Urdu (اردو)
Urdu (ur, urd) is a world language. Wikidata records about 68.6M speakers. It is written in Urdu orthography. It is an official language in 1 country, including Pakistan.
Urdu is right-to-left in Nastaliq style; spoken Urdu and Hindi are close, but scripts and formal vocabulary differ.
Expect text translated from English into Urdu to grow by roughly 15–30%, which matters for layouts, subtitles and page counts.
In the United States, 533,546 people aged 5+ speak Urdu at home (Census ACS), and 146,423 of them (27%) speak English less than "very well" — a key indicator of demand for Urdu translators and interpreters.
Translation guides
Where Urdu is official
- Pakistan
Rates for Urdu translation
Urdu falls in our south & southeast asian band: roughly $0.06–$0.14 per word for general commercial work. These are indicative ranges, not quotes — specialised, certified and rush work costs more, and literary translation is usually priced per 1,000 words.
For context, the median salaried translator or interpreter in the US earned $60,170 in May 2025 (BLS). See salaries by state →
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