Translation in figures 2020.
Date: 2020-05-13
Institutions: Directorate-General for Translation
Subjects: EU publication, European Commission, official language, operation of the Institutions, translation, use of languages

Translation in figures 2020

We are the translation service
of the European Commission. 

We provide high-quality translation 
and other language services. 

This helps the Commission communicate
with citizens in a language they understand,
making the EU more open and democratic.

Our staff
(approx. data as of 1 January 2020)

Translators, language technology experts,
 quality experts, terminologists and revisers
70%

Total staff
2,000

Support staff*
30%

* Management, assistants, IT, HR and finance, outsourcing, training, communication etc.

Women
68%

Men
32%

Where we work:

1% locally in EU member countries.

46%

of us work in Brussels

53%

in Luxembourg 

What we translate:

49%
EU law-making

Others

1%

8%
Communication with
 EU institutions, 
national parliaments

10%
Other
official
documents

9%
Incoming
correspondence*

21%
External
communication,
web content 

* Every EU citizen can write to the 
EU institutions in one of the 
official languages and receive an 
answer in the same language.

2%

Consulting 
the public 
on EU policy 

We translate
approx. 2 million pages
a year

In-house: 
68%

Outsourced:
32%

Translation costs

Total cost/year

€343 million
(including staff, outsourcing, IT, 
training, events, 24/7 availability) 

Proportion of EU budget

0.2 %

When they became an official EU language

1973

1986

English

1981

Portuguese

1958

Greek

1995

Danish

Spanish

Finnish

Dutch

French

German Italian

Croatian

2013

Swedish

Slovenian

Slovak

Polish

Romanian

Irish

Bulgarian

2007

Maltese

Lithuanian

2004

Estonian

Czech

Hungarian

Latvian

We translate all official EU languages

Pages from 

Pages into

1,689,756

73,134

29,201

23,448

22,358

17,469

13,703

12,372

11,968

11,125

9,810

7,911

6,523

6,475

5,913

5,547

4,694

4,614

4,489

4,478

4,464

4,124

2,727

661

0

English

French

German

Italian

Spanish

Romanian

Polish

Hungarian

Bulgarian

Greek

Portuguese

Dutch

Czech

Croatian

Slovak

Slovenian

Danish

Swedish

Finnish

Lithuanian

Latvian

Estonian

Others

Maltese

Irish
TOTAL

185,613

140,384

104,757

84,389

83,832

76,726

77,881

75,587

76,240

76,960

77,591

82,492

75,444

74,877

74,341

74,113

73,492

75,327

73,911

74,558

73,409

73,425

6,573

73,192

11,849
1,976,964

/

1
1
6
9
5
3
2
8
7
2
0
1

.

:
i

o
d

/

3
5
2
9
1
0
2
8
7
2
0
1

.

:
i

o
d

¦

5
-
3
7
5
7
1
-
6
7
-
2
9
-
8
7
9
N
B
S

I

¦

C
-
N
E
-
9
0
2
-
0
2
-
3
0
-
C
H

:
t
n
i
r
P

¦

2
-
4
7
5
7
1
-
6
7
-
2
9
-
8
7
9
N
B
S

I

¦

N
-
N
E
-
9
0
2
-
0
2
-
3
0
-
C
H

:

F
D
P

ec.europa.eu/info/departments/translation
DG Translation local offices:
ec.europa.eu/info/departments/translation/dg-translation-local-offices
Work with DG Translation:
ec.europa.eu/info/jobs-european-commission

@TranslatingForEurope

@Translatores

DGTranslation

TranslatingForEurope

European Commission
B-1049 Brussels
Tel. +32 2 2991111
DGT-COMMUNICATION@ec.europa.eu

© European Union, 2020
Images: © iStock.com/bluebearry