International and receiving funeral director

An international funeral director arranges a repatriation into or out of the UK: caring for your loved one, preparing the documents and arranging the transport, by road or by air. The receiving funeral director is the firm in the destination country that takes over their care on arrival, completes any local paperwork and arranges the burial or cremation there. GOV.UK publishes a list of UK-based international funeral directors.

Who does what

A repatriation has three roles. The funeral director where the death happened collects your loved one, cares for them, carries out the embalming, prepares the sealed coffin and obtains the local papers. The receiving funeral director meets them at the airport or the border and arranges the funeral with your family. In between sits the specialist work: the coroner’s notice, the consulate, the apostille and the translation, and booking a vehicle or cargo space. That middle part is what an international funeral director does, and at the UK end the same firm is often the first funeral director too.

How to tell who is doing the work

Many local funeral directors pass the middle part to a specialist. Ask yours who is sending the coroner’s notice and who is dealing with the consulate. If they name another company, that company is carrying out the repatriation and the local firm is the go-between. In practice there are two invoices, one up to the handover and one from the receiving firm after it; a third is usually a margin.

When the receiving funeral director is in the UK

If your loved one is coming home, the receiving funeral director is a UK firm, and the work starts once the local procedures abroad, such as a post-mortem or a police examination, are complete. In England and Wales they present the foreign death certificate to the registrar, or to the coroner for a cremation, before the funeral can go ahead. In Scotland the Death Certification Review Service must authorise it first, as set out under registering a death abroad. The Foreign Office pays for none of this.