Quick summary: There is no single turnaround figure, because a certified translation is a person's work rather than a machine's output. The variables are the language direction, how many pages there are, how legible your file is, how much layout the document carries, and the review at the end. The last thing anyone tells you is the one that matters most: the quality of the file you upload decides a large part of the timeline before the translator has started.
"How long will it take?" is a fair question with an unsatisfying answer, and most published answers are marketing rather than information.
What is genuinely useful is knowing which parts of the timeline you control. Roughly half of it is settled before you place the order.
The parts you do not control
Language direction availability
NAATI certifies translators by direction — a language into English, and English into that language — and tests each direction separately. A translator certified to work from Vietnamese into English is not automatically certified the other way.
That matters for scheduling because the pool of available practitioners is not "translators", it is "translators certified in your specific direction, who are free this week". For widely-held directions that pool is deep. For less common ones it is not, and turnaround follows availability rather than page count.
Page count
Certified translation is not only translating text. Every page carries certification obligations.
For documents going to DFAT for legalisation, the translator's practitioner ID, language and type of certification, name, date and signature or digital authentication must appear on every translated page, along with a signed or stamped copy of the original. NAATI recommends translators adopt that as standard practice generally.
So a ten-page document is not ten times the reading. It is ten times the reading plus ten times the certification handling.
Review
A certified translation carries a named practitioner's credential. That is a professional undertaking, and the checking step at the end is not optional padding.
The parts you do control
This is where the useful advice lives.
Image quality
The Department of Home Affairs asks applicants to scan the original document in colour, ensure the scan is legible, and save a multi-page document as one file.
Those requirements exist for the Department's own assessment, and they happen to describe exactly what a translator needs. A file that meets them goes straight into the work. A file that does not produces an email, a wait for your reply, a re-upload, and a restart.
The most common causes of that round trip are shadow across the page, cropped edges, glare on laminated documents, greyscale scans that flatten coloured seals, and photographs taken at an angle.
Completeness
Send the whole document the first time. Reverse sides, blank-looking pages carrying a stamp, annexures, and the back of an identity card are all part of the record, and discovering a missing page halfway through is a full stop rather than a hiccup.
Answering questions quickly
Where a translator queries an illegible date or an ambiguous name, the clock is with you, not them. A same-day reply keeps the job moving; a two-day reply usually costs two days.
Format choice
Ordering a posted hard copy adds production and postage after the translation is finished. If your lodgement is an online upload, a digital PDF removes that entirely.
NAATI's own reasoning for introducing digital stamps is instructive here: before them, translators had to print their work, stamp, sign and date every page, then scan the whole lot back in before sending it. Digital stamps removed that cycle, which is a real, structural saving on every job.
Documents that take longer than their length suggests
Some documents are slow for reasons unrelated to word count:
- Heavy layout — tables, columns, certificates with complex arrangement. The translation must present the same information in a comparable structure.
- Handwriting, especially older or cursive script.
- Faded or damaged originals, where legibility work precedes translation work.
- Multiple seals and stamps, each needing faithful notation.
- Documents spanning years, such as academic transcripts or employment references, where consistency across entries has to be maintained.
Urgent work
Urgency is real and it is bounded. What can compress is scheduling — a translator picking the job up immediately rather than in turn. What cannot compress indefinitely is the reading, the typing, the certification handling and the check.
Two honest limits worth knowing before you promise a deadline to someone else:
A rush cannot fix a bad file. If the image is illegible, urgency does not help; a better scan does.
Availability still binds. In a less common language direction, "urgent" depends on whether a certified practitioner in that direction is free, and no amount of paying more creates one.
Getting a real answer
The only reliable turnaround figure is one given after someone has seen your actual document — its length, its condition, its language direction and its layout.
That is why LodgeHQ Translate quotes from the uploaded file rather than from a price list: the file is the thing that determines both the price and the time.
A short checklist before you order
- Scan in colour, at a resolution where the smallest print is readable when you zoom in.
- Include every page, including reverse sides and anything that looks blank.
- Save multi-page documents as one file.
- Check the file yourself at full size before uploading.
- Choose digital delivery unless your recipient has specifically asked for paper.
- Watch for questions and answer them the same day.
Home Affairs publishes its document and translation requirements and NAATI publishes its practitioner identification guidance; both are updated over time, so check them if your document is unusual.