Translation of bank statements for visit visa

[learner__]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to visit Ireland on a C visa in a few months time.

My bank will issue me a balance statement in English - but I'm looking at a cost of ~€200 for translation of my six months of bank statements (with transaction details) into English.

Does anyone have an idea if a balance statement would suffice (with an otherwise strong application) or is the six months of statements a hard and fast requirement?

Thanks very much!

[meself2]

What is a balance statement, one that shows how much money you have and that's it?

The purpose of showing a bank statement is to make sure a) you have movement in your account (it wasn't open just for a visa) and b) to make sure your money are your money, earned fairly and not borrowed (so you didn't borrow money off someone 5 days ago, applied for a visa and transferred money back, as that'll be reflected in the statement), plus to see if your income matches what's stated.
If you can't show either of those in your balance statement, I'm afraid it won't do.
Ask your bank if they can issue you the bank statement in English, maybe.

[shpirtshqipe]

Not sure in your birth country but in mine I’ve used in the past a public notary to translate bank statements into English which was much cheaper than the Bank doing the same. Maybe you might have something similar where you are from that’s cheaper to translate?

All the best

[littlerr]

I might be wrong but I don’t ever recall any requirement to have a bank statement translation certified. Most people just do translation by themselves. Worst case scenario you can do the translation yourself and then get a certified body to sign and stamp it.

[meself2]

That's tricky.
https://irishimmigration.ie/coming-to-v ... rist-visa/ states that:

You must provide a full and certified translation into the English or Irish language of any documents not in English or Irish. Send us both the original documents and the certified translations.

But is bank statement a document that they refer to? They state "any documents".

[learner__]

Yep, it's tricky. Obviously my statements show amounts coming in and out corresponding to my salary, and the consistent balance over time, but the text describing it isn't in English. Seems an awful lot to have to spend just to provide this. (Six months of statements is a lot of pages!)

I can't be the first one in this position - but I'm struggling to find any similar questions (or answers) here or elsewhere on the internet.

Any other suggestions welcome!

[littlerr]

As I said (and as a nation of people who used to deal with these visa craps all the time), bank statements are not something that you typically ask certified translators to translate for you.

Certified translators translate standard official documents such as driving licences and birth certificates. Other non-standard documents such as bank statements, legal contracts, you just translate by yourself and get translators to have your documents stamped.

In China there are translation organisations who can stamp your translated document for a small amount of money. You simply translate by yourself and get a translator to stamp it. When I sold my property in China and transferred the money to Ireland, I needed to do this property sale contract translation myself to prove the large sum of money coming in to my Irish account was legit. I got the translation organisation to stamp it for roughly 10 euro.