It depends on the language, and California decides it by statute rather than leaving it to preference. A certified court interpreter is required for languages the Judicial Council has designated. For languages it has not designated, a registered interpreter is the corresponding tier. A deposition counts as a court proceeding for this purpose, so the rule reaches a privately noticed deposition and not only a courtroom.
Why the question has a statutory answer at all
Most people assume interpreter selection at a deposition is a commercial decision between the noticing party and the vendor. In California it is partly a statutory one, because of a definition. Government Code section 68560.5 defines a court proceeding, for the purposes of the interpreter provisions, as a civil, criminal, or juvenile proceeding, or a deposition in a civil case filed in a court of record. The section was last amended by Senate Bill 1155 (Stats. 2018, ch. 852), effective January 1, 2019.
Once a deposition is inside that definition, the certification framework in section 68561 applies to it. This is the step that most published guidance skips, and it is why a good deal of that guidance reaches the wrong conclusion.
Designated languages: certified is the requirement
Government Code section 68561(a) provides that an interpreter who interprets in a court proceeding, in a language the Judicial Council has designated, shall be a certified court interpreter as defined in section 68566. Section 68566 in turn defines a certified court interpreter as a person holding a valid certificate as a certified court interpreter issued by a certification entity approved by the Judicial Council.
Notice what that definition does not say. It does not say experienced, or fluent, or professionally trained, or certified somewhere else. It points at a specific credential issued through a specific approval route. That precision is what makes the credential checkable, which matters more than it sounds, as the cost article explains.
Which languages are designated is set by the Judicial Council and can change, so the useful skill is checking rather than memorising a list. Stale lists circulate widely online, including lists that were accurate years ago and are not now. Treat any list you find in a blog post, including a count of how many languages are designated, as unreliable until you have confirmed it against the Judicial Council directly.
Non-designated languages: the registered tier
Section 68561(d) covers everything else. For languages the Judicial Council has not designated, interpreters are qualified by the court under the applicable guidelines, and those who pass the English fluency examination are known as registered interpreters.
It is worth correcting a common misreading here, because it affects how people talk to clients. Registered does not mean second-rate. It means the language does not have a full certification examination available, usually because the volume of proceedings in that language cannot justify building and maintaining one. A registered interpreter in a less common language may be among a very small number of people in the state qualified to do the work at all. Our overview of what a certified court interpreter is covers the tiers in more depth, and the California court interpreter program article covers how the credentials are obtained.
The good cause exception
Section 68561(c) allows a court, for good cause, to appoint an interpreter who does not hold a certificate in a language the Judicial Council has designated. Two features of that provision are routinely overstated in vendor material.
- It is a power given to a court. It is not a private agreement between counsel and a language services provider, and it is not something a vendor invokes to justify sending an uncredentialed interpreter.
- It requires good cause, which in practice means genuine unavailability rather than convenience or price.
If you are scheduling a deposition and a provider tells you a non-certified interpreter is acceptable in a designated language because of a good cause exception, the correct response is to ask who made that finding and on what basis.
When the language has almost nobody qualified
The tiers assume a pool of credentialed interpreters exists. In some languages it barely does, and that is a scheduling reality rather than a legal problem to argue about. Indigenous Mesoamerican languages are the clearest example in California litigation: a deponent whose first language is Mixteco, Zapoteco, Triqui, Mam, or K'iche' may be served by a very small number of people statewide, and some of those languages are not mutually intelligible across regions, so the specific variety matters.
Two practical consequences follow. Lead time stops being a courtesy and becomes the binding constraint, because you are not choosing among available interpreters, you are finding whether one exists for that date. And relay interpreting, where one interpreter works between the indigenous language and Spanish while a second works between Spanish and English, sometimes becomes the only workable arrangement. If that is being used, it belongs on the record.
The failure to avoid is the shortcut: booking Spanish because the deponent has some Spanish and Spanish is easy to source. Partial competence in a second language is exactly the condition under which testimony sounds fluent and is unreliable.
Credentials from other states do not transfer
An interpreter certified in Nevada, Texas, or New York is not thereby a California certified court interpreter. Section 68566 defines the credential by reference to a certificate issued by a certification entity approved by the Judicial Council, and each state runs its own program with its own examinations and rosters. Federal certification is a separate track again, administered by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
This matters more than it used to, because remote proceedings make it easy to engage an interpreter who is physically elsewhere. An excellent interpreter holding an out-of-state credential may still not be certified or registered in California, which affects both the section 68561 analysis and the recoverability of the fee. Our state-by-state certification guide sets out how the programs differ.
How to check the credential before the day
This takes about two minutes and removes an entire category of problem:
- Ask the provider, in writing, for the assigned interpreter's name and their certification or registration number.
- Check the number against the Judicial Council's public list of current court interpreters.
- Confirm the credential covers the language and, where it matters, the variety actually needed.
- Keep the written confirmation with the file, because it becomes useful later if costs are challenged.
There is also a backstop on the day itself. California requires the interpreter to state their credential and number on the record at a deposition, and to present a badge with photo identification to both parties. The mechanics are in our article on the record statement a deposition interpreter must make. If you did not verify in advance, that statement is the moment it surfaces, which is better than never but worse than checking beforehand.
What the tier does to your costs
There is a direct financial consequence to the tier, and it runs opposite to intuition. Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5(a)(3)(B) allows, as a recoverable cost, the fees of a certified or registered interpreter for the deposition of a party or witness who does not proficiently speak or understand English. Booking outside those tiers to save money on the invoice can convert a recoverable expense into one that is materially harder to recover. The full mechanism is in our article on who pays for the deposition interpreter.
The practical rule
For scheduling purposes it reduces to three steps. Identify the language and variety the deponent actually uses, not the one assumed from the case caption. Find out whether that language is currently designated. Then book the corresponding tier, certified for designated languages and registered for the rest, and get the number in writing either way.
Where the deponent's first language is an indigenous language and Spanish is only a second language, do not default to Spanish because Spanish is easier to source. That specific failure is common enough that we wrote about it separately in indigenous Mesoamerican languages in U.S. courts.
Sources
California Government Code sections 68560.5, 68561, and 68566, available through California Legislative Information; California Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5; Senate Bill 1155 (Stats. 2018, ch. 852). The current list of Judicial Council designated languages should be confirmed directly with the Judicial Council of California rather than from any secondary list. Verified against the primary sources in July 2026.
AMS supplies certified and registered court interpreters and confirms the tier and credential number in writing before the assignment. See our deposition interpreting service or the languages we cover.