals such as Christchurch. 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
- Immigration New Zealand: providing English translations of supporting documents (certified translations, visitor visas, who can translate, originals, names)
- NZSTI, membership categories and NAATI certification
- Department of Internal Affairs: the Translation Service, documents we translate and how to pay
- Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights, Right 5 (competent interpreter)
- Health New Zealand: Christchurch Hospital (free interpreter service)
- Health Information Privacy Code 2020, rule 6 (access to your health information)
Claims about Immigration New Zealand, translators and interpreting are sourced to Immigration New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs, NZSTI, the Health and Disability Commissioner and Health New Zealand, linked inline, and were checked on 9 November 2026. Rules and arrangements 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.
