Schengen and repatriation to Romania and Bulgaria

On 1 January 2025 Romania and Bulgaria became full members of the Schengen area, and checks at their land borders with the other Schengen countries ended. Air and sea borders had opened the previous March. For a family arranging a repatriation by road from the UK, the practical effect is that the vehicle carrying their loved one no longer joins the lorry queue at Nădlac or Ruse, and the crossing that used to take hours takes minutes.

This guide says exactly what changed and, just as importantly, what did not, because the change is easy to overstate.

What changed at the border

Before 2025, a vehicle entering Romania from Hungary, or Bulgaria from Greece or Romania, stopped at a staffed border post. The driver presented the vehicle’s papers and the documents for the coffin, the border police checked them and sometimes inspected the vehicle, and at busy crossings the wait behind freight traffic could run to several hours. On a long road route that wait sat at the end, when the family at home had already been told the vehicle was close.

Since 1 January 2025 those posts operate as they do at the French or German border: no routine stop, no routine check. The vehicle drives through. Romania and Bulgaria can, like any Schengen state, reintroduce temporary checks, and Romania kept some random checks in the first months; but the routine hours-long stop is gone. The road leg to Romania or Bulgaria is shorter by exactly the time the border used to take, and more predictable, because the one part of the route we could not plan for has been removed.

What did not change

Three things, and they are the whole of the paperwork.

The UK’s documents. Every repatriation out of England and Wales still needs the death certificate from the registrar, the coroner’s acknowledgement of the notice that your loved one is leaving the country, with its four clear days, and the embalming and sealed-coffin certificates from the funeral director. Schengen is an agreement about borders between its members; the UK is not one, and its rules are unaltered. Sending someone home from the UK is the full list.

The apostille and the consulate. Romania and Bulgaria both want the UK death certificate legalised with an apostille, and both consulates in London issue an authorisation for the transport of a body into their country. Those are requirements of Romanian and Bulgarian law, not of the border, and they are needed on arrival for the local registration and the funeral whether or not anyone at the border asks.

The first border. The vehicle leaves the UK, which is outside Schengen, and enters France, which is inside it. That crossing, at the tunnel or the ferry, is a proper border with a proper check, and it is where the documents are actually examined. The Schengen change moved the last border check from the far end of the route to the near end; it did not remove the check.

What it means for a family

A road repatriation to Romania or Bulgaria was already what we recommended over air for most families, because it is cheaper, because your loved one is in one team’s care from our chapel of rest to the funeral director, and because a vehicle leaves when the documents are ready rather than when an airline has cargo space. The Schengen change made the road leg quicker and, more usefully, made its arrival time something we can promise rather than estimate. Repatriation from the UK to Europe by road explains the road route in full, and repatriation from the UK to Romania covers the Romanian end. The estimates and timings are on the Romania and Bulgaria route pages.

What it does not mean

It does not mean less paperwork, a lower price, or a faster start. The time in a repatriation is mostly before the vehicle leaves, in the coroner’s four days, the registration, the apostille and the consulate, and none of those moved in 2025. A company telling you Schengen has made repatriation to Romania simple is describing the last leg of the process and not the days before it. How long does a repatriation take sets out what actually decides it.

The steps that did not change are set out in repatriation, step by step.