I am authorized by the Hanover Regional Court to translate and certify documents of all kinds from Portuguese and Spanish into German and vice versa. These include, for example, birth certificates, naturalization certificates, proof of residence, as well as judicial and notarial documents such as court judgments and contracts.
Please check with the authority to which you must submit the certification to determine whether the translation must be based on the original document or whether a translation of a scan is sufficient. In the certification statement, I must indicate whether I had the original, a copy, or a scan in my possession. Many international documents contain validation codes that can be used to verify the document’s authenticity online. In such cases, German authorities often accept certified translations of the scan. In some cases, however, a translation of the original may be required.