Every foreign-language document submitted as evidence in a USCIS filing must be translated. The most common are birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, death certificates, passports, police clearances, and academic records — but the regulation covers any document, not just a fixed list.
The universal rule
8 CFR §103.2(b)(3) is broad: 'Any document containing foreign language submitted to USCIS shall be accompanied by a full English language translation.' There's no list of which documents are 'covered' — the rule applies to every document in your filing that contains text in a language other than English.
That includes documents you might not think of: a notary's stamp on an otherwise English document, a foreign currency line on a bank statement, a non-English heading on an apostille, or a stamp on the back of a marriage certificate.
Documents required for the most common filings
I-130 (family petition): Petitioner's birth certificate (if foreign), beneficiary's birth certificate, marriage certificate (if filing as spouse), all prior divorce/death certificates ending earlier marriages.
I-485 (adjustment of status): Same as I-130 plus your foreign passport biographic page, any foreign police clearances if requested, and supporting financial documents.
N-400 (naturalization): Travel records, foreign police clearances if your interview officer asks, and any prior name-change documents.
I-589 (asylum): Identity documents, country-condition evidence, and supporting affidavits or letters from witnesses in your home country.
DS-260 (consular processing): Same documents as I-130/I-485 plus police clearances from every country you've lived in for 6+ months since age 16.
Documents people forget to translate
Marginal annotations on civil records (averbações in Brazilian documents, side notes on Mexican actas), apostille text when the apostille is in a foreign language, currency annotations on bank statements, and registrar's stamps that are technically separate from the main document text.
When in doubt, translate it. The cost of an extra page of translation is far less than the cost of an RFE that pauses your case for two months.
Key takeaways
- Every foreign-language document in a USCIS filing must be translated.
- The rule applies to stamps, marginal notes, and apostille text — not just the main document body.
- Most family-based filings require birth, marriage, prior-divorce/death, and passport translations at minimum.
- Asylum and consular filings require additional country-condition and police-clearance translations.