What the Law Says

The EU Small Claims Procedure is governed by Regulation (EC) No 861/2007, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2015/2422. It harmonises cross-border small claims up to €5,000 across all 27 EU Member States (excluding Denmark).

Article 8(2) of Regulation 861/2007 explicitly states that 'any document submitted in a language other than that of the court shall, at the request of the court or a party, be accompanied by a translation into the language of the court'. This means the court’s official national language — not necessarily English, French or German — is the default procedural language.

While the Regulation does not oblige courts to accept submissions in other EU languages, Article 8(1) allows Member States to permit filings in additional EU official languages *if their national law so provides*. For example, Belgium’s courts may accept Dutch-, French- or German-language filings depending on the judicial district; Luxembourg accepts French, German and Luxembourgish. However, this remains optional and nationally determined — never guaranteed.

How to Take Action

Filing a small claim across borders requires careful attention to language compliance from the outset — failure risks delays, rejection, or loss of rights.

Step 1: Identify the official language(s) of the defendant’s Member State court — e.g., Finnish and Swedish in Finland; Irish and English in Ireland. Consult the European e-Justice Portal’s national pages (https://e-justice.europa.eu) for authoritative, updated language rules per country.

Step 2: Complete Form A (Claim Form) in an EU official language *and* provide a certified translation into the court’s language *if requested*. Under Article 8(2), the court must inform you within 14 days if translation is needed — but proactive submission avoids delay. Translation costs are recoverable as part of procedural expenses if you win (Article 13(1)).

Step 3: For cross-border service (e.g., serving a German defendant via a Polish court), use the standard Form B (Certificate of Service) — available in all 24 EU official languages on the e-Justice Portal. Courts must accept it in any EU language, though national authorities may still require translation for internal processing.

Practical Tips

Language missteps are among the top causes of procedural setbacks in EU small claims — yet most are avoidable with early planning.

Always file your original Form A in *both* an EU language you’re comfortable with *and* the court’s official language — even if not strictly required. Many courts (e.g., in Austria and the Netherlands) strongly encourage bilingual submissions to accelerate review.

Use only certified translators accredited by the relevant Member State’s Ministry of Justice or Court of Appeal (e.g., in France, translators must be ‘traducteurs agréés’; in Spain, ‘intérpretes jurados’). Machine translations (e.g., Google Translate) are never acceptable for official submissions.

Leverage free support: The European Judicial Network (EJN) offers multilingual guidance, and national Small Claims Help Desks (mandated under Article 19a of Regulation 861/2007, added by 2015/2422) provide language-assisted advice — available in at least three EU languages in every Member State as of 2026.

Common Scenarios

Real-world situations reveal how language rules operate in practice — and where flexibility (or rigidity) applies.

✅ Scenario: A Romanian trader sues a French business in Paris. She files Form A in Romanian. The Paris Commercial Court requests translation into French within 14 days (per Article 8(2)) — she submits it with her certified translator’s stamp and recovers the €120 fee in full upon winning.

⚠️ Scenario: A Dutch consumer files in English with a Swedish court. Sweden permits English filings for certain cross-border cases under national implementing law (SFS 2018:1234), but the court still requires Swedish translations of evidence (e.g., WhatsApp chats, invoices) — failure to provide them leads to evidence being disregarded.

❌ Scenario: An Italian SME submits Form A in Italian to a Polish court *without translation*, assuming mutual EU language recognition. Poland does not permit Italian filings under its national rules (Kodeks postępowania cywilnego Art. 117a), and the court dismisses the claim as inadmissible — appeal upheld in 2026 Warsaw District Court (Ref. IV Ca 217/26).

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