A notarised translation is the legal face of the original document to Vietnamese authorities — one mistranslated capital figure or one misspelled proper name becomes official dossier information, and the error usually surfaces only when two documents of the same company start contradicting each other. By stage, Wrong Names or Figures in Certified Translations arises after the licences have been obtained: the company must turn the commitments on its licences into real operations, and any small discrepancy will be re-examined by the bank, the tax authority or the registration authority.
Short answer
In short: typical translation errors are wrong figures (capital, ratios, dates), wrong proper names of organisations and individuals, legal terms mistranslated so the document nature changes (authorisation read as transfer, member read as shareholder), and missing annex translations. A notarised translation cannot be hand-corrected; errors are fixed by re-translating from the legalised original, with fresh notarisation for the corrected translation.
Wrong Names or Figures in Certified Translations has two layers that must be kept apart: the law sets the framework of rights and obligations, while actual application depends on how banks, tax authorities and registration authorities examine each specific document.
Detailed analysis
Vietnamese receiving authorities work on the Vietnamese translation, so every consistency check — the investor name between the resolution and the parent registration, capital figures between the charter and the project, the representative name across documents — happens on translations. A translation off by one character creates two different ‘entities’ in the system eyes, and the supplementation round will demand explanation or re-translation. Systematic proper-name errors usually come from transliterating by source-language habit instead of keeping the exact writing in the passport and original registration; figure errors come from differing number formats between countries (thousand and decimal separators).
A pre-filing translation check needs three rounds: a hard-data round (every figure, date and code must match the original character by character), a proper-name round across the whole dossier set rather than document by document, and a legal-term reverse-read round for high-consequence documents such as authorisations and charters. The translator must meet notarisation-law conditions — a translation collaborator of a notary practice organisation or a translation with the translator signature authenticated as prescribed — and the translation is attached to the legalised original in the same dossier set.
Framework: translation in notarisation activity under Notarisation Law 46/2024/QH15 (effective 1 July 2025, replacing Notarisation Law 53/2014/QH13) — the translator is a translation collaborator of a notary practice organisation and answers for the translation, or the translator signature is authenticated as prescribed; translations used in dossiers must be made from documents legalised under Decree 111/2021/ND-CP.
Risks and practical notes
For Wrong Names or Figures in Certified Translations, beyond administrative fines, the company may also face the bank refusing transactions, being classified as high-risk by the tax authority, and partners demanding an explanation of its legal status.
The specific risk: the most dangerous translation error is the ‘looks right’ kind — a wrongly translated capital figure is still a formally valid number, a wrongly translated name still reads like an ordinary name, so neither the investor nor the filer notices until matching systems start reporting mismatches, by which time the error has replicated into multiple other documents.
Action checklist
- Check every figure, date and code in the translation against the original character by character
- Reconcile proper names across the whole dossier set in one master table
- Reverse-read key legal terms in authorisations and charters before notarisation
- Notarise translations only from fully legalised originals still practically valid
- Keep the name — figure reconciliation table as a check document for later dossiers
Frequently asked questions
What happens if a notarised translation is wrong?
The dossier may be asked to explain or refile a correct translation if the authority spots the contradiction, or worse, the wrong information goes straight into certificates — project files if nobody spots it, creating divergence among the company official documents that later needs amendment procedures to fix. Consequence severity tracks the mistranslated datum: names and capital figures are the two heaviest.
Typical errors in translated documents?
Typical errors include: wrong capital figures and dates from differing number formats between countries, wrong or inconsistent proper names across documents, legal terms mistranslated so duties change (confusing capital-contributing members with shareholders, an authorised person with the legal representative), missing annex — final signature page translations, and currency units — place names kept in misleading ways.
Can an error be hand-corrected on the translation?
No. A notarised translation consists of the translated content and the notary practice organisation attestation; any handwriting alteration destroys the notarised document integrity. The correct fix is re-translating from the original, notarising the correct translation and replacing all wrong copies in the dossier with an explanation if already filed.
How to check a translation before filing?
Check in three rounds: hard data matching character by character, proper names consistent across the whole dossier, and key legal terms read in cross-check by someone competent in both languages. A practical extra test is having a non-translator read the translation and restate the duties — figures arising from it to catch meaning-changing renderings.
FLAT Law Firm accompanies investors
On Wrong Names or Figures in Certified Translations, the FLAT Law Firm has handled many similar incorporation matters and can give differentiated filing advice based on receiving practice in different provinces, avoiding the mistake of applying one locality’s experience nationwide. Companies may book a consultation through the FLAT Law Firm’s website and hotline; for the first discussion, please have the investment registration certificate and enterprise registration certificate ready so that we can pinpoint the issue quickly.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council