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Interpreters for Factory Audits and Site Visits
An audit is several jobs in one day: an opening meeting, a walk through the floor, hours of records, private interviews with workers and a closing meeting where findings are agreed. Each asks something different of the interpreter, and one of them should never be interpreted by the factory's own staff.
Not the factory's interpreter
Worker interviews should be held without management present, so the interpreter should not be management's.
Records take the longest
Time cards, payroll and batch records are read aloud by sight translation, line by line.
$3,520 for a two-day audit
Two interpreters in person for two eight-hour days at $110 an hour, plus travel.
Can you use the factory's interpreter for an audit?
For the meetings with management, often yes; for the worker interviews, no. The Department of Labor's guidance on social compliance audits says interviews should be conducted without management present, ideally offsite, and that auditors should also interview members of worker organizations or local advocacy groups. An interpreter who works for the factory, or was found by it, is management in the room as far as a worker is concerned, and a worker who fears for their job will answer accordingly. No rule we found assigns the interpreter in a private audit, so the auditing side — the buyer, the brand or the third-party audit firm — arranges its own.
Regulatory inspections show how much the question of who translated matters. FDA's Investigations Operations Manual tells investigators to record in the inspection report the full names and titles of whoever translated foreign-language documents, to translate the pertinent portions of foreign-language exhibits, and treats time needed to translate records into English as a reasonable explanation for a delay in producing them. So a plant preparing for an inspection, or a buyer auditing a supplier ahead of one, should decide in advance who will render the records: their name will be on the report, and their accuracy will be judged with it.
Each part of the audit asks something different
- Opening and closing meetings are consecutive, at a table. The Labor Department's audit steps describe the opening meeting as explaining the process to managers, including the parts they will not take part in, and the closing meeting as reporting violations and asking for a remediation plan. Both should be rendered in full: a finding softened in the closing meeting comes back as a dispute over the corrective action plan.
- The floor walk is short consecutive or whispered interpreting while walking, often in noise. For a group of more than two or three, portable receivers help; they come from the factory or an audio-visual supplier, not from us.
- Document review is sight translation: the interpreter reads time cards, payroll registers, training logs, batch records or deviation reports aloud in English. It is slow, it is where the hours go, and the auditor should pick the samples rather than let the plant read selected pages.
- Worker interviews are consecutive, private and away from supervisors. Each one starts with who the auditor is, what happens to the answers and that the worker can decline, rendered word for word.
The factory's language may not be the workers' language
Management in a plant may speak the national language while much of the line speaks something else: migrant workers from another country, or, in a US plant, workers whose first language is an Indigenous language such as Mam or K'iche' while their supervisors speak Spanish. An interview held in the supervisors' language with a worker who answers in their second language gets short, cautious answers and misses exactly the issues a social audit looks for — recruitment fees, withheld documents, hours. Ask the plant, and ideally workers' organizations, which languages are spoken on each line, and book an interpreter for each language you expect to interview in.
Keep the worker-interview interpreter separate from the one who sits with management, if the budget allows. Workers see who walks in with the auditors, and an interpreter they watched chatting with the plant manager at the opening meeting is not someone they will speak freely to an hour later.
Running an audit through an interpreter
- Send the checklist and the interview questions in advance. Questions written for English speakers often turn leading in translation; the interpreter can flag the ones that will.
- Ask about hours and pay in numbers, not words. "How many hours did you work last Tuesday" renders cleanly; "do you work overtime" does not, because what counts as overtime varies.
- Have records rendered into English verbatim, with dates and amounts read out exactly, and note in the working papers who rendered which document.
- Read the findings aloud at the closing meeting and have the interpreter render each one before management responds to it.
- Leave time. Every interview and every exchange is said twice; an audit plan built for an English-speaking plant runs over.
Booking an audit or a site visit
In person is $110 per interpreter per hour with a two-hour minimum. A two-day audit from 8 to 4 with two interpreters, one with management and records and one for worker interviews, is 2 × 8 × $110 = $1,760 a day, $3,520 for the two days, plus travel at $0.70 per mile from each interpreter's location, confirmed before you book; a plant 45 miles from the interpreter is a 90-mile round trip, $63 a day. A remote audit, where the plant streams the walk-through and the records over Teams or Zoom, is $80 an hour: a three-hour remote session is $240. For a plant outside the United States, tell us where it is and in which languages, and we will confirm whether we can staff it before you book.
Send with the request the audit dates and hours, the plant's address, the audit standard or checklist, the number of worker interviews and the languages expected, and any protective equipment or site induction required of visitors. Audit reports and corrective action plans needed in another language are audit report translation, a separate written service.
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.
Languages
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.
Each language has its own page on what to watch for — dialects, names, dates, who the speakers usually are: see interpreters by language.
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 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.
Thank you — we have your request
We will reply the same business day with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one, before you commit to anything.
Sources
What this page says about the rules was checked against these official sources on October 28, 2026. Rules change; the source is always the authority.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs — Comply Chain: Key Topic, Steps in an Audit
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Investigations Operations Manual 2026, Chapter 5: Inspections (sections 5.5.2.3, 5.5.8.1, 5.7.1.4.2, 5.7.3)
Frequently asked questions
Can the factory provide the interpreter for our audit?
For the meetings with management, it can. For worker interviews, use your own: the Department of Labor's audit guidance says interviews should be conducted without management present, and an interpreter supplied by the factory is, to a worker, management.
Who translates during an FDA inspection of a foreign plant?
FDA's Investigations Operations Manual tells investigators to record in the report the names and titles of who translated foreign-language documents. Whoever does it — plant staff or an interpreter the plant hires — should render the records exactly, because their name goes in the report.
Can an interpreter join a remote audit?
Yes. The interpreter joins the Zoom, Teams or Meet call at $80 an hour with a one-hour minimum. It works for meetings and records; for worker interviews, check that workers can speak from a private place.
How much does an interpreter cost for a two-day factory audit?
Two interpreters in person for two eight-hour days is 2 × 8 × $110 × 2 = $3,520, plus travel at $0.70 per mile. One interpreter for the same two days is $1,760.
Can you translate the audit report and corrective action plan?
Yes, as a separate written service quoted per page — see audit report translation.
Is the price per person or per interpreter?
Per interpreter, per hour, billed from the scheduled start time. One interpreter covers a meeting; a full-day hearing may need two working in relay.
How is travel charged?
$0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location — a 20-mile round trip is $14. We confirm the exact figure before you book, and virtual assignments carry none.
Need an interpreter?
Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will confirm the interpreter and the exact price.