What the current ranking measures
Our first ranking orders four certified translation services by published base price for one civil certificate of up to 250 source words, with standard digital delivery, in USD. A provider’s page limit must cover the example. We do not convert currencies or treat a starting price as a fixed quote.
The result is a price ranking, not an overall quality ranking. Your language pair, document layout, destination authority and required extras may change the actual quote or suitability.
Why some services have no rank
A missing price stays unknown. Conflicting totals, unclear page limits, per-word starting rates and unmatched service packages are excluded. The page explains each exclusion. Multiple offers from the same known operator do not count as independent companies.
We show official issuers separately because an application fee is not the same product as an assistance package. Within an unranked private-service list, names appear alphabetically.
How the order is calculated
- Match the document example, currency, unit and service scope.
- Require reviewed source information, a definite base rate and a dated snapshot.
- Exclude evidence missing from the record or outside the 14-day review window at the edition date.
- Sort eligible base rates from low to high. Equal prices share a rank; searching does not renumber them.
The published-price ranking uses the 21 Sept 2026 snapshot. The international directory has separate collection dates on each source. Neither is a continuously updated live feed.
What would support a quality ranking
Published marketing is insufficient. A stronger ranking needs a defined applicant scenario, matched quotes, a representative provider set and documented testing of accuracy, delivery, support and correction or refund handling. Those tests have not been completed. We will not turn untested claims into scores.
Our ownership relationship
Document Index shares ownership with Expedify. We promote Expedify through labelled service placements and outbound links. These are commercial placements, not earned ranking positions. Related records are labelled. Ownership does not enter the price-order calculation, relax evidence requirements or earn a recommendation. Expedify’s Vietnam fee contexts remain unresolved in this edition, so it has no price rank.
News, guides and source dates
Guides and updates link the statements to official guidance or the provider page. Where known, an announcement date and an effective date are shown separately from the date we reviewed the source. Older announcements may contain superseded fees; current application guidance takes priority for those fees.
What a collected page establishes
Collection confirms that we captured a source page, its address, retrieval date and content fingerprint. It does not validate every claim. Provider-country pages can describe several visa types, nationality settings or unavailable services. Extracted fee tables stay outside rankings until their scope and totals have been reviewed. Nine destination pages also contain selected British-passport entry summaries checked against their named source; these are not all-nationalities eligibility advice.
Our source directories include government travel guidance, the HCCH competent-authority directory, the AIT/FIA driving-permit directory and provider websites. Country and territory names follow those sources and include some geographic groupings. A destination count is not a claim to cover all nationalities or every document category.
Coverage and corrections
This local, unpublished edition contains 20 categories, 43 curated service and official-route records, 14 guides and 5 travel updates. The expanding country directory contains 245 destination entries and 1,674 collected source pages. These are different measures: source pages are not independently verified services or completed rankings. No reader testing or independent expert review has been completed.
If sources conflict, the record should retain both contexts and withhold the disputed number until resolved. The saved research includes dated snapshots and hashes so the basis for each edit can be traced. A public corrections channel and ongoing editorial operation still need to be established before launch.