Repatriation, step by step: to the UK and from it

Someone has died in one country and their funeral is in another. Either your loved one died abroad and has to come home to the UK, or they died here and their family is waiting for them somewhere else. The work is the same in both directions: a set of documents has to be issued in the right order, a coroner or a court may have to give permission, and then a sealed coffin travels, by road where it can and by air where it must.

This guide is the whole of that in eight steps. Where a step differs by direction it says so. If your loved one died in the UK and is staying in the UK, you want what to do when someone dies instead.

Step 1: the first hours, and who has to be told

If they died abroad. The local police or hospital will already know, and the death will be registered in that country under its own rules. If your loved one was a British national, tell the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Its consular staff cannot pay for anything or arrange the repatriation, but they can tell you what the local procedure is, put you in touch with English-speaking funeral directors there, and issue the documents only a consulate can issue. The tour operator or the travel insurer, if there is one, should be told the same day, because an insurer pays for the repatriation it has approved and should hear before anyone else is appointed. What happens when a British citizen dies abroad goes through that first day hour by hour.

If they died in the UK. The death is registered here in the ordinary way, with the medical certificate and the register office, and that part is the same as any other death. What is different is that the coroner has to know your loved one is leaving the country, which is step 5, and that their home country’s consulate in London may have its own requirements before it will let them in. Tell the consulate early; some issue a document the airline or the border will ask for. Sending someone home from the UK is the process in this direction in full, and bringing someone home to the UK is the other.

Step 2: the first call to us

We ask where your loved one is now, where they need to go, whether a coroner, a court or a prosecutor is involved, whether the death has been registered yet, and who in the family is making the decisions. From that we can tell you the route, the documents the two countries will need, and what is likely to take the time. You will have a written estimate the same day.

You do not need to have chosen us to make that call. A family that has already been quoted by someone else, or by an insurer’s own contractor, is welcome to ring and ask whether the list they have been given makes sense. The first call is a fuller account of what we ask and why. If you would rather compare companies first, how to choose a repatriation company is seven questions to put to any of them, what a UK funeral director does in a repatriation explains the three roles, and can a family arrange a repatriation themselves is the honest answer to that question.

Step 3: what it costs and who pays

Every figure we publish is an estimate, and the written quote you receive is the figure on the invoice. Our estimates run from about £2,800 for a road repatriation to a neighbouring European country to around £10,000 for a long flight with connections, and the biggest part of the difference is the transport, not the paperwork. How much does repatriation cost from the UK sets out the bands and what a repatriation fee covers says what is inside the number and what is not.

Who pays is the question families ask before any other, and the honest answer is that unless something else steps in, the family does. The three things that can step in are a travel insurance policy with repatriation cover, an employer’s policy for someone who died while working abroad, and the estate, once there is money in it. The British government does not pay for repatriation and neither, in most cases, does the government of the country your loved one is going to. Who pays for a repatriation goes through each in turn, and does travel insurance cover repatriation is the guide to read with the policy document open.

Step 4: the documents

This is where the time goes. Every border needs to be satisfied that the person is who the papers say, that the death was registered properly, and that the coffin is safe to transport. The list varies by country and we send you the exact one on the first day; the shape is always the same.

Coming home to the UK, the country where the death happened issues the death certificate and the permission to move your loved one out of the country, the funeral director there issues the embalming or preservation certificate, and where a document is in another language it is translated and, for most countries, stamped with an apostille so the UK will recognise it. Inside the EU the multilingual standard form under Regulation 2016/1191 can replace the translation of the death certificate.

Going home from the UK, the register office issues the death certificate, we obtain the embalming certificate and the coroner’s acknowledgement in step 5, and the destination country’s consulate in London tells us what it needs on top. Many countries want the death certificate legalised with an apostille from the Foreign Office’s legalisation office, and some want a consular document of their own. What documents does a repatriation need lists them by direction, and the rules for moving a coffin across borders explains why the sealed coffin and the embalming exist. Where the cause of death was an infection, one more document is needed, and repatriation when the cause of death is infectious covers it.

Step 5: the coroner, in either direction

Leaving England and Wales. Before your loved one can be taken out of the country, the coroner for the district where they are must be given notice, on a form the coroner’s office recognises, and the law allows the coroner four clear days to reply. The coroner’s acknowledgement is the document the carrier and the border will ask to see. If the coroner’s reply says no further enquiries are needed, your loved one can leave sooner than the four days. In Scotland the procurator fiscal has the equivalent role and in Northern Ireland the coroner issues a certificate for removal.

Arriving in England and Wales. If the funeral here is a cremation, the coroner for the district where it will happen must authorise it, on a form called Cremation 6, because the doctors’ certificates a UK death would have do not exist for a death abroad. If it is a burial, the registrar issues a certificate confirming there is no death to register here. We obtain either. If the death abroad was violent, unnatural or unexplained, the coroner may open their own investigation on arrival, and that is the case where a family should expect a delay. What happens when the coroner is involved explains what an investigation means and how long its stages take.

Step 6: the transport

Most of the repatriations we arrange within Europe travel by road, in our own vehicles, with the coffin sealed as the destination country requires. Road means fewer handovers, no airline cargo schedule to wait for, and a person who is in one team’s care from the chapel of rest to the funeral director at the other end. Air is for the cases where road is not possible, or would take too long to be kind: long distances, islands, and countries whose rules require it. When it is air, your loved one travels on a scheduled flight in a coffin prepared for it, with the documents accompanying them, and a funeral director meets the flight.

You can follow a road repatriation in your own car if you want to. On a flight you can book a seat on the same aircraft, though the airline treats the two bookings separately. By road or by air is the guide to how we choose, and what is a repatriation flight clears up a term that mostly means something else. Repatriation from the UK to Europe by road is the road route in full, and what Schengen membership changed for Romania and Bulgaria covers the two countries where it changed most in 2025.

Step 7: arrival, and the funeral

At the destination a funeral director takes over. Coming into the UK, that can be us or any funeral director you have chosen, and the funeral goes ahead as a UK funeral does, with the documents from step 5 in place of the registrar’s green form. Going out of the UK, we hand over to a funeral director we work with in that country, or to the one the family has already chosen, and the local funeral is theirs to arrange with your family. We tell you who has your loved one at every handover, and where they are.

Step 8: how long it takes

We do not give a number on this page, and you should be wary of anyone who gives you one before they know your case. What decides it is whether a coroner, a court or a prosecutor has to release your loved one first, how quickly the local certificates and consular documents are issued, whether a translation and an apostille are needed, and whether the route is road or air. A death from natural causes in a neighbouring country with the documents in order is a matter of days. A death that a court abroad is investigating can be weeks, and nothing a repatriation company does can shorten a court. On the first call we tell you which of those your case is and what we can and cannot move. How long does a repatriation take goes through each of the things it depends on, and when a repatriation is delayed covers the five reasons it usually is.

What is yours to decide, and what is ours to do

Two decisions are yours. Whether your loved one comes home at all, rather than having their funeral where they died, which is a real choice and one many families make in both directions; repatriation, local burial or cremation abroad sets the options beside each other without arguing for one, and religious and cultural requirements in a repatriation is for the families whose tradition has a say in it. And who receives them at the other end; for the two countries we go to most, Romania and Nigeria each have a page of the questions families ask. Everything between those two, the documents, the coroner, the consulate, the transport and the handovers, is what you are paying a specialist to carry, and you should expect to be told where your loved one is at every stage without having to ask.