Quick summary: Every NAATI-certified translator has a Certified Practitioner Number — nine characters beginning with "CPN", for example CPN7MF89K. You can check it free using NAATI's verification tool, or by scanning the QR code on a digital stamp. The result shows the credentials that person holds and whether they are current. The part people misread is the "valid to" date on a stamp: it is the expiry of the translator's credential, not of your translation.
Anyone can put the word "NAATI" on a website. What cannot be faked is a practitioner number that checks out against NAATI's own records.
Verifying takes about a minute and costs nothing, and it is worth doing before you pay rather than after a receiving authority queries the document. Here is where to look and, more usefully, how to read what comes back.
Where to find the number
On a completed translation, the practitioner number appears on the translator's stamp. If you are choosing a translator before ordering, it should be available on request — a certified practitioner has no reason to withhold it.
Translators certify their work with a stamp. Interpreters carry an ID card, which NAATI issues only to practitioners holding an interpreter credential. If you are having a document translated, the stamp is the relevant artefact.
What a valid CPN looks like
NAATI states the format precisely. A practitioner number is 9 characters long and always starts with "CPN", followed by a number, two letters, two numbers and a letter — for example, CPN7MF89K.
That structure is a useful first filter. A number that does not fit it is either not a CPN or has been transcribed wrongly.
Numbers that are not CPNs
If you are shown a purely numerical practitioner number — something like 12453 — it is not from the current system, and this is not necessarily a problem.
The NAATI Certification System began in January 2018 and replaced an accreditation system that ran from 1977 to 2017. Practitioners accredited before 2007 were awarded accreditation for life, and some people still hold active accreditations from that period. You may therefore encounter NAATI translator stamps with no expiry date at all.
Two things follow.
Those old stamps are still valid. NAATI compares them to a university degree: they did not expire. Stamps issued under the former accreditation system are no longer produced, but translations carrying them remain valid indefinitely.
They are verified differently. The online tool covers certification. To verify an accreditation, NAATI asks that you email [email protected].
NAATI's own recommendation is nonetheless to engage only NAATI-certified translators, so that you know the practitioner has current, up-to-date skills and experience — certified practitioners must recertify every three years, and a credential expires after three years if they do not.
How to verify
The verification tool
NAATI's website carries a practitioner verification tool on its homepage. Enter the practitioner number and it returns the details of current or expired credentials held by that person.
That is the whole process for a physical stamp.
Scanning a digital stamp
Since March 2023, practitioners have been able to use a digital stamp instead of a physical one. A digital stamp carries a unique QR code, and scanning it returns the same kind of information — the credentials that person holds, and a clear statement of whether the digital stamp is valid.
If the QR code will not scan
There is a fallback that few people know about. Below the QR code is a unique 32-character identifier. Append it to this address in a browser:
`https://my.naati.com.au/VerifyPractitioner?QrCode=`
That produces the same verification result as scanning would.
Reading the result
This is where verification actually pays off, because several outcomes look alarming and are not.
Current credentials. The straightforward case.
Expired credentials, valid digital stamp. If the practitioner's credentials have since expired but the stamp was generated while they were active, the result will still state that the digital stamp is valid, while showing the current credentials as expired. That is a correct and acceptable outcome — the work was certified when the translator was certified.
"Digital Stamp: Invalid." This is the result that matters. NAATI returns it where a QR code has been disabled for fraud or misuse, or where it has been forged. NAATI can disable an individual stamp without affecting the translator's other work, so this is a statement about that particular stamp.
NAATI also suggests a sensible cross-check: confirm that the credentials, name and photo returned are consistent with the practitioner and the work you received.
Check the direction, not just the credential
A verification result that says "certified" is not the end of the question.
NAATI certifies translators by language direction. A translator certified to work from a language into English is not automatically certified for English into that language. When you read the verification result, look at the credentials listed and confirm that the direction you need is among them.
For most Australian purposes — a visa application, a citizenship application, a police clearance translation — the direction you need is into English.
What the "valid to" date does not mean
The most common misreading in this whole area.
A physical stamp carries a "valid to" date. NAATI is explicit that this date refers to the recertification or potential expiry date of the practitioner's credential at the time the stamp was issued. It does not reflect a date after which a translation becomes invalid or unacceptable.
In NAATI's own words, the expiry date on the translation stamp relates to the translator's credential, not the validity of the translation.
A translation from a NAATI-credentialed translator should carry the date on which the translation was completed, and the translation remains valid indefinitely. Where that translation date falls inside the credential's validity period, NAATI's stated opinion is that the translation must be accepted where it is presented — unless there is some reason other than the date for not accepting it.
Digital stamps handle this differently again: they do not display the credential expiry date at all, and the "Stamp generated on" date replaces the translation date found on a physical stamp. Because the QR code is specific to the day it was generated, translators are expected to download a fresh stamp on the day they complete a translation.
A one-minute checklist
- Find the practitioner number on the stamp, or ask for it before ordering.
- Check the shape. Nine characters, starting with CPN. Purely numerical means an old accreditation — verify that by emailing NAATI.
- Run it through the verification tool, or scan the QR code on a digital stamp.
- Confirm the language direction you need appears in the credentials listed.
- Check the name and photo returned match the person who did your work.
- Ignore the "valid to" date as a measure of your translation's validity, and check the translation date instead.
Before you accept a translation
Verification protects against two quite different problems: a translator who was never certified, and a stamp that has been disabled or forged. Both are rare, and both are cheap to rule out.
NAATI publishes the full detail on practitioner identification, including examples of current stamp designs, and updates it as the system changes — so check there if something you are looking at does not match this description.
If you would rather not manage any of this yourself, LodgeHQ Translate works only with NAATI-certified translators and supplies the practitioner details with every completed translation.