A Polish university has replied to your application asking for your 高中毕业证书 and your exam results to be translated “by a sworn translator”. Poland’s rules name who may do that: a sworn translator on the Polish Ministry of Justice list, a sworn translator registered in an EU, EFTA/EEA or OECD country, a Polish consul, or your country’s embassy in Poland. The United Kingdom is an OECD member, and the certified translation I issue as a qualified member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting is the UK’s form of an official translation. What you need is a Chinese high school certificate sworn translation Poland will recognise: your Gaozhong Biye Zhengshu and grades, titled exactly as Poland’s own rules name them, certified and sealed — which I produce, normally in 2 working days. The certificate itself also needs an apostille from China.
What the Polish rules say
Who may translate. The Medical University of Gdańsk’s Welcome Point publishes the wording Poland uses when foreign school certificates are recognised. “The translation of documents into Polish, enclosed to the application, shall be done or confirmed by: a) a person entered on the list of sworn translators by the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland, or b) a person registered as a sworn translator in any EU, OECD or EEA member state, or c) the consul of the Republic of Poland having jurisdiction…, or d) a diplomatic representative or consular office of the state…”. There is a narrow fifth option — where translation “causes substantial difficulties”, the education superintendent may allow “a translation performed by another entity, provided that the credibility of such entity is beyond reproach” — but that is an official’s discretionary concession, not something you can arrange in advance. Admissions offices apply the same list. The University of Warsaw’s own page (in Polish) asks for a translation into Polish — “or, for programmes taught in English, into English” — by someone on the Minister of Justice’s list, or by a person registered as a sworn translator in a member state of the EU, of EFTA/the EEA “lub państwie członkowskim Organizacji Współpracy Gospodarczej i Rozwoju (OECD)” — or of the OECD. Wrocław compresses it into a single line: “All documents need to be translated into English or Polish Language by sworn translator.”
The certificate itself. Gdańsk wants the “original of the certificate or its duplicate or notarized copy with an apostille placed on or enclosed to the document, if the certificate was issued by a state which is a party to the Hague Convention”. China is now such a state: the Apostille Convention “entered into force for the People’s Republic of China on 7 November 2023”. Your certificate therefore takes an apostille — issued in China by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or an authorised local Foreign Affairs Office — not the consular legalisation of a few years ago. Wrocław: “All educational documents need to be legalized by Polish Consulate or Apostille in the country of issue.”
One piece of genuinely good news. Your certificate does not have to go through recognition proceedings. Wrocław lists the certificates recognised under international agreements as “China (高中毕业证书 / Gaozhong Biye Zhengshu) and Ukraine”; Warsaw’s recognition page names the same pair, “China (Gaozhong) and Ukraine”. Poland has written your document’s Chinese name into its own admissions rules — which is exactly why the translation has to reproduce that name.
Why a certified translation from an OECD country is the answer
Route (b) is the one that matters if your translator is outside Poland: a person registered as a sworn translator in an EU, EFTA/EEA or OECD member state. The UK is an OECD member, but its legal system works differently from Poland’s. The Institute of Translation and Interpreting puts it this way: “In the UK, as a common law country, there is no such thing as a sworn translator.” What the UK has instead is certification by a qualified member of a professional body: “Qualified ITI Members (MITI translator or FITI translator) … can affix ITI Certification Seals to certify a translation. This renders the translation ‘official'”. That is the status I hold and the seal I use.
What a Polish admissions officer wants from any of the four routes is the same thing: a named translator they can check. A Polish tłumacz przysięgły is checked against the Minister of Justice’s list; I am checked against ITI’s public directory, where my name and membership appear — the ATC, CIOL and ITI joint guidance notes that the three bodies “maintain easily accessed public registers of accredited companies and translators”. Poland’s wording says “registered as a sworn translator”, and each admissions committee decides how it applies that to a country that keeps no such register, so the sensible order is to confirm by email first (step 1 below). A client came to me with exactly this request.
What my certified translation of your school documents contains:
- The full title in the form Poland’s rules use: “Gaozhong Biye Zhengshu – Senior High School Graduation Certificate”, pinyin included. Universities match your document against the wording of the China–Poland agreement; a heading that says only “graduation certificate” or “diploma” gives them nothing to match, and it is the point admissions offices insist on.
- Your name exactly as your passport spells it, in the same order, so the application, the apostille and the translation agree.
- The grades document field by field — 会考 or 学业水平考试 results, or the school transcript: every subject, score or grade band, the school’s name, seal and issue date, laid out as the original is (the same discipline as my academic transcript translations).
- Seals and handwriting described, not copied, with the text inside each seal translated; every page including the reverse.
- A certification page stating that it is a true and accurate translation of the original, dated, signed and sealed with my ITI certification seal, with my full name, membership number and contact details so the university can verify me.
What to do next
- Email your admissions office two questions and keep the reply: English or Polish, and whether it accepts a certified translation by an ITI-qualified translator in the United Kingdom under the OECD route. Send me the email and I will give you a two-line note with my ITI membership details to forward.
- Get the apostille in China first, on the certificate or a notarised copy, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or an authorised local Foreign Affairs Office. Ask the university whether the apostille page must be translated too.
- Send me clear scans: certificate front and back, the grades document or transcript, your passport name page and the university’s email. £30 per page (a page is 250 words); signed and sealed PDF normally in 2 working days, 2 working days for longer transcripts.
- Ask whether a PDF is enough. Some universities take a scan now and the paper original at enrolment; if yours wants wet ink, I post a signed and sealed hard copy.
- If your university will only accept a translator on the Polish Ministry of Justice list, tell me before you order. That is route (a), a different job with a different price and timetable, and I would rather you knew on day one than after a rejection.
How certified, notarised and sworn translations differ is set out in my note on certified versus notarised translation; who I am and how I certify is on the about page.
Common questions
The UK has no sworn translators. Will a Polish university still accept a UK translation?
The rule names OECD member states and the UK is one; the UK’s equivalent of a sworn translation is certification by a qualified ITI member. Whether your admissions committee reads route (b) that way is its decision, which is why step 1 is an email, not a payment.
Can I use the 公证书 notarised translation I already got in China?
Only if your university says so. A Chinese notarial translation is not one of the named routes as written; it becomes acceptable where a Polish consul confirms it, which is route (c). Ask admissions before paying for anything.
Do I need NAWA recognition for my certificate?
Generally no. Wrocław and Warsaw both list Chinese Gaozhong certificates as recognised under an international agreement, so no recognition procedure applies. Confirm it with your faculty, which may still ask for evidence of the school’s status.