How to check a translator’s NAATI credential in two minutes

You do not have to take anyone’s word for it, including ours. Every NAATI digital stamp carries a QR code that opens NAATI’s own records, and NAATI keeps a public directory of the people it certifies. Scan the first, search the second, and you know whether the credential on your translation is real and whether it was live when the stamp was made. Both take about two minutes with a phone. They work the same on NAATI translation online from us.

Both checks work on a translation from any provider (the QR check needs a digital stamp; the directory check works for a physical stamp too), so if you already have one, check it before you pay for another. What neither check can prove is who actually read your document and wrote the English. That gap is the subject of a warning NAATI has published to its own translators, and we come to it at the end.

NAATI says the result “will show you the details of current or expired credentials held by that person, and will clearly state if the digital stamp is valid.” In practice there are three things you can see.

The first is the one you want: a valid stamp, and a current credential in the language direction your translation needed.

The second looks alarming and usually is not. “Where a practitioner has expired credentials but the stamp was generated when they were active, this will still state that the digital stamp is valid but you will see current credentials as expired.” Credentials run on a cycle: in NAATI’s words, “a credential will expire after three years if the translator or interpreter chooses not to recertify”. A translation stamped while the credential was live still carries a valid stamp for that job, even if the credential has since lapsed.

The third is the one to act on: “In the case the QR code has been disabled for fraud or misuse, or it has been forged the returned information will say Digital Stamp: Invalid.” If you see that, stop, and take it up with whoever supplied the translation.

One design detail explains why the date on the stamp matters. “The QR codes are specific to the day it was generated, so practitioners should download a new stamp on the day they do their translation.” A stamp is meant to be fetched fresh for the job in front of the translator, not kept on file and reused. And because “Each QR code on a stamp is unique, and NAATI can disable individual stamps in the case of fraud or misuse without impacting all other work the translator has done”, one bad stamp can be switched off without touching a translator’s other work.

Here is the honest limit. The stamp check confirms that a real, credentialled person generated the stamp, and the directory confirms who holds the credential. Neither can confirm that the same person did the translation. NAATI has warned its translators about “stamp only” services, where “a digital stamp or copy of a physical stamp is provided to these businesses for their use with no oversight from the practitioner at all”. In that arrangement the stamp can verify perfectly, and the words under it were written by whoever the business chose.

NAATI puts it as a requirement, not a suggestion: “the Code of Ethics requires that the responsibility for translations rests with the translator whose stamp is applied”. Its advice to translators is blunt: “Do not give control of your stamp to anyone”.

So this is how we work, and you can hold us to it. When you choose the NAATI certification option, the NAATI-certified translator we place your order with does the translation and applies their own stamp to their own work. We never hold, store or apply anyone’s stamp, and we say the same thing on our page for translators who want to join us: your stamp stays yours.

Our Standard option has no stamp to check; it is a translation without certification. If the office you are dealing with names NAATI, choose the certification option, and then run both checks on what we send you. If a name does not match or a stamp comes back invalid, we want to hear about it, with the order number, through the contact page.

One last thing, and it matters. A valid stamp tells you who stood behind the translation and that their credential was live on the day. Before you order from anyone, ask the office you are dealing with what it wants.