I am a certified translator with the UK Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) (Membership number 00024532), a Chartered Linguist with the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) (CIOL number: 72852), and a member of the American Translators Association (ATA) (Member number: 273323).
Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is the only UK-based membership association providing a professional home for practising translators, interpreters and all those involved in supplying language services.
CIOL (Chartered Institute of Linguists) is the UK’s Royal Charter body for language professionals and linguists.
RexTrans provides chinese certified translation services on GOV.UK for British nationals in China.
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.
If you have lived in mainland China and a UK employer, regulator or visa route now asks for proof that you have no criminal record, the document in question is the 无犯罪记录证明 (wú fànzuì jìlù zhèngmíng), the No Criminal Record Certificate. In Chinese it tells a British reader nothing, so it needs a certified English translation: £30 per page of 250 words, signed PDF within 24 hours, notarisation available as an add-on. Most of these certificates run to a single page, so most of these jobs are a single fee.
Two quite different documents travel under this name, and it helps to know which one you are holding. The police version comes from a 派出所 (local police station) or 公安局 (Public Security Bureau), usually as one A4 sheet: your name, sex, resident identity number, the address registered to you, a sentence or two stating that no criminal record was found, the issue date, and a red seal — often the household administration seal (户政专用章) rather than the bureau’s general one. The notarial version comes from a 公证处 (notary office) and is a bound booklet with a cover, a certificate number written in the form 〔2025〕…字第…号, the notary’s signature and seal, and frequently an English page already bound in. Applicants living abroad usually end up with the notarial version, because a police station will not normally deal with a request from overseas.
People are often surprised that a bilingual notarial booklet still needs certified translation. The English page inside it was produced by the notary office, not by a translator the UK body can identify or hold to account; it rarely covers the Chinese seals and annotations; and in my experience it sometimes contains outright errors in names and dates. What I supply is a complete translation of everything on the page — the Chinese side, the English side where the two differ, the seals, signatures and reference numbers — with my own certification statement, contact details and professional membership attached. If you are weighing up the two routes, my article on certified versus notarised translation in the UK sets out where each one belongs.
These certificates end up in employment vetting for roles involving children or vulnerable adults, professional registration, university and NHS onboarding, adoption and fostering assessments, and certain immigration routes, some of which ask for a criminal record certificate covering each country you have lived in for a qualifying period. Check the current guidance for your own route before you order anything from China, because the requirement is not universal and the certificates are troublesome to obtain from abroad.
The translation traps here are almost all about wording, and they are unforgiving. Chinese police certificates are drafted as negatives, and the exact negative matters. 无犯罪记录 states that there is no criminal record. 无违法犯罪记录 is broader and takes in unlawful acts short of a crime. 未发现犯罪记录 says only that no record was found. I keep those distinctions in English instead of flattening them into one reassuring sentence: a reviewer who compares your translation with hundreds of others will notice, and an inflated translation is far worse for you than an accurate one. Scope works the same way. Many police certificates confine themselves to the issuing station’s own jurisdiction, with a phrase such as 本辖区内, and that limitation stays exactly where it appears.
Then come the mechanical points. Office names have to be rendered consistently at every level of the address, from province down to the individual station. Resident identity numbers are transcribed digit by digit and cross-checked against the birth date they encode. Validity periods and issue dates are written out in full rather than in figures. Every seal is described where it sits, including the small departmental stamps people assume are decorative. Names follow your passport, always, with the characters shown beside them.
Send me a clear scan of the whole certificate — both sides, and every page of a notarial booklet including its cover — plus the spelling of your name on your passport and, if you know it, the name of the body that asked for the document. One useful warning: Hong Kong’s Certificate of No Criminal Conviction is a different animal entirely. It is in English already and the police send it directly to the requesting authority, so you may well not need me at all.
The Seal for Your Official Document
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Certified translations are often required for official purposes such as submissions to UK universities, courts, government agencies, and more.
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According to GOV.UK, your document must be certified by a professional or a person well-respected in your community (‘of good standing’). The person you ask should not be:
– Related to you
– Living at the same address
– In a relationship with you
In practice, UK authorities tend to recognize documents certified by authoritative translators, which can reduce the risk of rejection and save you time. You can minimize errors, omissions, or rejection by using a translator or translation company affiliated with a recognized professional body, such as the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), or the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL).
The police version is issued by a local police station or Public Security Bureau, usually as a single sheet with a household administration seal, and states that no record was found for you. The notarial version is issued by a notary office as a bound booklet with its own certificate number and the notary’s seal, and it certifies the underlying police information rather than being the police record itself. Applicants living outside China generally end up with the notarial version, because a police station will not normally process a request from abroad. Both are translated the same way.
Because that English page is not a certified translation in the sense a UK body means. It carries no identifiable translator and no certification statement, and it usually leaves the seals, the reference number and any handwritten additions in Chinese only. I have also found real mistakes in those pages, including transposed dates and name spellings that do not match the passport. My version translates the whole booklet, states who I am and what I am certifying, and gives the receiving body someone accountable for every line.
The price starts from GBP30.
Our rates vary depending on the complexity and length of the document as well as the required turnaround time. We provide a free, no-obligation quote upon reviewing your document, ensuring that you know exactly what the translation will cost before proceeding.
The number of pages for certified translations is determined by the total word count of the document. A single page is considered to be 250 words or fewer, including any numerical data.
If a page exceeds 250 words, we will adjust the calculation accordingly based on the word count. At that point, you will need to request a quote from us.
Find out more about how pages are calculated.
The process begins with you sending us a scan or a clear photograph of your document. We then translate the document and provide a certification statement that attests to the accuracy of the translation and the qualifications of the translator. The certified translation is then stamped with our official seal and mailed to you.
It changes the statement, so yes. 无犯罪记录 says there is no criminal record. 无违法犯罪记录 is wider and covers unlawful acts falling short of a crime, such as administrative penalties. A third common wording, 未发现犯罪记录, says only that no record was found. I translate whichever wording your certificate actually carries rather than substituting a standard English phrase, because the body reading it may be comparing your document against many others and an overstated translation invites questions you would rather not answer.
Read the wording on your own certificate rather than assuming, because it varies between issuing offices. Many police-issued certificates limit themselves to the issuing station’s jurisdiction, using a phrase such as 本辖区内, and some are tied to the address on your household registration. That limitation is part of the document, so it stays in the English exactly where it appears. If it is there and the organisation asking expects national coverage, it is far better to discover that from a faithful translation than after you have submitted.
If you still have questions that are not covered here, feel free to reach out to me directly.