Notarized translation of a civil registry extract

Ukrainians still call it “a statement from the registry office”, and foreign institutions ask for “a civil registry extract” — the document itself has a third name. Officially it is an extract from the State Register of Civil Status Acts of Citizens, ДРАЦС for short. The confusion is not harmless: people go in asking for a statement, come out with a certificate, and the institution abroad wanted the extract — so the file bounces.

MovaPro translation agency has been translating civil registry extracts since 2012, and where needed we obtain them by power of attorney for clients who are abroad. The notary works in our office by the Golden Gate in Kyiv. Pricing starts at UAH 570 and turnaround at 2 hours.

Price: from UAH 570 (translation from UAH 170 + notarization UAH 400) Turnaround: from 2 hours Consultation: free

An extract and a certificate follow different logic

A certificate records an event as it stood when it was registered. An extract shows the state of the civil record today — with every change entered since the certificate was issued: corrected errors, a changed given name or surname, established paternity, a restored lost record.

Hence the practical difference:

Situation	What is usually asked for
Ordinary proof of an event (marriage, birth)	Certificate
Probate file, proof of kinship	Full extract
Surname changed after the certificate was issued	Extract (it shows the chain of changes)
Certificate lost, a re-issued one obtained	Extract, confirming it is the same record
The institution wants a “recent” document	Extract (a certificate is never refreshed)

That last row explains most of the orders we get: a certificate has no “as of” date, so wherever a document has to prove something as of today, an extract is what gets requested.

Ordinary and full extracts

The register issues two kinds. An ordinary extract contains certain information from a specific civil record along with the changes entered into it — or a statement that no such record exists. A full extract contains all the information in the record.

Full extracts are typically requested by notaries in probate matters and by foreign institutions that need to prove a degree of kinship or see the record’s entire history. Where the wording of the requirement is vague — “an extract from the register”, with no further detail — the safer choice is the full one: it holds everything that might be needed, and there is no second trip.

Extracts are issued by civil registry offices and administrative service centres, and can also be ordered through Diia, which produces an electronic extract with a QR code; postal delivery of paper copies via Diia works within Ukraine only.

Electronic versus paper: where the line runs

An electronic extract with a QR code is a full-fledged document, and for many domestic procedures it is enough. The limit appears where an apostille is required: the stamp goes onto a paper document. For filing abroad, therefore, a paper extract is needed. The same applies to notarization of the translation — the notary works with a paper document and binds the translation to it.

Being abroad is not a dead end: we obtain civil registry documents by power of attorney — both re-issued certificates and extracts — and pass them straight to apostille and translation as a single project, with no travel on your part.

Apostille: the Ministry of Justice, and in this order

A civil registry extract is a document of a justice body, so it is apostilled by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. It can be submitted through any civil registry office or through a notary. The procedure and current fees are on the Ministry of Justice website; we do not publish state fees because they change. If your package includes other documents, our free apostille route finder shows where each one goes.

The sequence: paper extract → apostille → translation including the apostille stamp → notarization of the translation. Translate before the apostille and the stamp stays untranslated, which means doing the work twice. Country-by-country legalisation routes are set out on our apostille and legalization page.

What is inside an extract, and why translating it is harder than it looks

An extract looks like a table, which is exactly why it gets underestimated. It carries administrative fields, every one of which has to be rendered precisely:

• the number and date of the civil record and the authority that drew it up;
• particulars of the persons named, in every spelling that appears in the record;
• the “information on changes” block — when, on what grounds, by which authority;
• notes on restoration or annulment of the record;
• the date the extract was generated, the signature, the seal, the QR code or registration number.

We cross-check name spellings against the foreign passport and the rest of the package: if the extract is filed alongside a birth certificate, the two translations must spell the name identically, or the institution sees two different people. The same goes for place names — extracts often carry historical names, which call for a translator’s note rather than a silent substitution of the modern one.

Pricing and turnaround

Translation costs from UAH 170 per standard document depending on the language (English — UAH 300, Polish — UAH 430, German — UAH 450 per 1,800 characters with spaces), and notarization UAH 400 per document — from UAH 570 together. An ordinary extract usually fits one standard page; a full extract can run longer and is priced by actual volume. Where the receiving institution does not insist on a notary, certification with the agency stamp is available for UAH 100.

Turnaround is from 2 hours. Rates for 40+ languages are on the prices page, and the procedure is detailed on the notarized translation page.

Send a scan of the extract — within 15 minutes we will confirm the price, the turnaround and, most importantly, whether this particular document fits the purpose you are filing for. Order a translation.