What is NAATI?

NAATI stands for National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. It is the accreditation body for interpreters and translators in Australia. NAATI is a non-profit organization. The Commonwealth, the State Governments of Australia, and the Territory Governments of Australia together own NAATI. The owners appoint a Board of Directors to govern NAATI.

NAATI handles setting up, maintaining, and promoting high professional standards for the translating and interpreting industry. NAATI has over 13,100+ practitioners holding 17,950 credentials in 185 languages. (Source)

NAATI assesses the practitioners, translators, and interpreters against their standards. NAATI ensures a smooth and effective interaction between English-speaking and Non-English speaking Australians. The NAATI certification acknowledges that a person’s translation and interpretation ability meet their professional standards. NAATI is the only organization to issue this certification.

This certification by NAATI, is an acknowledgement that a person has the abilities required by the translation and interpreting industry and meets their professional standards. It assesses practitioners, translators and interpreters against set standards so that English speaking and non-English speaking Australians can have smooth and effective interaction.

Services offered by NAATI

Why NAATI?

Every official translation and interpretation service in Australia requires NAATI accredited translators and interpreters. Moreover, any personal documentation from a foreign country requires translation into English for submission to the Australian Government. These documents may include:

• Payslips/ Salary slips
• Academic Transcripts
• Bank Statements
• Birth Certificates
• Marriage Certificates
• Death Certificates
• Driving Licenses
• Divorce Certificates
• Police Checks
• Educational Qualifications

Only the NAATI accredited translators can perform these acceptable translations. This emphasis the importance of certification

Different Accreditation's or Certifications

The following are various Certifications or Accreditation's based on the experience of the translators and the demand for their language of expertise:

• Advanced Translator - Senior and earlier known as NAATI Level 5
• Advanced Translator - earlier known as NAATI Level 4
• Professional Translator - earlier known as NAATI Level 3
• Paraprofessional Translator - earlier known as NAATI Level 2
• Recognition - Awarded when accreditation is unavailable in that language.
• NIL credentialed - Awarded to the interpreters with none of the above-outlined credentials. NIL credentialed is generally for languages with low demand. In this case, NAATI offers neither certification nor recognized practitioner status.