Get Your Translation Degree Recognized in Spain

Which Spanish degree does your translation degree correspond to?

The equivalency is declared at bachelor's level in the Arts and Humanities field. The Spanish reference is the Bachelor's in Translation and Interpreting, with close variants such as Translation and Intercultural Communication or the Applied Languages degrees at some universities.

It is one of the few degrees on this site where the foreign qualification usually maps almost point for point onto the Spanish one, because translation curricula share a structure almost everywhere: B and C languages, specialized translation, terminology, documentation and interpreting. What varies is the language combination, and that does not affect the level decision.

What your translation degree is called at home

Colombia and Peru commonly issue Traducción e Interpretación. Mexico issues Licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas, Licenciatura en Traducción or Licenciatura en Idiomas, with a cédula profesional. Venezuela issues Licenciado en Idiomas Modernos, the dominant local name. Argentina's characteristic title is Traductor Público — a qualification with its own professional effects there — alongside Traductorado and Licenciatura en Traducción, with the certificado analítico.

Careful with the Argentinian Traductor Público: although it is a qualifying title at home, it does not automatically equate to the Spanish appointment as sworn translator-interpreter, which has its own route.

General translation and sworn translation: two different things

Translation in general is not a regulated profession in Spain: anyone may practise it, there is no compulsory professional membership, and therefore no aptitude test or training gaps to make up in your case.

What IS regulated is the figure of the Sworn Translator-Interpreter, an appointment by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation that authorizes signing translations with official validity. Your degree equivalency is the qualification requirement for sitting that exam, and without it you cannot even register, however much experience you can evidence.

What the equivalency does NOT do is appoint you as a sworn translator or validate an equivalent appointment from your country: the Spanish appointment is obtained by examination or through the routes its own rules provide. And an irony every translator who works with us discovers: the sworn translations your own file requires cannot be signed by you — they must be signed by a translator already appointed in Spain.

After the equivalency: the sworn translator exam and specialization

The natural destination is the Sworn Translator-Interpreter examination convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. It is a demanding process, with a Spanish language paper, direct and reverse translation without dictionaries and an interpreting test, and calls are not annual for every language. Once obtained, the appointment does not expire and opens a market with steady demand: immigration files, court proceedings, notarial work and, precisely, degree recognition cases.

In parallel, the equivalency gives access to official master's programmes in specialized translation — legal, medical, audiovisual, localization — and to public administration translation processes. If your goal is the European institutions, their competitions have their own qualification and EU-language requirements worth reviewing separately.