FBI background check: sworn translation for your Spanish visa

This is the catalogue price for a criminal record certificate: there is no surcharge for the United States or for same-day delivery. Payment is by card in US dollars or euros through Stripe, or through Wise, once you approve the quote in writing.

The Identity History Summary is the FBI's record of the arrests and convictions on file under your name in the United States or, more often, a statement that there is no record. You request it from the FBI directly or through an approved channeler, and it arrives as a PDF or on paper. Spanish consulates call it the FBI background check or certificado de antecedentes penales, and they want the federal certificate rather than a state or county check, because it covers your whole time in the country.

Before translation, the certificate needs a federal apostille from the US Department of State in Washington (Office of Authentications). The apostille certifies the FBI signature so the document is valid in Spain; the sworn translation is the next step and is done on the apostilled document, so the consulate reads everything you submit in Spanish.

Most consulates require the certificate to be less than 90 days old on the application date (some count from issue, others from the apostille), so order the FBI check once your appointment is close and leave the translation for last. The sworn translation itself does not expire.

Whether the apostille page must be translated depends on the consulate: Miami states on its website that it is not needed; others want every page in Spanish. Check your consulate's checklist or send it to me and I will tell you. For financial thresholds, fees and processing times, go to your consulate's official page or to an immigration lawyer: on this page I keep to the document and the translation.

The police certificate is requested from every adult applicant who has lived in the United States in recent years. It appears in these files:

• Non-lucrative visa: together with the medical certificate, proof of funds and health insurance.
• Digital nomad visa: with the employer letter or contracts, the company certificate and the certificate of coverage.
• Student visa for stays over six months: with the admission letter and insurance.
• Work visa and family reunification: the certificate comes from the adult applicant; the family's birth and marriage certificates also need an apostille and a sworn translation.
• Spanish citizenship applied for from the United States: the FBI check goes with the US birth and marriage certificates.

If you are translating several documents at once, the Spain Visa Pack covers the FBI check with the medical certificate and a birth or marriage certificate for one fixed price.

In the United States a certified translation is any translation with a signed statement of accuracy; anyone can issue one. In Spain a sworn translation (traducción jurada) is signed and stamped by a translator appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that is what Spanish law requires for foreign documents before a Spanish authority. Consulates accept sworn translations without question; some also accept a US certified translation for the visa itself, but once you are in Spain, the immigration office that issues your residence card (TIE), the town hall and the civil registry will ask for a sworn translation, and the FBI check would be translated twice.

My translation reproduces the whole document: the FBI letterhead, the result, the seal, the signature block and, if your consulate requires it, the apostille, each element labelled so the officer can match it to the original. It carries my certification, signature and stamp on every page and the qualified electronic signature on the PDF.