What Does a Canton Fair Interpreter Cost? Only the Figures We Could Source (2026)

Search for what a Canton Fair interpreter costs and you get numbers that contradict each other: RMB 700, RMB 900, RMB 1,600, RMB 2,000, USD 200, RMB 4,500. Most carry no source and no date.

This article contains only figures we could trace, each labelled with its origin and date. Where we could not find a source, we say so — on this question, "not published anywhere" is far more useful than an invented number.

1. The Canton Fair's own interpretation service no longer exists

The Fair used to run an official Interpretation Service Center with a published rate card:

English: RMB 400–800 per day per person. Other languages: RMB 500–1,000 per day per person. "We only provide the interpretation service inside the China Import and Export Fair Complex during the Fair time."

That page is gone; the URL now redirects to the homepage. The surviving captures stop in spring 2020 (Chinese page 28 April 2020, English page 7 May 2020). A capture from 24 October 2019 shows the same prices, so the card was stable across several sessions.

So: if someone tells you "the official rate is RMB 400–800," they are quoting a pre-2020 price for a service that has since been withdrawn. This is probably the most widely repeated piece of stale information on the topic.

2. What is actually traceable

Two cautions. Every one of these is a rate an agency published about itself — marketing material, not transaction data. Several pages carry no date, and in this industry a pricing page written once and never revised is normal. And note the word "from": those are floors, not rates.

Of Transfu's three tiers, the one closest to a trade fair is "international conferences and premium exhibitions," not the cheapest tier. Benchmarking the Canton Fair against RMB 700 is not a fair comparison.

3. The most revealing data point: the intermediary margin

Southern Metropolis Daily published a report on 21 April 2023 about interpreters at the 133rd Canton Fair. The interpreter interviewed worked on the exhibitor side, mainly in English (French, Spanish and Turkish are part of her language background). She described three things:

• Her asking rate was RMB 400 per day, which she characterised as on the low-to-middle side;
• On one engagement booked through an intermediary, her exhibitor client paid RMB 600 and the intermediary passed her RMB 300;
• Her actual working hours were 09:00 to 17:30.

To be precise: that RMB 600 was paid by an exhibitor, not a buyer, so the situation is not identical to hiring an interpreter for yourself. But the structure carries across — when work is booked through an intermediary, what is paid and what the interpreter receives can differ by a factor of two.

This is not an argument that intermediaries should not earn a margin; sourcing, vetting and accountability all cost something. But it has a practical implication: what the interpreter receives affects how much they are willing to do for you. When a quote looks unusually cheap, it is worth asking what reaches the interpreter.

4. What quotes usually leave out

This is where budgets actually break.

The companion badge: RMB 300 per day plus a RMB 50 production fee. An official charge set out in the 139th session's notice on accompanying personnel, non-refundable once used. It almost never appears in an interpreter's quote — so a "RMB 700 per day" interpreter costs you RMB 1,000 on the day. See our previous article on Canton Fair interpreter badges.

How many hours a "day" means. Transfu's public page is the most complete: 8 hours is one working day; beyond that is overtime at a rate agreed in advance; less than half a day bills as half a day, more than half but under a full day bills as a full day; and on out-of-town assignments the client covers travel, meals and accommodation. Translian also works to 8 hours but describes overtime as charged "at discretion" and publishes no half-day rule. Two agencies, the same word "day," different terms — settle this before you sign.

International platforms price differently. The Pelago listing shows "from USD 200" for 7 hours, with USD 15 per hour beyond 8 hours, hotel pickup included, but explicitly excluding the USD 50 per-person fair entry ticket, transport during the service and gratuities. It is non-refundable.

5. Numbers to treat carefully

Some figures are published — but it matters who is publishing them.

Per-language rate tables do exist, and all of them are agencies marketing themselves. Translian and Transfu both publish one; Transfu also has an older table dated 30 July 2016. Elsewhere you can find posts headed "2026 Canton Fair interpreting rate card" quoting English RMB 1,800–2,500, Russian/French/German/Japanese/Korean RMB 2,800–3,800, and rarer languages RMB 3,800–4,500.

The problem: for the same market, agency pages say RMB 700–1,600 while those posts say RMB 1,800–4,500 — a two-to-threefold gap. None of it is verifiable transaction data, and none comes from the Fair or an industry body. No Canton-Fair-specific, primary-source, buyer-verifiable per-language rate table exists.

For these, we found no public basis at all:

• Standard deposit percentages or cancellation terms.
• A mapping from CATTI level to price. CATTI determines whether an interpreter can be issued a companion badge — that part is officially grounded. Any claim that a given level commands a given rate is inference.
• Any "average Canton Fair rate." No public dataset supports one.

6. How to actually build a budget

Rather than memorising a day rate, use a method:

1. Put the badge on its own line: days × RMB 300, plus RMB 50 per badge. Across three phases, roughly RMB 4,650 — and it is a known quantity.
2. Pin down what a "day" means. Eight hours? How is overtime charged? What if the job runs short? Agencies differ.
3. Quote and budget per phase. Three phases with closed changeover periods between them; do not assume "the whole fair."
4. If you book through an intermediary, ask what reaches the interpreter. Not haggling — a quality signal.
5. Expect structural premiums for rarer languages, technical subject matter and late booking. The direction is certain; the magnitude is not published, and a precise multiplier is invented.

7. In one line

Every traceable Canton Fair interpreting price is an agency's own list price, not a transaction price, and the only rate card the Fair itself ever published stopped in 2020 along with the service. Much of the rest is folklore.

When you build the budget, accounting for the RMB 300 per day badge matters more than whether the day rate is 700 or 900.

Sources and currency. The Canton Fair Interpretation Service Center rate card comes from Web Archive captures of the relevant cantonfair.org.cn pages (Chinese 28 April 2020, English 7 May 2020; a 24 October 2019 capture shows the same prices); the service is no longer offered. Translian prices are from its public pages (the RMB 600–900 figure marked as published 10 April 2020; the per-language price page undated). Transfu prices are from its public pages (August 2026, English interpreting; an older table is dated 30 July 2016). The interpreter's asking rate and the intermediary margin come from Southern Metropolis Daily, 21 April 2023. Pelago figures were observed on 22 August 2026. The companion badge fee comes from the 139th session notice on accompanying personnel of overseas buyers. All of the above are list or observed figures at those dates, prices change, and none of them constitute a quotation.

Further reading: Canton Fair interpreter badges, Canton Fair interpreter preparation guide. We maintain a directory of Guangzhou interpreters searchable by language and assignment type.