Body repatriation or a funeral abroad: how families decide

When someone dies abroad, families are often told that of course they will bring them home, as if it were the only choice. It is one of three, and each is chosen by families who loved the person just as much. This guide sets the three beside each other, in the same terms, so that a family can talk about them rather than argue. If the family chooses to bring them home, body repatriation has an estimate for every country.

The three options

Repatriation. Your loved one comes home in a sealed coffin, by road or by air, for a funeral in the UK. The most documents, the highest cost, the longest time, and the funeral the family can attend in the place where the person lived.

Cremation abroad, with the ashes brought home. Your loved one is cremated in the country where they died, and the ashes travel home as hand luggage or by courier. A fraction of the documents and the cost of moving a coffin, usually the quickest of the three, and a memorial in the UK with the ashes present whenever the family chooses. Not available to families whose faith forbids cremation.

A funeral where they died. Burial or cremation in that country, with those of the family who can travel going out for it. The right choice when the person’s life, or their family, was there; the hardest for relatives in the UK who cannot go.

What each one costs, in round terms

Every figure here is an estimate. A repatriation from Europe by road starts at around £2,800 and from further away by air at £4,500 to £6,000, with the top of the range near £10,000; how much does repatriation cost from the UK has the bands. A cremation abroad costs what a cremation costs in that country, which across Europe is often less than a UK one, plus the return of the ashes, which is small. A funeral there costs what a funeral costs there, plus the family’s travel.

If there is travel insurance with repatriation cover, it will usually pay for either of the first two and not the third, and the insurer will have a view about which; does travel insurance cover repatriation explains that.

How long each one takes

All three wait for the same first thing, the local authorities releasing your loved one, and where a court or a prosecutor is involved that wait is the same whichever option follows. After the release, repatriation of a coffin is the longest, because of the documents and the transport; a local cremation and the ashes home is usually the shortest; a funeral there is set by that country’s customs, which in some places means days. How long does a repatriation take goes through what decides the first.

The four questions that usually settle it

Does the faith have a rule? If it does, it comes first. A tradition that requires burial rules out cremation abroad; a tradition that requires cremation within days rules out a long repatriation. Ask the family’s own faith leader rather than the internet.

Where were they at home? A man who lived forty years in Bradford and died on a fortnight’s holiday is almost always brought home. A woman who retired to Spain twenty years ago and whose friends are all there is often not. Where the person’s life was is usually where their funeral belongs.

Who needs to be there? If the people who most need to attend cannot travel, for age, money, visas or health, the funeral has to come to them, and that means repatriation or the ashes home. If the people who most need to be there are abroad, the reverse.

What can the family afford, and what would the person have wanted? These two are last because families put them first and then feel guilty about it. There is no shame in either. A person who spent their life being practical about money would not want their family in debt for a coffin’s flight, and many families who choose cremation abroad say afterwards that it was what the person would have chosen.

What we would say if you asked us

That there is no wrong answer among the three, that we arrange the first two, and that the families who are at peace with the decision a year later are the ones who talked it through in these terms rather than defaulting to the first thing they were told. If the answer is repatriation, repatriation, step by step is the whole of it. If it is the ashes, taking ashes abroad covers the documents for bringing them home too. If it is a funeral there, the consulate’s list of local funeral directors is where to start, and we will happily tell you what to ask them.