Not the Kammergericht: Where Berlin Actually Registers Its Sworn Translators

Same Street, Different Desk

If you’ve already dealt with Berlin’s apostille process for a notarial document or a court decision, the address Littenstraße 12-17 might already be familiar: that’s where Landgericht Berlin II’s apostille counter sits. The office that swears in interpreters and authorizes translators is in the same building, under the same court, but it’s a separate Geschäftsstelle with its own room, its own hours, and no shared line with the desk next door.

It’s also not the office most newcomers guess on the first try. Berlin’s best-known court is the Kammergericht, the state’s highest ordinary court and the only one in the country still carrying that particular name instead of Oberlandesgericht, a genuine historical holdover from Prussian administration. Given how often the Kammergericht comes up in conversations about Berlin’s legal system, assuming it also handles sworn translators is a reasonable guess. It’s the wrong one. General oath-taking for interpreters and authorization for translators here is decided by the Landgericht Berlin, specifically its civil division, through the Dolmetscherabteilung. Applications and inquiries go to Littenstraße 12-17, 10179 Berlin, Geschäftsstelle E, Room 1601, reachable at (030) 9023-2217 or by email, with in-person hours Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 13:00. Berlin’s service portal also runs the applications online, with separate entries for court interpreters, other interpreters, and translators.

Two Words, One Office

Berlin’s system uses two distinct labels rather than one blanket term. An interpreter who’s passed the oral oath is allgemein beeidigt, generally sworn. A translator who’s passed the written check is ermächtigt, authorized. The two often overlap in one person, since the same office and largely the same qualification path handle both, but an authority asking for a “sworn translator” specifically wants the ermächtigt status for written documents, not the interpreter oath.

The legal basis is federal, §§ 185 and 186 of the Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz for interpreters, § 142(3) of the Zivilprozessordnung for translators, applied in Berlin through the state’s own implementing statute rather than a standalone Landesgesetz. That’s a point of contrast worth knowing if you’ve read about neighboring systems: Hamburg administers the same underlying status under its own Hamburgisches Dolmetschergesetz, and Brandenburg under its own Sprachmittlergesetz, while Berlin runs the identical federal framework through its Landgericht without a dedicated state law of its own. Getting sworn in the first place also isn’t free for the applicant: a general oath as interpreter carries a 120 euro administrative fee, rising by 20 euros for each additional language, paid by the professional, not by the person who later hires them.

Matching the Right Language to the Right Person

Once you know what status you’re looking for, finding someone who actually holds it comes down to two searches, not one. Start with the federal Dolmetscher- und Übersetzerdatenbank at justiz-dolmetscher.de, which currently lists close to 25,000 sworn interpreters and translators across the country and lets you filter by Bundesland and exact language pair. If a name isn’t listed there under Berlin and your language combination, don’t assume it’s a database lag, assume the person simply isn’t sworn in yet.

Layer that with BDÜ Landesverband Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.’s own database, which represents more than 970 members across roughly 90 languages and dozens of specializations, useful when you want someone who also knows a specific subject area, medical records or engineering diplomas, for instance, on top of the language itself. Neither database replaces the other; the federal one confirms legal status, the regional one narrows down who’s actually reachable and active nearby.

Berlin’s own community makeup shapes how fast either search moves. Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish speakers make up some of the city’s largest immigrant communities, and the pool of sworn professionals in those languages reflects it, more names, more competition on price, shorter turnaround for a routine document. Smaller communities, Vietnamese among them, have fewer registered options in either database, so a search can take longer and a quote can run higher simply because fewer people hold the qualification for that specific pair. None of this changes the legal requirement itself, but it’s worth budgeting extra time if your language sits outside Berlin’s most common combinations.

What a Certified Page Actually Costs

Sworn translators aren’t required to charge a fixed public rate for private clients, but Germany’s JVEG sets the statutory benchmark courts themselves pay, currently 1.95 to 2.15 euros per 55 characters depending on whether the source document is editable text or a scan, with a 20 euro minimum per assignment. Commercial quotes in Berlin for a standard certified page commonly land somewhat above that floor, since agencies and independent translators both build in their own margin, and a rarer language pair or a rushed turnaround pushes the number higher still. If a quote looks far out of line with the JVEG benchmark in either direction, it’s worth asking what’s driving the difference before committing.

Where People Get Tripped Up

Two mix-ups come up often enough to flag directly. The first is assuming the Kammergericht handles this because it’s the name people already know from other Berlin legal matters; it doesn’t, and mail sent there for a translator application simply sits unprocessed. The second is treating Landgericht Berlin II’s apostille desk and the Dolmetscherabteilung as one office because they share a building and a street address; they’re separate counters with separate hours, and confirming a translator’s authorization tells you nothing about whether a document also needs an apostille, or the other way around.

Finding and Confirming Yours

1. Identify which status you actually need, ermächtigt for a written translation, allgemein beeidigt for an interpreter at an appointment, since many professionals hold only one.
2. Search justiz-dolmetscher.de filtered to Berlin and your exact language pair to confirm current, genuine sworn status.
3. Cross-check BDÜ Landesverband Berlin-Brandenburg’s database if you also need a specific subject-area specialization or a wider set of options.
4. Budget extra time for less common language pairs, since fewer registered professionals can mean a longer wait.
5. Confirm sworn status directly with the translator before paying. Finding out after a Berlin office has bounced the document back costs far more than a two-minute database check up front.
6. Ask the requesting Berlin office whether an apostille is also needed, since that’s handled at a different desk in the same building, not this one.

Compliance Note

This page lays out the general system for finding and confirming a sworn translator in Berlin; it isn’t legal advice. Requirements differ by document type and by which office ultimately wants the translation, so check the specifics with whoever requested it before you commission any work.