diff --git a/services/translator/Dockerfile b/services/translator/Dockerfile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a577ad7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/services/translator/Dockerfile
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+FROM python:3.11-slim
+
+# Set environment variables
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
+
+# Install system dependencies
+RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
+    git \
+    wget \
+    curl \
+    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+
+WORKDIR /app
+
+# Copy requirements first for better Docker layer caching
+COPY requirements.txt .
+
+# Install Python dependencies
+RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
+
+# Copy source code
+COPY src/ ./src/
+
+# Create necessary directories
+RUN mkdir -p /app/models /app/logs
+
+# Download NLLB models cache (will download on first use if not present)
+# RUN python3 -c "from transformers import M2M100ForConditionalGeneration; M2M100ForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained('facebook/nllb-200-distilled-600M')"
+
+# Run as non-root user
+RUN useradd -m -u 1001 translator
+RUN chown -R translator:translator /app
+USER translator
+
+# Health check
+HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=15s --start-period=120s --retries=3 \
+    CMD python3 src/healthcheck.py || exit 1
+
+# Expose port
+EXPOSE 8000
+
+# Start the service
+CMD ["python3", "src/api.py"]