Vaccination Record Translation

Who asks for it, and what they require

The USCIS medical exam (Form I-693). Civil surgeons follow the CDC's Vaccination Technical Instructions. Those instructions say that some civil surgeon offices may be able to translate records, but that "the responsibility lies with the applicant to provide reliable English translations of all records." They also accept only doses recorded with the full date of receipt, month, day and year. Bring the original record and the translation to the exam.

New Jersey schools. Under N.J.A.C. 8:57-4.6, immunization records in a language other than English must come with a translation sufficient to show the child meets New Jersey's requirements. In a May 2023 memo, the state said the New Jersey Department of Health allows any person to translate the record, as long as the translation includes the translator's printed name and signature, and that children transferring from abroad get a 30-day grace period to provide records. The Department of Education also lists county organizations that translate at little or no cost. In other words: for a New Jersey school, you may not need a paid translation at all. The rules were amended in January 2026, so confirm with the school nurse.

Colleges and universities set their own documentation rules for students, often stricter than schools'. Many ask for a translation they can rely on, and a certified translation with a signed certificate is the safe choice when the record is going into a file that can be checked later.

What the translation has to get right

Dates. Most of the world writes day-month-year. 03/04/2019 is 3 April on a Mexican or German record and would be 4 March if misread by US convention. Since vaccine schedules depend on minimum intervals between doses, a swapped day and month can make a valid series look invalid, or the reverse. We write every date with the month in words.

Vaccine names, not guesses. Records use local brand names and abbreviations: АКДС for DTP on Russian records, "triple viral" (SRP) for MMR on Mexican records, Masern-Mumps-Röteln on German ones. We translate what the record says and give the abbreviation as written; we do not substitute a US product name the record does not contain. The CDC publishes a list of foreign vaccine names that civil surgeons and nurses use to match them.

Every entry, including the ones that do not count. Lot numbers, clinic stamps, the vaccinator's signature and handwritten notes are part of the record and are translated, even where a dose is incomplete or undated.