Japan does not issue a birth certificate the way most countries do. It issues a koseki, the family register, and everything you need sits inside it. That, a juminhyo, a marriage entry, a 卒業証明書 degree, a driving licence or a bank book. None of it works here until it is in English with a signature UKVI can trace.
The people who write to us are usually moving for work or study, or coming back after years in Japan. Spouses of Japanese nationals, teachers, engineers, students and their sponsors. The same English copy is later read by universities, the DVLA, banks and register offices.
Here is where Japanese to English translation is actually needed, route by route. British forms and Japanese paperwork rarely line up, so find your route first and you will know which register page to request.
A koseki entry showing the marriage, which is how Japan records one rather than a certificate.
The register page naming both parents, used where other countries would send a birth certificate.
Degrees, transcripts and proof of money, read by admissions and UKVI together.
Employment certificates, contracts and payslips backing the job on your sponsorship.
Long stay bundles where each Japanese record has to agree with the rest of the file.
Nationality files that ask for your full history and check it against older papers.
The DVLA exchange form, with the licence and the register entry behind your address.
Marriages, births and deaths that happened in Japan and now have to be shown in Britain.
A death entry in the register and the papers a solicitor needs to settle an estate.
City hall forms, university papers, court rulings and company files. Turning Japanese records into English means the whole sheet, so the ward office name, the red seal and the printed footer all cross over with it.
Three stages, and the first one takes half a minute. Our Japanese translation service works from photographs, so your originals stay at home and nothing travels by post.
A koseki often runs to several pages and the later ones carry the entries that matter. Shoot the whole sheet, not the boxed area, and add your passport page so the romanised spelling is fixed from the start.
You get one figure inside 30 minutes, plus something more useful. If the document you sent will not prove what UKVI wants, we say so and name the one that will, before any money moves.
Your English copy comes back stamped, signed and carrying the accuracy statement UKVI expects. Reiwa and Heisei dates appear with the Western year beside them. Postal copies cost nothing extra.
The page that matters most is the last one. That is where a caseworker looks for eight specific marks before reading anything else. Every Japanese certified translation from us carries all of them.
Your ward office closes as Britain wakes up, which makes every deadline tighter than it looks. Most single register pages are back in about four hours of our working day. Send it tonight and it can be ready by morning.
One register entry is a small job. A koseki spanning three generations is not. Six things set the price of your Japanese document translation, and the figures show where each part starts.
| What affects your price | Starts from | Why it moves up or down |
|---|---|---|
| Size of the register pagestart here | £29/ page | A single entry is quick. A full koseki listing several relatives and decades of moves carries far more. |
| How many entries insidebirths, marriages, moves | lower rateper extra | One page can hold several life events. Each is read separately but the page is still quoted as one job. |
| Vertical or handwrittenhow old it is | a little moreif by hand | Modern registers are typed. Older vertical entries and pre war script are read slowly and checked with you. |
| Hanko sealshow many | a little moreif many | Each personal or ward seal is written out where it appears, so a page carrying several takes longer. |
| How soon you need itspeed | from £0normal slot | A normal slot adds nothing. Four hours before an appointment means someone is moved onto yours at once. |
| Where it goes nextUK or Japan | from £75if sealed | UK offices take a signed and stamped copy. Japan usually wants an apostille, and sometimes a consulate stamp. |
Send the page and one firm figure comes back inside the hour, held for the whole job. Not sure whether you need the full koseki or a single entry? Ask us before you order it from the ward office.
Three real orders, names shortened. Each involved something British paperwork has no version of, which is exactly why they reached our UK visa and immigration translation services.
Spouses, teachers, engineers and students, all wrestling with British forms that do not fit Japanese paperwork. Here is what they said.
UKVI wanted a birth certificate and Japan does not issue one. They translated my koseki and explained it on the page, which solved the whole problem.
My dates were in Heisei years. Seeing both calendars side by side made my nine years obvious instead of confusing.
My surname can be read two ways in kanji. They matched the passport and noted the other reading underneath.
Every hanko on the page was written out. My solicitor said that was the first Japanese document he could actually follow.
My ward office sent a huge register and I had no idea which parts mattered. They told me before charging for the lot.
Degree and transcript in one order, back before my enrolment deadline. The university did not query a thing.
These come from people whose paperwork does not match what a British form expects. That mismatch is where nearly every question starts.
Upload the page, take the price that comes back within the hour, and collect a signed, stamped English copy for UKVI, the DVLA, a university or a solicitor.
WhatsApp a photo, send an email, or call in at the office. We reply within minutes in working hours, and Japan is nine hours ahead, so overnight messages are answered first thing.