Translating a Ukrainian vaccination record (form 063) for a nursery or school abroad

Enrolment season replays the same scene every year: a parent sends us a photo of a yellowed vaccination card the day before the school deadline and asks whether we can do it “today, with a stamp”. We can. But half of that rush disappears if you know three things in advance: which piece of paper is actually your vaccination record, what format of translation the destination country expects, and which entries in the record usually have to be clarified with a doctor first.

What form 063/о is — and what you are actually holding

The preventive vaccination record, form № 063/о, is a primary record kept by a Ukrainian healthcare facility. It is opened when a child first comes under a clinic’s care and added to for life: date, product name, dose, batch, reaction.

The detail behind most of the confusion: form 063/о belongs to the clinic, not to the patient. It stays in the outpatient file. What parents receive is either:

• a copy of the 063/о record (some clinics issue it on a letterhead with a stamp), or
• a certificate of vaccinations given, compiled from the record and from entries in the electronic health system.

Either works for translation. What matters is that the document carries the facility’s stamp and the doctor’s signature. A photo of a page from a notebook with no identifying details will not be accepted abroad, and no translation can fix that: a translator reproduces a document, they do not give it legal force.

Getting the record while you are already abroad

Three working routes, fastest first:

1. Email your family doctor or primary-care centre. Most Ukrainian clinics will send a scanned copy — requests from abroad are routine by now.
2. Send a representative with a power of attorney. A relative collects the copy in person; if the power of attorney has to be signed abroad, our guide to a Ukrainian power of attorney for use abroad sets out the route.
3. Check the electronic records. Vaccinations may be recorded in Ukraine’s electronic health system, and the certificate is then compiled from those entries — electronically signed or on paper. How much is there depends on when and where the shots were given: Soviet-era and early-2000s entries are not in the system.

One case deserves planning: shots given in several cities, or before about 2010. The record then has to be assembled from more than one source, and that is exactly where the gaps appear that a doctor abroad will notice. The advice that saves weeks — assemble the complete record before ordering the translation, not in instalments.

Germany: proof of measles protection is a separate requirement

Germany is the one popular destination where vaccination touches admission itself. The Masernschutzgesetz has applied since 1 March 2020: children attending a Kita or school must show proof of measles protection. The proof can be a vaccination booklet (Impfausweis), the yellow child check-up booklet, or a doctor’s certificate; the facility checks it, and disputed cases go to the Gesundheitsamt.

What that means in practice:

• Children arriving from Ukraine are generally given time to supply the proof — time to supply it, not an exemption.
• Your form 063/о does the job provided it clearly shows the date and the product of the measles vaccination itself (in Ukrainian records usually КПК — measles, mumps, rubella).
• If an entry is illegible, or the schedule used does not map onto the German calendar, the facility may ask for a certificate from a German doctor. The translation is what lets that doctor see what has already been done.

Federal law does not prescribe a certification format: state authorities and individual facilities read “Nachweis” differently, so ask your Kita, school or Gesundheitsamt what they want. In our experience most accept a translation with an agency stamp; for an official file, a sworn German translation is the safer choice.

Poland: vaccination is mandatory, the record itself is not

The logic is the reverse of Germany’s. Formally the vaccination record is not on the list of documents required for admission to a przedszkole or school. However:

• after roughly three months of residence in Poland a child comes under the mandatory vaccination programme (Program Szczepień Ochronnych), and a primary-care doctor has to decide which shots to complete;
• at many nurseries, proof of vaccination under the Polish calendar is an additional admission criterion, so an application without it loses places to applications with it;
• Polish guidance states explicitly that there is no obligation to have a foreign doctor’s vaccination document sworn-translated — but a document that will be the basis for a medical decision is sensibly submitted in Polish.

So: a Polish translation is needed almost always; a sworn one only when the institution asks for it by name. If the record is simply going to a doctor, the cheaper certification does the same work. When a sworn translation genuinely is required is set out in our Poland guide and on the sworn Polish translation page.

Choosing the certification

Format	Cost	When it is enough
Agency stamp	UAH 100 per document	Doctor’s appointment, nursery or school admission, sports club, summer camp
Notarized translation	UAH 400 per document	The record joins an official file: benefits, guardianship, court or immigration matters
Sworn translation (PL, DE, CZ)	at the sworn translator’s tariff	The institution explicitly asks for a tłumacz przysięgły / vereidigter Übersetzer

The rule that saves the most money: ask the institution in writing first, order second. “Official translation” in a school’s email rarely means a notary — eight times out of ten it means a translation from an agency, stamped and signed.

How a vaccination record is translated: what changes and what does not

A medical record is not translated word for word; it is translated so that a foreign doctor can read a schedule off it. Two categories of entry behave differently.

Expanded and mapped across:

In the Ukrainian record	International equivalent
БЦЖ	BCG (tuberculosis)
АКДП / АаКДП	DTP / DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis)
АДП-м	Td / DT
КПК	MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)
ОПВ / ІПВ	OPV / IPV (polio)
Хіб	Hib
ВГВ	HepB

Carried across unchanged: brand name, manufacturer, batch and lot numbers, form number. These are identifiers checked against manufacturer records; “localising” them is an error.

Separately — the child’s name. It must match the spelling in the international passport rather than being transliterated automatically. That small thing is a common reason for a returned file; we cover it in detail in name spelled differently across documents.

Common mistakes

• Translating an incomplete record. Half a record reads to a doctor as missing vaccinations — and means avoidable injections for the child.
• Ordering notarization “just in case”. A nursery almost never needs it, and it adds UAH 400 per document.
• Sending photos taken at an angle. Entries are handwritten; one illegible date means a query to the doctor and a lost day.
• Forgetting the companion documents. A child’s health certificate is usually requested alongside the vaccination record — translating both in one order costs less than two.
• Confusing translation with recognition. A translation shows what was done; whether that satisfies the local schedule is decided by a doctor in your country of residence.

What we do

A vaccination record is one or two standard pages and one business day. We translate it into English, Polish, German, Czech and other languages, expand the vaccine abbreviations into international ones, check the child’s name against the international passport, and arrange the certification your institution actually requires — from an agency stamp to a sworn translation. Medical documents are handled by our dedicated medical translation team; for a full clinical file, see our guide to translating medical records for treatment abroad.

Send us a scan of the record and tell us which country and which institution it is for: we will quote within 15 minutes and tell you whether you need the expensive certification at all. Country-by-country routes are collected in the countries section.