Case study: an urgent translation of a document package overnight before a flight

At 9 p.m. a client wrote in: the flight is at 11 a.m., in hand are an untranslated birth certificate, marriage certificate, employer's letter, and bank certificate, and all of it needs to be "certified". Let us go through point by point what of this is doable overnight and what is not.

What can be done

The translation itself of four standard documents — yes, in a few hours with two translators and an editor. A translation with the agency's stamp and scans to the client by email by morning — realistic. If the receiving side in the EU allows an electronic sworn translation with a qualified signature, that too is sometimes realistic — provided such a translator is available at night and knows about the order in advance.

What cannot be done

Notarisation at night — no. Notaries work their own hours, and there are no round-the-clock duty notaries for this task. An apostille — even less so: it is a state procedure measured in days, not hours. If the receiving side requires specifically a notarised translation with an apostille, it cannot be assembled overnight for any money, and the honest answer from an agency is "we won't make it, let's plan for the coming working days".

In that case the client had enough with translations bearing the agency's stamp to present at the airport and the border, and he ordered the notarised versions afterwards on arrival, because they were actually needed later. That came out with the very first question — "where and at which stage are the documents submitted".

How urgency affects the result

An urgent rate is not a "greed" surcharge but payment for the team's night work and editing on a tight schedule. The main risk of urgency is less time for matching names and for clarifying questions, which is why on urgent orders we especially insist on receiving the spelling of all names from the international passports in advance. Plan the translation 5–7 days before the trip — and you will simply not need the night rates.