Overview

Consently supports multi-language consent banners and policies to serve international audiences. The platform automatically detects visitors' language preferences and displays content in the appropriate language, supporting 25+ languages, including major European, Asian, and Middle Eastern languages.

What Can Be Translated

Consently allows you to translate two core components:

  • Cookie Consent Banner — All visible text, including consent notices, button labels, cookie category descriptions, and preference center content (configured in Editing Language Content)

  • Legal Policies — Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Terms & Conditions can be generated in multiple languages simultaneously through Multi-Language Policy Generation

Both components work independently, so you can translate your banner without translating policies, or vice versa.

Supported Languages

Consently provides built-in translations for 25+ languages:

  • European: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish.

  • Asian: Chinese, Hindi, and Japanese.

  • Middle Eastern: Arabic.

Each language includes pre-translated text for all standard banner elements and common cookie categories defined in Understanding Consent Frameworks.

How Language Detection Works

Consently automatically determines which language to display based on your website's HTML configuration:

HTML lang Attribute

The banner reads the lang attribute from your website's HTML tag. For example, <html lang="fr"> displays the French version of your banner.

Fallback Behavior

If Consently cannot detect a language or finds an unsupported language code, it falls back to your default language (typically English unless you've set a different default in Adding Languages).

No Manual Visitor Selection

Visitors don't choose their language—the banner adapts automatically based on the page they're viewing. This ensures language consistency between your website content and consent interface.

Multi-Language Strategy

There are two common approaches to implementing multi-language consent:

Single Domain, Multiple Languages

If your website serves different language versions on the same domain (e.g., yoursite.com/en/ and yoursite.com/fr/), add each language in Consently and ensure each page uses the correct HTML lang attribute. The same banner script works across all language versions.

Multiple Domains, Different Languages

If you operate separate domains for different regions (e.g., yoursite.com for English, yoursite.fr For French, you can either use one banner with multiple languages or create separate site configurations—one per domain—each with its own language settings.

Translation Workflow

The typical process for adding a new language:

  1. Add the language through Adding Languages, which creates a copy of your default language content

  2. Edit the translations for both GDPR and US State Laws templates (covered in Editing Language Content)

  3. Update your website's HTML lang attribute on the appropriate pages

  4. Test the banner on a page using that language code

For policies, enable multi-language generation in the Policy Generator, select your languages, and generate separate policy documents for each language. 

Getting Started

To set up multi-language support, add the languages your website needs.

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