No objection certificate (NOC)

A no objection certificate, or NOC, is the permission a country’s embassy, high commission or consulate gives for someone who has died to be brought into that country for a burial or cremation. The High Commission for Pakistan in London, for example, issues an NOC for human remains. The phrase is also used for a different letter, the one a British embassy issues when a British person dies abroad, so check which one is meant.

When you will need one

When a loved one who died in the UK is to be buried in a country whose mission asks for it before the coffin can travel. Pakistan and Bangladesh are the cases families meet most often. The airline will usually not accept the coffin until the certificate, or the mission’s own clearance, is in hand.

What the mission asks for

Each country sets its own list, and it changes, so ask the mission or your funeral director for the current one. The Pakistan consulate in Manchester, on its form, asked for the death certificate, the coroner’s certificate, proof of the person’s Pakistani identity, the flight details, an undertaking from a family member, relative or friend, and the application itself. Most lists also expect a sealed coffin and, from the airline, an embalming certificate.

How it fits with the coroner

The certificate comes after the coroner’s permission for your loved one to leave England, given on the out of England form, because the mission wants to see it. A funeral director who knows the route sends the coroner’s notice on the first day and opens the mission’s file alongside it, so neither waits for the other. Where the burial is to happen quickly, as it is for a Muslim family, that order matters more than anything else in the first two days.