Chinese Contract Translation for UK Solicitors and Disputes
I translate Chinese contracts for UK solicitors handling disputes and due diligence, preserving clauses, schedules and signature pages. £30 per 250-word page includes a signed certified PDF. You receive a quoted date before you pay. Send the agreement and deadline by WeChat or email; I work remotely from Shanghai.
What's included
- Agreement, schedules and amendments in the agreed scope
- Clause numbers, defined terms and cross-references checked
- Signatures, company seals and handwritten changes recorded
- Dates, amounts and governing-law wording retained
- Certified PDF with signed accuracy statement and MITI seal
Document details and translation method
A contract, a witness statement and an affidavit are different evidence types. PD 32 sets specific procedures for foreign-language affidavits and witness statements; those procedures should not be presented as a blanket rule for every contract. Send your solicitor’s instructions and any court order. Where the dispute also involves messages, see my WeChat evidence translation service.
The agreements I see most are 劳动合同 employment contracts, 房屋租赁合同 tenancy and lease agreements, 买卖合同 sale and purchase contracts, 借款合同 loan agreements, and 股权转让协议 equity transfer agreements. Whatever the subject, the architecture is familiar: a 甲方/乙方 block at the front setting out Party A and Party B with their registered addresses, unified social credit codes and contact people; numbered articles; a 未尽事宜 catch-all clause near the end; then annexes marked 附件. The signature page is where the Chinese document differs most from its UK cousin. It carries the company’s round red 公章 or a dedicated 合同专用章, the handwritten signature of the 法定代表人 or an authorised signatory, the date, and frequently a 骑缝章 — a seal stamped across the edges of the stapled pages so that no sheet can be swapped out afterwards.
Those features are part of the evidence, so they are part of the translation. Seals are described where they appear, with the wording on the seal rendered; handwritten Chinese signatures are transliterated and marked as signatures rather than quietly omitted; page markers in the 共X页第X页 style are kept; and anything left blank in the original stays visibly blank in the English, because a tidied-up gap can be read as a completed term.
The wording itself needs a translator who knows where Chinese contract drafting sets traps. 应当, 应 and 可以 map onto shall, must and may in ways that change obligation, and the choice has to be made deliberately and applied consistently. 定金 and 订金 sound almost identical and are near-identical in writing, but one is a forfeitable deposit and the other an advance payment — I translate each as what it is and flag the distinction where a UK reader could be misled. 违约金 is rendered as what the Chinese says rather than being recast as a common-law penalty or liquidated damages, since that characterisation is for the lawyers. Money amounts written out in capital Chinese numerals (人民币壹拾万元整) appear alongside Arabic figures, and both are reproduced and cross-checked so a discrepancy in the original is visible instead of smoothed over. Party A and Party B stay Party A and Party B throughout, never swapped for names halfway through. Dates in the 二〇二四年三月十五日 form are converted to unambiguous UK dates.
Bilingual contracts deserve a separate word. If your agreement already has facing Chinese and English columns and a prevailing-language clause, I translate what is actually in the Chinese column and note where the existing English departs from it — that divergence is often the reason the file landed in dispute. I translate; I do not redraft, and I do not give legal advice on which version governs.
To get a quote, send the contract as a PDF or a clear scan of every page, annexes and signature page included, and tell me who will be reading it and by when. If the matter is heading
Prepared to the GOV.UK requirements: full translation, the translator’s confirmation that it is accurate, the date, full name, signature and contact details. The recipient decides its submission requirements.
£30 per 250-word page, counted in the English translation; a part page counts as one page. A one-page certificate is one £30 page. For this document, you receive a quoted date before you pay. Send clear files, passport name spellings, the recipient and deadline by WeChat rextrans, email or the footer form. I work remotely from Shanghai.
Qualifications
I am Rex Su, an independent translator in Shanghai serving UK clients remotely. I am a Qualified Member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (MITI), membership 00024532, and an American Translators Association member, number 273323. My translations carry my signature, MITI seal and statement of accuracy.
ITI
Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is the only UK membership association providing a professional home for practising translators, interpreters and all those involved in supplying language services.
ATA
The American Translators Association (ATA) is the largest professional association of translators and interpreters in the United States with nearly 8,500 members in more than 100 countries.
Sample
Page 1 - Certification of Accuracy
Next Page(s) - Your Certified Translation
FAQs
The contract is already bilingual, Chinese and English. Do I still need a certified translation?
Often, yes. An in-house or counterparty English column is not a certified translation: nobody has signed a statement of accuracy for it, and in my experience the two columns disagree more often than clients expect, usually on payment terms, termination triggers and the scope of indemnities. If the matter is contentious or a UK body has asked specifically for a certified translation, I translate the Chinese column afresh and note any point where the existing English differs. If the agreement is uncontroversial and nobody has demanded certification, the existing bilingual text may be enough.
How do you handle terms like 违约金 that have no exact English equivalent?
By translating what the clause says and letting the lawyers characterise it. 违约金 is a sum payable on breach; calling it a penalty or liquidated damages imports a common-law distinction that the Chinese text does not make, and that distinction can decide whether a clause is enforceable. So the English states the mechanism, keeps the Chinese term in brackets on first use, and where genuinely useful carries a short translator’s note. The same discipline applies to 定金 versus 订金 and to 不可抗力 drafting that differs from a UK force majeure clause.
There is a red company seal and a 骑缝章 across the page edges. Do those show in the translation?
Yes, all of them. Seals are how a Chinese contract is executed, so leaving them out strips the document of its most important authentication. Each seal is described where it sits on the page, with the characters on the seal translated — a 合同专用章 is not the same as a general 公章, and a reader may care. The cross-page 骑缝章 is noted as a seal applied across the page joins, and the 法定代表人 signature is transliterated and marked as a handwritten signature.
Can you translate only the clauses I need rather than the whole contract?
I can produce an extract translation, and it is sometimes the sensible option on a hundred-page supply agreement where only the pricing schedule is in dispute. It has to be labelled as an extract, stating exactly which articles are covered, so nobody mistakes it for a complete document. Be aware that some receiving bodies will only accept a translation of the whole agreement, so check before you commission an extract. Tell me which articles matter and I will quote on those pages alone.
Does every contract need a translator’s affidavit?
PD 32’s foreign-language affidavit and witness-statement provisions concern those particular evidence types. They are not a general affidavit requirement for every contract. Your solicitor should identify the applicable court directions. Source.
Does certification confirm that the contract is enforceable?
No. A translator’s written accuracy confirmation identifies responsibility for the translation. It does not decide the legal effect of clauses, the validity of signatures or the outcome of a dispute. Source.
What if the contract is exhibited to a Chinese witness statement?
Tell your solicitor that the statement is in Chinese. PD 32 paragraph 23.2 addresses translation and a translator’s certification for foreign-language witness statements. I can keep contract references consistent with the statement and messages. Source.
Need more help?
If you still have questions that are not covered here, feel free to reach out to me directly.