What documents does a repatriation need

Every border a coffin crosses asks the same three questions. Is this the person the papers say? Was the death registered properly? Is the coffin safe to transport? The documents below are the answers, and each is issued by a particular office in a particular order. A specialist obtains nearly all of them; the list is here so that you can see what is happening and check any list you are given against it.

Going home from the UK

The death certificate. Issued by the register office when you register the death, with certified copies. This is the one document you obtain yourself, and the process cannot start without it. How to register a death covers the appointment.

The coroner’s acknowledgement. Before anyone who died in England or Wales can be taken abroad, the coroner for the district must be notified, and the coroner’s acknowledgement, after up to four clear days, is what the carrier and the border see. In Northern Ireland it is the coroner’s certificate for removal; in Scotland the procurator fiscal’s release. We send the notice on day one.

The embalming certificate. Issued by the funeral director who embalmed your loved one, confirming it was done and how. Nearly every destination country and every airline requires it.

The coffin certificate. Also from the funeral director, confirming the coffin is sealed to the required standard and contains only your loved one and their effects. Some countries want this countersigned by their consulate.

The apostille. A stamp from the Foreign Office’s legalisation office on the death certificate, which lets the destination recognise a British public document. Required by every country in the Apostille Convention, which is most of them; a country outside it needs its own consulate to legalise the certificate instead. We obtain it, and it goes on before any translation.

The translation. Where the destination requires the death certificate, and sometimes the other certificates, in its own language, a sworn translator produces it from the apostilled original.

The consular document. Where the destination’s consulate in London issues a permit or certificate for the entry of a coffin, that document, with the consulate’s fee paid. Not every country has one; the ones that do will not let your loved one in without it.

The free from infection certificate. Required by some countries and some carriers, confirming the cause of death was not an infectious disease. Repatriation when the cause of death is infectious covers the case where it was.

Coming home to the UK

The local death certificate. Issued by the authority in the country where the death happened, in that country’s language. Ask for several certified copies.

The translation, or the EU standard form. If the certificate is not in English it needs a certified translation. Inside the EU you can ask for the multilingual standard form under Regulation 2016/1191 instead, which the UK accepts and which saves the translation.

The apostille. From the authority in that country, on the death certificate, so the UK will recognise it. The local funeral director obtains it. Outside the Apostille Convention the British consulate legalises the document instead.

The permit to leave the country. Every country has one, issued by the local authority, the court or the prosecutor, and it is the document that says your loved one is released.

The embalming and coffin certificates. From the funeral director there, as above.

The consular document, if any. Where your loved one was a British national the consulate may issue a certificate; for a repatriation into the UK it is rarely required, but the carrier sometimes asks for it.

On arrival, the UK’s own two. If the funeral is a cremation, the coroner’s authority on form Cremation 6, which replaces the medical certificates a UK death would have had. If it is a burial, the registrar’s certificate of no liability to register. We obtain whichever applies; bringing someone home to the UK explains both.

The order that avoids doing anything twice

Register the death, then the coroner’s notice, then the embalming and the coffin, then the apostille, then the translation, then the consulate, then the booking. Each depends on the one before it. The commonest expensive mistake is the apostille and the translation in the wrong order; the second is booking a flight before the consulate has answered, and paying the airline’s change fee when it has not. The rules for moving a coffin across borders explains why each of these documents exists in the first place.

Where each of these documents falls in the process is in repatriation, step by step.