How to Register a Death in the UK: Step by Step

Registering a death is the first formal task families face, and since September 2024 the way it works has changed. In England and Wales you now have five days to register from the point the register office receives the medical certificate, not five days from the date of death itself. A medical examiner reviews the cause of death first, then contacts you, and only then does the clock start. This guide explains who registers the death, when, where, what you need to bring, and what you walk away with.

When you need to register a death

The legal time limit depends on where the person died.

In England and Wales, a death must be registered within five days. Crucially, that five-day window starts when the register office receives the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death from the medical examiner's office, not from the day the person died. This is a direct result of the death certification reforms that became law on 9 September 2024. Before then, the clock ran from the date of death. Now it runs from the point the paperwork reaches the registrar, which is usually a few days later.

In Scotland, the limit is eight days from the date of death. In Northern Ireland, it is five days from the date of death.

The five days include weekends and bank holidays, so a death certified on a Thursday before a long weekend can leave a tight window. If you genuinely cannot register in time, phone the register office and explain. They would far rather hear from you than mark a registration as overdue. It is worth knowing that failing to register a death is a criminal offence, though in practice registrars are understanding about delays they have been told about in advance.

If a coroner is involved, the five-day rule does not apply at all. You cannot register until the coroner has finished their work, which can take anything from a day to many months if there is an inquest. Where there is an inquest, the coroner usually registers the death on your behalf.

What the medical examiner does first

Under the new system, almost every death in England and Wales is now scrutinised independently before it can be registered. A death is reviewed either by a medical examiner, who is a senior doctor not involved in the person's care, or by a coroner.

The doctor who attended the person sends the medical certificate to the medical examiner's office. The medical examiner checks it, reviews the medical records, and then contacts the next of kin to talk through the cause of death. This conversation is also a chance to raise any questions or concerns you have about the care the person received. Once the medical examiner is satisfied, they send the certificate to the register office and let you know it has gone.

You should not try to book a registration appointment until the medical examiner's office has confirmed the certificate has been sent. The register office cannot register the death without it. If you have not heard anything within a few days of the death, contact the medical examiner's office or the hospital or GP who was dealing with it.

The reform has added a small amount of time to the process. National figures show the median time to register a doctor-certified death rose by about two days after the system came in. That extra step exists to give families an independent point of contact and to improve the accuracy of what goes on the certificate.

Who can register the death

Most deaths are registered by a close relative. The registrar will normally expect a relative to do it and will only accept someone else if no relative is available.

If the person died in a house or a hospital, the death can be registered by a relative, by someone who was present at the death, by an official from the hospital, or by the person arranging the funeral with the funeral director. A funeral director cannot register the death for you. They can guide you through it and liaise with the register office, but the law requires one of the people above to attend.

You do not need to be the executor or next of kin to register, although in practice it is often the same person. Only one person needs to go to the appointment.

Where to register

In England and Wales, you must register the death in the district where the person died, not the district where they lived if those are different. You can find your local register office through the postcode search on GOV.UK, or your funeral director can point you to the right one.

If getting to the correct district is difficult, you can register by declaration at any register office in England or Wales. The registrar takes the details and sends them on to the office in the district where the death occurred. This is allowed, but it slows things down, because the funeral paperwork and any certificate copies have to be posted to you by the second office rather than handed over on the day. If you need the funeral to happen quickly, registering in the correct district in person is usually faster.

Most register offices ask you to book an appointment rather than turning up. An appointment takes around half an hour to forty-five minutes.

What to bring to the appointment

The registrar records a set of details about the person who died, so it helps to gather what you can beforehand. There is no longer any need to bring the medical certificate itself, because the medical examiner sends it directly to the register office. What the registrar will ask you for is information rather than documents.

You will be asked for the person's full name and any names they were previously known by, their date and place of birth, their last address, their occupation, and whether they were receiving a State Pension or any benefits. If the person was married or in a civil partnership, you will be asked the full name and occupation of their spouse or partner.

Bringing the person's birth certificate, marriage or civil partnership certificate, and a recent proof of address can make the appointment smoother, though the registrar will tell you if anything is not needed. If you do not have these, the registration can still go ahead based on the information you provide.

What you receive when you register

Once the death is registered, you are given the documents you need to move forward.

The first is the certificate for burial or cremation, known in England and Wales as the green form. This is the legal permission to hold the funeral, and you hand it to your funeral director. It is free. In Scotland the equivalent is the Certificate of Registration of Death, and in Northern Ireland it is the GRO21 form.

The second is a form for the Department for Work and Pensions, used to report the death so that pensions and benefits can be stopped or adjusted. In England and Wales this is the BD8. You do not need to send it if you report the death by phone to the DWP Bereavement Service instead.

The third item is the death certificate itself, and this is the one families most often underestimate. The registrar does not hand these out automatically. You buy certified copies, and each one currently costs around eleven pounds in England and Wales. You will need an original certified copy to close many of the person's accounts, and most banks, pension providers and insurers will not accept a photocopy. Because you can usually only deal with one organisation at a time per copy, ordering several at the registration appointment saves weeks of posting a single certificate back and forth. Three to six copies is a sensible starting point for most estates, more if the person had many accounts.

You do not need the death certificate to arrange the funeral. The green form is enough for that, so funeral planning can begin as soon as you leave the appointment. If you want a sense of the typical timings, our guide on how long after a death a funeral usually takes sets out what to expect.

Tell Us Once

When you register, the registrar will usually offer the Tell Us Once service. This lets you report the death to most government departments in one go, including the DWP, HMRC, the DVLA, the Passport Office and the local council. It saves contacting each one separately and is available in England, Wales and Scotland, though not in Northern Ireland.

Tell Us Once is genuinely useful, but it is important to understand its limits. It only covers government and public bodies. It does not touch the private sector, which is where most of a person's accounts actually sit: banks, insurers, pension schemes, utilities, mobile contracts, subscriptions and store cards. Our guide to what Tell Us Once covers and what families still have to do explains the gap in detail.

What comes after registration

Registering the death unlocks everything else, but it is the start of the administration rather than the end. Once you have the certificates, you can begin notifying the organisations the person held accounts with, applying for probate if the estate needs it, and arranging the funeral. The step that surprises most families is the sheer number of private organisations involved, each with its own bereavement process, its own forms and its own demand for an original certificate. Notifying and closing those private accounts is the part that falls outside Tell Us Once, and it is the work Legacy Trail was built to take off families' hands.

For a wider view of the whole sequence, our step-by-step guide to what to do when someone dies puts registration in context, and our guide to death certificates and how many you need goes deeper on ordering copies. When you reach the point of contacting banks, our guide on how to notify a bank after someone dies covers the documents and timescales involved.

A note on Scotland and Northern Ireland

The broad shape of registration is the same across the UK, but the detail differs. The statutory medical examiner system described above applies to England and Wales. Scotland operates its own separate system of medical review and uses different forms, with an eight-day window. Northern Ireland has its own arrangements and a five-day window from the date of death. If the death happened in Scotland or Northern Ireland, follow the guidance from National Records of Scotland or nidirect respectively, and the local registrar will tell you which forms apply.

References

This guide reflects the rules in force as of June 2026 and is provided for general information. It is not legal advice. Rules and fees change, and individual circumstances vary, so check the current position with the relevant register office before acting.

• GOV.UK, Register a death: https://www.gov.uk/register-a-death

• Office for National Statistics, Death Certification Reform, England and Wales (9 September 2024 onwards): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths

• Citizens Advice, What to do after a death: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/death-and-wills/what-to-do-after-a-death/

• Marie Curie, Who can register a death: https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/information/grief/register-a-death

• nidirect, Registering a death (Northern Ireland): https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/registering-death

• National Records of Scotland, Registering a death: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/registration/registering-a-death