In this paper Franz Pöchhacker examines to what extent the nature of the target text in simultaneous interpreting (SI) reflects the principle of cultural transfer, i.e. to what extent the interpreter’s output is fully functional within the target culture. The author takes a closer look at the concept of text in SI and proposes –within a theoretical framework based on the General Theory of Translating and Interpreting and developed in the context of a larger research project - a SI-specific text model and illustrates its implications with examples from an authentic conference corpus. The results are discussed in terms of the wider issues of text and culture in simultaneous interpreting. The study shows that the SI target text is constituted by an interlinkage of source-text visual components and the verbal-paraverbal elements produced by the interpreter.