How Translation Turnaround Times Work

Turnaround times

Turnaround time measures one thing only: how long we take to finish and deliver your translated document. The clock starts the moment your order has been checked and handed to a translator, and it stops when the translation is finished and ready for you to look over.

One point worth keeping in mind is that turnaround time covers the translation itself. It does not include any of the steps below:

Approval: When an order needs your sign-off before it can be finalized, that happens once the translation is already done. Approving quickly helps you avoid holding things up.

Notarization: A certified translation that also needs notarization calls for extra processing time. Notarizations are handled by our team during weekday business hours, Monday through Friday, out of our fulfillment office in Sacramento, CA.

Apostille: Securing an apostille typically adds about 2 to 4 days. The sequence goes like this: you sign off first, the document is then notarized, and last we work with the office of the Secretary of State to secure the apostille.

Shipping: Hard copies go out once you approve the translation. How long delivery takes depends on the shipping method you pick and where you live. We ship within the same weekday business hours that notarizations follow, and timing turns on when the carrier comes to pick packages up.

When any of these extras are part of your order, they stack on top of the estimate for the digital translation. To set the right expectations, look at everything your order involves, not just the translation step.

When Turnaround Time Starts

The clock begins when your order has been checked and handed to a translator, rather than at the moment you place it.

Ahead of assigning a translator, our support team runs a fast but careful check to confirm everything is ready to go. That check covers:

Word count: We verify the figure the system calculated automatically so it is correct and matches the service you chose, whether standard or certified.

Your notes: We read through anything you wrote and pass the relevant details to the translator. When something is unclear, we may contact you before going ahead.

File quality: We confirm your files are sharp, legible, and laid out properly. Anything blurry, cut off, rotated, or low in resolution gets flagged.

Source language: We confirm the language in the document is what you selected when you checked out.

Duplicate files: If the same file was uploaded by mistake more than once, we sort that out for you.

Anything unusual: If something seems off, such as pages that are missing, formatting that does not match, or content that looks unrelated, we hold the order and reach out before continuing.

Orders move through our queue every day of the week, with just a short break from 12 AM to 4 AM Pacific Time. At all other hours, our team is reviewing fresh orders and handing them to translators around the clock. To get started as fast as possible, place your order outside those early morning hours.

What Affects Turnaround Time?

A few things shape how long your translation takes to finish. Among them:

Length: Longer documents take more time, particularly when they need formatting or carry a lot of detail.

Language pair: Widely used pairs such as English to Spanish tend to be assigned and finished sooner. Rarer or more specialized pairs can take longer to pair with a free translator.

Subject matter: Plain documents like birth certificates move faster than ones packed with heavy legal, medical, or technical wording, which demand more care and specialized knowledge.

Translator availability: We match each job to the best-suited translators for that language and document type. When we are busy or the language combination is uncommon, assigning your order can take a bit more time.

Since real people handle every translation, we share estimates instead of fixed deadlines. Each estimate carries a built-in cushion, and we meet or beat them 98% of the time.

Where to See Your Estimated Turnaround

Your estimated turnaround appears at checkout, calculated from the word count and the service you select. That estimate covers delivery of your finished translation.

When you order a hard copy, shipping time gets added once you approve the final translation. Hard copies leave our office on weekdays, Monday through Friday, and the arrival date you can expect, transit time folded in, gets calculated at checkout from where you are shipping to and the method you select.

Want to lock down the timeline before you order? Reach out, and we'll put together an estimate just for you.

Expedited Turnaround

On a tight deadline? Need it faster? An expedited option is available whether your translation is certified or standard. It is built to get your translation to you as fast as we can, while keeping quality intact.

With expedited turnaround, your order is:

• Flagged in our system so processing starts right away
• Moved to the front of the line for review and assignment
• Worked on at a quicker pace to hit the faster timeline
• Expedited service comes in handy for pressing submissions to government agencies, schools, or business matters that cannot wait.

When your order has a hard copy, you can also choose expedited shipping at checkout. That gets your printed documents to you as fast as possible once the translation is approved.

Not sure whether expedited service fits your situation? Reach out, and we'll help you pick the right option for your timeline.

Estimated Turnaround Times

Our estimates draw on real numbers from thousands of completed orders, so they come from experience rather than guesswork. When a document runs past 5,250 words, we switch to a flexible method that weighs factors such as translator availability and how involved your content is, giving you a delivery window that is both realistic and reachable. You'll see these estimates at checkout and on quote requests.

Calculated in checkout

Rush Options with Multiple Translators

Our strong preference is to keep one translator on your order, which keeps terminology, tone, and formatting consistent throughout.

That said, when your deadline is tight, we can sometimes bring in more than one translator to speed things up. Whether we can depends on how the documents are built and whether they can be divided cleanly among translators.

There is no added charge for this, but we decide it order by order. Reach out if you would like to look into it.