The State of Professional Translation in Italy 2026

Various industry estimates place the value of the professional translation market in Italy between €320 and €350 million per year, with more than 2,000 active provider2026 Report · First Editions, including agencies and freelance professionals. Globally, the language services market is expected to reach $75.53 billion in 2026 and grow to $96.97 billion by 2031, with a CAGR of 5.12% (source: Mordor Intelligence, June 2026).

This report presents original data on the Italian market, based on an analysis of 18 months of projects managed by Eurotrad (January 2025 – June 2026), combined with leading international research sources.

Italian → English is the most requested language pair in Eurotrad projects, present across all sectors with volumes significantly higher than the second pair, Italian → German. MTPE has reached or exceeded parity with traditional translation in tourism (50%), technical documentation (57%) and cosmetics (59%), an adoption level above the 46% global average recorded by Nimdzi in 2024. Asian languages — Japanese, Chinese and Korean — andArabic show steady, structured volumes in the fashion sector, signaling growing openness toward Asian and MENA markets. Banking is Eurotrad’s fastest-growing sector: with +207% in the H1 2025 vs. H1 2026 comparison, driven by banking internationalization and regulatory complexity, including DORA, the AI Act and ESG.

According to various industry sources, the value of the Italian market is estimated at between €320 and €350 million per year, with more than 2,000 active providers. A 2018 AITI estimate also indicated around 5,000 professionals active in the market. According to the 2023 AITI survey, the average translator is female in almost 9 out of 10 cases, has an average age of around 46 and, in nearly 95% of cases, holds a university degree. Also according to AITI, on average, more than 50% of translators’ revenue comes from agencies and more than 35% from direct clients.
For an in-depth look at the profile of the Italian translator and the evolution of the profession, see our dedicated article.

Globally, the language services market is worth $75.53 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $96.97 billion by 2031, with a CAGR of 5.12% (source: Mordor Intelligence). The machine translation segment alone — meaning MT engines — is worth $1.26 billion in 2026, a minimal fraction of the overall market, confirming that the human component remains central. Looking at the revenue composition of language service providers, the Nimdzi 100 2026 reports that 68.4% still comes from traditional translation and localization, 19.3% from interpreting, both human and automated, and 12.3% from purely technology-based offerings. This balance confirms that translation remains the core business of the industry, even in the AI era.

Rather than a ranking of the most widely spoken or searched-for languages, data from Eurotrad’s project portfolio over 18 months, from January 2025 to June 2026, allows us to observe something different: how language demand actually behaves, pair by pair, within real projects delivered to clients. The language pairs with the most stable and cross-sector volumes are:

Source: analysis of Eurotrad’s project portfolio, January 2025 – June 2026. Eurotrad handles more than 150 language combinations. For an overview of the languages most requested by companies, see also our dedicated article on the most requested languages in 2026.

A significant signal emerges from Eurotrad’s data on Asian languages: Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Korean show a steady, structured presence in the fashion sector and are no longer occasional requests. This points to a market that is becoming more consolidated. Even more unexpected is Eurotrad’s data on the role of Arabic, which is growing significantly in the same sector, reflecting commercial openness toward the Gulf and North African markets.

Alongside these languages, Eurotrad’s portfolio shows broader linguistic diversification, with cross-sector presence for languages that were previously marginal. Ukrainian appears with increasing frequency, most likely linked to migration flows and documentation needs, while Hindi signals early commercial interest in the Indian market. Volumes are still limited, but the fact that they appear consistently, rather than sporadically, makes them a market signal worth monitoring rather than an isolated data point.

The comparison between H1 2025 and H1 2026 in Eurotrad’s portfolio shows a market in transformation:

Comparison between equivalent half-year periods, based on project revenue. Source: Eurotrad management data.

Within Eurotrad’s portfolio, banking leads growth (+207%), moving from a marginal sector to the second-largest sector by volume in the Eurotrad portfolio, driven by banking internationalization and regulatory complexity, including DORA, the AI Act and ESG. Entertainment follows (+159%), supported by the growth of multimedia content and subtitling, while Defense & Space (+103%) reflects the increase in European defense budgets.Conversely, sectors such as Wholesale (-82%) and Marketing & Advertising (-56%) are contracting within Eurotrad’s portfolio, likely due to the greater exposure of this type of content — often less specialized — to machine translation managed directly by clients. As a result, the value of professional translation is increasingly concentrated in high-complexity content: legal, medical, creative and certified.

Growth is not limited to sectors. It also extends to the type of service requested. In Eurotrad’s data, transcreation — the creative adaptation of content beyond literal translation — shows a growing presence in the Fashion and Travel & Tourism sectors. This is consistent with the growth of marketing and brand identity content, which requires not only linguistic accuracy, but also cultural and tonal adaptation for the target market. It is a higher-value service than standard translation.

The need to turn to a professional provider does not arise only from the complexity of the subject matter, but also from the rarity of the language combination. In Eurotrad’s data, a significant number of clients explicitly request a native-speaker translator, a signal of how important accuracy assurance becomes when the perceived margin for error is higher. Less common but recurring language combinations also emerge, such as German → Dutch, alongside the already noted growth of Italian → Arabic. Both confirm that demand for professional expertise increases precisely where the availability of qualified translators is more limited.

Adoption of Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) grew from 26% of projects in 2022 to 46% in 2024, a 75% increase in two years (source: Nimdzi 2025). The most recent data comes from the European Language Industry Survey (ELIS) 2026: 63% of independent translators now use automated translation in some form, including post-editing. On the economic side, the same survey finds that negotiated post-editing discounts tend to cluster around 20% compared with traditional translation rates. This is a more conservative figure than some industry estimates, which cite savings of up to 50%. For an explanation of what MTPE is and how it works in practice, see our dedicated article..

Legal, regulatory and certified texts remain largely excluded from pure automation. Unreviewed machine translation output does not fall within processes compliant with ISO 17100, while professional post-editing of that output is specifically governed by ISO 18587. High-volume, low-variability technical content, such as manuals and catalogs, remains the natural territory of MTPE.

Another factor to watch is regulation. As of August 2, 2026, the transparency obligations set out in Article 50 of the AI Act apply. Among other requirements, providers of systems that generate synthetic text, audio, image or video content must ensure that outputs are technically detectable as artificially generated or manipulated. Specific disclosure obligations also apply to deployers in relation to deepfakes and to certain text content intended to inform the public on matters of public interest.
For language service providers, this regulatory framework increases the importance of transparent, documentable processes in the use of AI. In this context, standards such as ISO 18587 remain a specific reference point for professional post-editing processes applied to machine translation output.

ISO certifications remain relatively rare in the Italian market. Most active providers, especially freelancers and small businesses, do not hold them, operating in a market that is not regulated by a mandatory professional register. For clients, ISO certification therefore becomes one of the most verifiable indicators of a provider’s process robustness, although it does not constitute an absolute guarantee that every single translation will be perfect.
Eurotrad is certified to ISO 17100, ISO 18587 and ISO 9001, a combination that covers professional translation and post-editing processes within a certified quality management system.

The cost of a professional translation depends on language pair, content specialization, volume and type of service. Less common languages, or languages with fewer available professionals, tend to cost more, as do legal, medical or technical content that requires specialist expertise and thorough review. Post-editing (MTPE) is generally priced lower than the equivalent traditional translation. The ELIS 2026 survey finds that negotiated discounts tend to cluster around 20%. For a quote based on your specific project, Eurotrad’s pricing page outlines a modular package structure.