EB-1C managers: certified translation of foreign company records for the I-140

An EB-1C petition filed on Form I-140 needs a certified English translation of every foreign-language company record that goes with it, from incorporation documents to the beneficiary's employment letters. USCIS requires a full translation that the translator has certified as complete and accurate, together with a statement that the translator is competent to translate from that language into English, and a corporate packet usually holds many such records.

The petition for a multinational manager or executive shows two things: one year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years before the beneficiary entered the United States, and a qualifying relationship between the foreign company and the US company. The rules for certified document translation for USCIS are the same for corporate records as for civil ones. The difference lies in layout, numbers, and titles, and the attorney or accredited representative decides which records go into the filing.

EB-1C foreign company records that need translation

The records fall into two groups. Some show the beneficiary's own employment abroad, and some show how the foreign and US companies are related. A foreign company keeps most of these in its local language, so both groups usually need translation. The records commonly submitted include the following:

• Incorporation documents and registry extracts show when and how the foreign company was formed.
• Shareholder registers and ownership records show who holds the company.
• Organizational charts show the beneficiary's position and reporting lines.
• Board resolutions and meeting minutes record appointments and decisions.
• Employment contracts, employment letters, and payroll records cover the year abroad.
• Audited financial statements and tax filings show the foreign company's operations.

The list is not a requirement for every petition. The attorney chooses the records for the case, and each chosen record that is not in English is filed with its own translation.

Organizational chart translation: titles, reporting lines and names

An organizational chart is a layout document, so the translation has to reproduce the layout. Each box, title, name, and connecting line in the original appears in the English version in the same position, which lets an officer lay the two pages side by side and see who reports to whom. Department names and any headcount printed on the chart are translated as printed.

When a chart is written in a non-Latin script such as Chinese, Korean, or Arabic, each name is kept in the original script and followed by its transliteration. The beneficiary's own name uses the spelling in the beneficiary's passport, and the same spelling is used on every other record in the packet.

Job titles are translated literally and rendered the same way on every page. When a title has no exact English equivalent, the translation gives the closest plain term and keeps the original term in brackets the first time it appears. A translator does not raise a title to sound more senior, so a department head in the source does not become a vice president in English. Titles carry weight here because the petition rests on the beneficiary's managerial or executive role.

Shareholder registers, board resolutions and employment contracts

A shareholder register or incorporation document shows who owns the foreign company, which is the base of the qualifying relationship. The translation copies share counts, ownership percentages, and transfer dates as printed, keeps shareholder names in the original script with a transliteration, and describes registry stamps and signatures in brackets, such as [registry stamp] or [signature]. A separate post covers articles of incorporation and shareholder register translation in more detail.

Board resolutions and minutes are translated in full, including the attendance list, the numbering of items, and the signature block. A translation of only the paragraph that names the beneficiary does not meet the requirement, because an officer cannot match an extract to the source. The same applies to board resolution and meeting minutes translation for resolutions that approved the transfer or the structure of the group.

Employment contracts are translated clause by clause, with schedules and initialed pages included. An employment contract translation keeps the start date, end date, job title, and listed duties exactly as written. A letter from the foreign company is translated with its letterhead, stamp, and a bracketed description of the signature, because the letter often carries the dates of the qualifying year.

Financial statements, payroll and tax filings: numbers as printed

Audited financial statements are translated with every number as printed. Figures, currency symbols, and column order stay as in the source, and the translation does not convert currency, round amounts, or change separators. Where the source convention differs from US usage, a bracketed translator's note can explain it without changing the number.

The notes to the statements and the auditor's report are translated in full. Notes hold the accounting policies and often the disclosures about related companies, which bear directly on the relationship between the foreign and US entities. The accounts of a Brazilian or Portuguese subsidiary, for example, call for Portuguese financial statement translation, and the registry extracts and letters that come with them call for certified Portuguese to English translation.

Payroll registers and tax filings are tables. Column headings, employee numbers, pay periods, and every row are translated, repeated header rows on later pages are included, and tax authority stamps are described. Payroll for the beneficiary shows employment during the qualifying year, so the pay period dates have to be exact.

Matching the translation to earlier L-1 filings

Many EB-1C beneficiaries first came to the United States on an L-1 visa, and the company's L-1 petition often contained translations of some of the same foreign records. Those filings are part of the company's history with USCIS, and a title, name spelling, or date that reads differently in the new translation can look like a change in the facts.

The translation company should receive the earlier translations along with the source records and follow their choices for company names, personal names, and titles. If an earlier translation contains an error, the new translation uses the correct term, and the attorney decides whether to explain the difference. The foreign company's records for that visa are covered in a post on L-1 intracompany transfer documents.

An unexplained difference can lead to a Request for Evidence, and USCIS policy also allows an officer to deny a filing without one when the initial evidence is insufficient.

Certification for a multi-document corporate packet

Each translation carries the translator's typed name, signature, date, and contact information, a statement of competence in both languages, a statement that the translation is complete and accurate, and an identification of the document translated. A separate certification for each document is the safer practice, since an officer may review the records one at a time.

USCIS does not keep a list of approved translators or translation companies, so a "USCIS-certified translation" means a translation that carries the certification USCIS asks for. The certification is the translator's own statement about the translator's own work. When the petitioner or the beneficiary signs it, that person is certifying evidence in their own case, and an officer may give it less weight. A translation company provides a certification that is independent of the case. Machine translation alone carries no human certification and mishandles names, dates, abbreviations, and legal terms, so it does not meet the requirement.

Before ordering, collect each record in the version filed with the registry or the auditor, the earlier L-1 translations, and the attorney's list of what goes into the petition. We provide a separate certification for each record, including the audited financial statement translation, and match terms to any earlier translations supplied.