How to get a death certificate, and how many copies you need

The death certificate is the certified copy of the entry the registrar makes in the register of deaths, with the person’s details and the cause of death on it. It is the document that proves to a bank, an insurer, a pension provider or a court that the person has died, and nearly every organisation on the notification list will ask to see one. This guide is how to get it, how many to get, and what to do when you run out.

How to get a death certificate

At the registration. When you register the death, the registrar enters it in the register and you buy certified copies there and then. That is the easiest and quickest way to get them, and the one families under-use.

If the coroner is holding an inquest, the death cannot be fully registered until the inquest concludes, and the coroner issues an interim certificate of the fact of death instead, which banks and insurers accept for most purposes. The death certificate follows after the inquest. What happens when the coroner is involved explains the timing.

How many copies you need

Six is a good number for most estates, and eight for a complicated one. The reason is not that six organisations need one each. It is that the ones that insist on an original keep it for days or weeks while they process the claim, and an executor with two copies spends a month waiting for them to come back. Banks, building societies, life insurers, pension providers, the probate registry, and a solicitor if there is one, all commonly want an original; utilities, subscriptions and most online accounts accept a scan.

A photocopy you make yourself is not a certified copy and has no legal standing. Every copy bought from the registrar is an original in its own right.

If you are unsure how many, buy more rather than fewer. The difference between four copies and eight is a few pounds; the difference in time, when an insurer is holding one and the probate registry wants another, is weeks.

What a death certificate costs

In England and Wales a certified copy costs £12.50 whether bought at the registration or later, at the time of writing in 2026. Northern Ireland charges £8 a copy at the registration and £15 for the first copy ordered later; Scotland sets its own fee. There is no free copy; the first one costs the same as the sixth.

How to get more copies later

Two ways.

From the register office where the death was registered, by phone, online or in person, for the same fee, usually posted within a few days.

From the General Register Office online, for any death registered in England and Wales, for the same standard fee and a delivery of a few working days, or for a priority fee, currently £38.50, dispatched the next working day. You will need the person’s name, the date and place of death, and it helps to have the registration district and entry number from a copy you already hold. Scotland’s equivalent is the National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland’s is the General Register Office for Northern Ireland.

What a death certificate is not

It is not the medical certificate of cause of death, which the doctor completes and which goes to the registrar; the medical certificate of cause of death, explained covers that. It is not the certificate for burial or cremation, the green form, which the registrar gives you for the funeral director and which is free. And it is not needed by us for a cremation; the green form is what the crematorium wants.

Using it abroad

If the death certificate is going to another country, for an estate, a pension or a repatriation, that country will usually want it legalised with an apostille from the Foreign Office, and sometimes translated. What documents does a repatriation need explains the apostille, and it applies to a certificate sent abroad for any purpose. Who to notify when someone dies is the list the copies are for.

The registration where the copies are bought is step three in what to do when someone dies.