Sworn translation for a file to be filed in Tournai or in France
from Tournai to Mouscron and Ath
A Belgian counter or a French town hall is waiting for your file: here is what it needs, and nothing else. Marriage, nationality, degree recognition, a car bought in northern France: no second trip to the counter.
1 h
To receive the costing
24 h
Express on a civil status record
70+
Working languages
0
Trips for you to make
The paperwork the private clients & formalities sector generates
Plenty of families here live on both sides of the border: a marriage celebrated in Lille, a child born in Tournai, a parent spending their last years in a French care home. Every move from one civil status system to the other calls for documents, and almost always for a translation or an adaptation. Most people who ring us already hold the list from the counter: our first job is to read it with them.
Civil status
Birth, marriage, divorce and death records, acknowledgement of a child and the French family record book.
Belgian documents for France
Records, attestations and certificates for a French town hall, a notary or a French body, cast in their own administrative wording.
Court decisions
Divorce judgments, rulings on parental authority, adoptions and measures that have to be recognised in the other country.
Schooling and diplomas
Reports, attendance certificates and qualifications needed to enrol a child or to build an equivalence application.
Licences and vehicles
A driving licence issued outside Belgium, the registration document and the certificate of conformity of a vehicle brought in from abroad.
Legalisation at FPS Justice
Where the recipient wants a legalised signature, we take care of it. An apostille concerns the original document and is requested elsewhere: we tell you where.
The private clients & formalities sector ten kilometres from France
People who call us almost always have a list of documents in front of them and a date already booked. So we start by sorting: is the sworn translation enough? does the signature also have to be legalised? does the country of origin require an apostille on the original document? The answers change from one office to the next, and a paper ordered for nothing stays a paper paid for nothing.
Here a good share of the formalities crosses the border. A marriage celebrated in Tournai with a spouse living in France, a birth registered on the French side, a benefit claimed from a French agency, a car bought in the north and registered in Belgium: each time, a document has to be understood by an administration that does not know our headings. We put it into the terms of the office that will read it, and we tell you in advance what else that office will ask for. The other major flow is Dutch, for files going up to neighbouring Flanders or to a bilingual federal service.
You will not have to travel. A sharp photograph is enough to start the translation, and the stamped copy is delivered to you by post against signature. If your deadline is close, say so in your first message: we produce a sworn translation in 24 to 48 hours when it is needed.
- Birth, marriage, divorce, death
- Record of convictions and good conduct
- Degree to be recognised in Belgium or elsewhere
- Driving licence and vehicle papers from abroad
Situations that need someone in the room
The counter gives you ten minutes, and an incomplete file leaves with a fresh appointment. An interpreter saves you that second round.
Municipality and welfare centre
Population desk, civil status, residence and a social assistance interview, in the district capital as much as in the neighbouring municipalities.
Marriage and cohabitation
Lodging the marriage file, the ceremony itself and a declaration of legal cohabitation.
Appointment at the notary
An estate, a division or the signing of a power of attorney when an heir cannot read the language of the deed.
Medical appointment
A consultation or a hospital stay, in person or by phone when the situation cannot wait.
A Belgian document is not automatically readable by a French authority, even when it is written in French. A French town hall, a French family allowance fund or a French notary know nothing of a bourgmestre in the Belgian sense, of a household composition or of a national register number: those words appear on none of their forms. Adapting a Belgian record for France, or the reverse, is a job in its own right, and it is the job that prevents the most wasted appointments.
Four steps, from the photo to the document
One project manager keeps your private clients & formalities file from start to finish: nothing gets lost between one contact and the next.
- 01
Send the document as it is
A phone photo will do, crooked framing included. Booking an interpreter instead? Give us the day, the address and the two languages in the room.
- 02
Price and delivery date in 1 h
The quote states the amount, the deadline and the route: sworn where an authority demands it, standard everywhere else. Nothing to pay, nothing to sign.
- 03
A linguist from the field takes over
Your text goes to someone who works with private clients & formalities terminology daily, and a second person reads it through before anything is sent.
- 04
Delivery or on-site assignment
The document arrives by email; the stamped copy follows by registered post if a counter insists on the original. For a spoken assignment, the interpreter is there on the hour.
Is a French counter asking for a Belgian document?
Photograph the paper and send it over. Within the hour you know what is needed, by when and at what price.
What changes once a private clients & formalities file reaches us
The French of the receiving authority
We write in the words of the office that will read the document: maire and mairie on one side, bourgmestre and commune on the other. The meaning does not change, the welcome at the counter does.
Nothing to print, nothing to travel for
You photograph, we send a file back. If the stamped copy is required, it goes by registered post to a Belgian or a French address.
The right specialist, not the first one free
A specialised text goes to a linguist who works in that field. A short deadline does not suspend the rule, it only means searching faster.
Confidentiality put in writing
Anyone who opens your file has signed a confidentiality undertaking beforehand. Files sit on European infrastructure and are wiped the moment you ask in writing.
No line added afterwards
The figure you approve at the start is the one on the invoice. Revision, layout and delivery are already inside it, with nothing surfacing at the end.
The drive is not charged to you
Reaching Tournai, Mouscron, Ath, Lessines, Péruwelz, Comines-Warneton or Beloeil costs you nothing extra in travel.
Frequently asked questions
Does a French birth certificate have to be translated?
It is already in French, so no. The sticking point is elsewhere: the Belgian municipality sometimes wants a recent copy from the French town hall, then a transcription into the register. We step in for the documents that are not in French, and tell you plainly when our work would serve no purpose.
And a Belgian document that a French authority asks for?
There the work does exist, even without a change of language. Belgian headings carry no weight in a French file, and the office returns the document without always saying why. We adopt the wording the recipient expects and add a note on whatever has no counterpart.
Do I have to come to Tournai?
Never. Quote, upload, payment and delivery all happen online, from 8am to 10pm, seven days a week. Where a counter insists on the stamped copy, it goes by registered post to the address you give us, in Belgium or abroad.
My appointment is close: is it still feasible?
Call us rather than write, and give the exact date. We check straight away whether a sworn translator is free for your combination and answer without hedging: in the common languages a civil status record goes out in 24 to 48 h. When it cannot be done, we say that too.
Get your free quote within the hour
Send us your document or your date: firm price, precise deadline, no obligation. You then decide, with everything in front of you.