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Lao Interpreters

Professional Lao interpreting, virtual or in person, for the settings where getting it wrong has consequences — asylum interviews, hearings, attorney meetings, medical appointments and school meetings.

Laos is not one language: ask whether the client is ethnic Lao before booking Lao

Does a client from Laos need a Lao interpreter? Only if they are ethnic Lao. Laos's minorities include the Hmong, the Yao (Mien) and Mon-Khmer peoples, each with its own language, and the Census Bureau's "Laotian" category deliberately excludes the Hmong — who, at about 350,000 people of Hmong origin in 2024, outnumber the 180,000 counted as Laotian. Even where a Hmong or Mien client also speaks Lao, their own account belongs in their own language.

Ethnic Lao refugees came later than is often assumed: only 800 were admitted from Laos in 1975, 10,200 the following year, and resettlement continued into the early 1990s. The last detailed Census language count, for 2009–2013, found 152,647 Lao speakers, led by California (36,849), Texas (10,999), Minnesota (9,900), Washington and Tennessee; in 2024 California (43,300) and Texas (17,200) still had the most people of Laotian origin.

Thai is close to Lao, and still not a substitute in testimony

Can a Thai interpreter cover a Lao speaker? For a short practical exchange, often; for testimony or a medical history it is a compromise. The scripts are close enough that a reader of one can read the other with a little instruction, but speech is where the distance lies. Isan — the Lao spoken in northeast Thailand — and Central Thai share over 80% of their vocabulary yet are mutually intelligible only with difficulty, because their tones and vowels differ and many everyday words do not match. A Bangkok-trained Thai interpreter faces the same gap with a Lao speaker from Vientiane.

Tone is where an approximate interpreter goes wrong. Standard Vientiane Lao has six tones, and the same syllable kow means "a time, an occasion" on a high tone, "white" on a rising tone and "news" on a mid tone. An interpreter who is guessing from Thai will usually be right and occasionally, unnoticeably, wrong.

Some Lao speakers carry Thai passports, and the Census cannot see them

Northeast Thailand's Isan speakers speak a variety of Lao that differs from the Lao of Laos mainly in spelling and some vocabulary, though the Thai government classifies it as a dialect of Thai. A client with a Thai passport from the northeast may therefore be most at ease with a Lao interpreter, not a Thai one. Ask what they speak at home rather than reading it off the passport.

The numbers hide this. Current Census tables fold Lao into a single "Thai, Lao, or other Tai-Kadai languages" group — 301,051 speakers in 2024, about half of them speaking English less than "very well" — so a hospital or school district looking at its language data cannot see its Lao speakers separately from its Thai ones. If you know a family is Lao, say so when you book; it is information the statistics will not give us.

Lao is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Lao interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Lao carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, and why lead time matters more here than with a common language: a week is comfortable, two days is a gamble.

We would rather tell you that before you book a hearing date than after. If your date is fixed and close, say so when you enquire and we will tell you honestly whether we can staff it rather than accepting and hoping.

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Where interpretation is used

The settings differ in what they demand of the interpreter, which is worth saying because they are frequently priced as though they were the same work:

• Asylum and immigration interviews. USCIS asylum interviews require the applicant to bring an interpreter, and the interview can be rescheduled if the interpreter does not appear or is not competent — which makes this the setting where getting it right matters most.
• Attorney–client meetings and declarations. Preparing testimony, taking a statement, going through documents.
• Depositions and hearings. Where the record is being made and accuracy is examined afterwards.
• Medical appointments. Note that hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance themselves, so ask before you hire.
• School meetings. IEP meetings and parent conferences — districts also have their own obligations here.
• Business meetings and signings, such as real estate closings.

Each setting has its own page — who has to provide the interpreter, what the meeting asks of one and what it costs: see interpreters by setting.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What we will tell you before you book

Two things, both of which occasionally cost us the booking. Whether the venue supplies its own interpreter. Immigration court provides one. Hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance. School districts have obligations of their own. If yours does, you should not be paying us — ask them first.

And whether we can actually staff your date. For a limited-availability language on short notice the honest answer is sometimes no, and we would rather say it than accept a booking we cannot fill. Interpretation is not translation: see certified translation at $24.95 per page if what you need is a document rendered in writing.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

The facts on this page about the language and its speakers in the United States were checked against these sources on October 28, 2026.

• U.S. Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, 2009–2013 American Community Survey (nation and state tables)
• U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2024, Table B02015, Asian alone by selected groups
• U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2024, Table B16001, Language spoken at home by ability to speak English
• Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America — Laotian Americans (Carl L. Bankston III), via Encyclopedia.com
• Wikipedia — Isan language
• Wikipedia — Laotian Americans

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