Catalan Translator in Ghent — Catalan Dutch and Sworn Service

Looking for a Catalan translator in Ghent or anywhere in Flanders? Whether you are a Catalan national living in Flanders, a Flemish company with Catalan partners, or you have Catalan documents to submit to Ghent or Flemish authorities, TranslateBE offers a certified Catalan-Dutch and Catalan-French translation service that is entirely online, fast, and legally recognised across Belgium.

The Spanish and Catalan community in Flanders

Flanders is home to a Spanish community that includes a significant share of people originating from Catalan-speaking regions, namely Catalonia, the Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands. These Flemish residents of Catalan origin work in diverse sectors: education, university research (Ghent University, KU Leuven, and the University of Antwerp all attract Spanish and Catalan researchers), industry, services, and technology.

Ghent, as a dynamic university city and economic centre of East Flanders, welcomes Spanish and Catalan expats who come for research contracts, academic exchange programmes, or professional opportunities in the Flemish technology and industrial sectors.

These Catalan residents in Flanders have specific translation needs: their Catalan civil status documents must be translated into Dutch for Flemish municipal procedures, their Catalan degrees must be recognised by Flemish employers and institutions, and their Catalan notarial deeds must be translated for legal proceedings in Flanders.

Catalan-to-Dutch translation for procedures in Flanders

In Flanders, the administrative language is Dutch. The municipalities of Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, and all other Flemish cities require foreign documents to be translated into Dutch by a sworn translator accredited in Belgium. The Catalan-Dutch language pair is rare, and very few agencies offer this service with Belgian sworn certification.

TranslateBE covers this specific language pair. The documents most frequently translated for procedures in Flanders include:

• Catalan civil status records translated into Dutch: birth, marriage, and death certificates for Flemish municipalities and procedures with the Office of Foreigners (DVZ).
• Catalan academic degrees and transcripts: for recognition by Naric Vlaanderen or by Flemish employers of qualifications obtained at Catalan universities.
• Catalan notarial deeds: powers of attorney, sale contracts, and wills drawn up by Catalan notaries, to be translated into Dutch for proceedings in Flanders.
• Company documents: articles of association, extracts from the Catalan commercial register, for Belgian-Catalan partnerships or the establishment of Catalan companies in Flanders.

Why Catalan is different from Spanish, in Flanders too

A common misconception in Flanders is that Catalan is a dialect of Spanish. In reality, Catalan is a fully independent Romance language, as different from Spanish as Portuguese or Romanian. This difference is not merely academic: in practice, a Dutch-Spanish translator cannot produce a reliable translation of a document written in Catalan.

Flemish administrations do not always make the distinction. They see a foreign Iberian document and ask for a translation. But if the source document is in Catalan, the translation must be carried out by someone with specific command of Catalan, not Spanish. Submitting a translation based on an approximate reading of Catalan risks introducing factual errors into official documents, with potentially serious consequences for administrative procedures.

Our online service allows residents and businesses in Ghent and across Flanders to access certified Catalan-Dutch translations produced by qualified specialists, without needing to visit a physical office. Delivery is by email in certified PDF format, directly usable with Flemish administrations.