Foreigner dies in Thailand: what the family does

If a relative dies in Thailand, call the police or the hospital holding the body first, then your embassy or consulate. The death itself is registered by the local district office, which is the only body that can issue the Thai death certificate; without it, nothing else moves, not cremation, not repatriation, not the estate. Your consulate can help with documents, and Thai authorities usually notify it of the death, but it does not register the death in Thailand and it does not pay for anything.

In short

• Call the police (191) or the hospital where the body is, then your embassy or consulate.
• The death must be reported to the district office within 24 hours of the death or of the body being found; only that office issues the death certificate, not the hospital.
• Your consulate does not register a Thai death or cover any costs, though it often issues letters that the hospital or district office asks for.
• Cremation in Thailand is usually the simplest route; repatriating the body takes more paperwork, and the family or the travel insurer pays.
• The estate is settled through a Thai court, not through your embassy or a will registered at home.

The first hours: who to call

If the death happened outside a hospital, call the police on 191 or an ambulance on 1669. Tourist Police take calls on 1155, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand runs a hotline on 1672. Dial 199 for a fire, not Tourist Police. Wherever possible, leave the body where it was found until the police arrive.

Once the police or hospital are involved, call your embassy or consulate. Most countries handle this from their embassy in Bangkok; a few also keep a consulate on Phuket. Find the duty officer's number on the embassy's own website rather than a general enquiry line.

If the person had travel insurance, call the insurer too. It can arrange and pay for the funeral, the repatriation, translation and even a lawyer, and it often picks its own funeral contractor. Check the policy before signing anything with a funeral home yourself, so you don't end up paying for two contracts for the same job.

If you are in Phuket on your own

Travellers sometimes face this without family nearby. Thai law asks whoever is present, or whoever finds the body, to notify the police or the district office, so a companion, a friend or hotel staff can make that first call for you. Tell your embassy who is acting for the family if you cannot get to Thailand quickly: a consulate can often liaise with that person, even though it has no role in the formal registration.

Police, hospital and the death certificate

What happens next depends on where the death took place. A death in hospital gets a medical note from the hospital, which often then contacts the district office itself; that note is not the official death certificate, even though people sometimes treat it as one. A death outside a hospital needs a police report before anything can be registered.

If the cause of death is unclear, or the death was unnatural, Thai criminal procedure calls for a formal examination of the body. In practice, foreigners who die outside a hospital are usually examined this way, and a religious objection raised with the police early on may still not change the outcome. The findings come back in Thai, from the police station first notified. GOV.UK quotes roughly 45 working days as a guide for British cases; treat it as a planning estimate, not a legal deadline.

Registering the death at the district office

The death must be reported to the district office, or amphoe, within 24 hours of the death or of the body being found, to the office covering where that happened; only that office issues the death certificate, not the hospital. Where travel is difficult, the registration authorities can extend this to no more than 7 days. Registering late carries a fine of up to 1,000 baht. A hospital often files the report itself, and a family abroad can also ask a friend, a relative in Thailand or a funeral director to do it instead. The office sometimes asks for a letter from your consulate first, so check with your consulate whether you will need one.

Only one original certificate is issued, in Thai, to whoever reports the death. Certified copies cost 10 baht each. Order several, and a translation, straight away: you will need copies for the bank, the Land Office if there is property, the airline or funeral service, and for anything you need to show at home.

A typical paper trail for the family includes:

1. The deceased's passport.
2. The hospital's medical note, if the death happened there.
3. The police report, if the death happened elsewhere or was unnatural.
4. The Thai death certificate and several certified copies.
5. A letter from your consulate, if the hospital or district office has asked for one.
6. The post-mortem report, if an examination was carried out.
7. The temple's cremation certificate, if the body was cremated in Thailand.

Your consulate: registering the death

A consulate does not register a death in Thailand, does not obtain the Thai certificate for the family, and does not pay for a funeral or repatriation. What it typically does is issue letters that the hospital or district office has asked for, and papers needed to move a body or ashes out of the country; the exact list varies by country, so confirm it with yours. Whether you must also register the death at home depends on your country: the UK, for example, treats it as optional. Ask your consulate.

If you need the Thai certificate recognised at home, it generally has to be translated and then legalised: first by Thailand's Department of Consular Affairs, bookable through qlegal.consular.go.th, which also runs an office on Phuket and can turn a stamp around in 2 working days or the same day for an express fee, and then, if your country requires it, by its embassy in Bangkok. If the person applying is not a close relative with the same surname as the deceased, the Department of Consular Affairs may also ask for a letter from your embassy. Once the Apostille Convention takes effect for Thailand, on 28 February 2027, it should replace part of this chain for countries it covers; we cover both routes on our page about document legalisation.

Cremation, burial or repatriation

Once the paperwork is in hand, the family chooses how to proceed. Cremation in Thailand is the most common choice and is usually available once the authorities consider the cause of death settled; the temple issues a cremation certificate afterwards. Burial in Thailand is rare for foreigners, largely because it is harder to arrange. Repatriating the body takes the most preparation: it usually needs embalming, a sealed zinc-lined coffin, the Thai death certificate and consulate paperwork, and airlines add their own requirements on top, which are worth checking early.

	Cremation in Thailand	Burial in Thailand	Repatriating the body
What's needed	Thai death certificate; a consulate letter, if requested	Thai death certificate; the rest depends on the burial site	Death certificate, embalming certificate, permit to move the remains, consulate documents
Who arranges it	A funeral director or temple, sometimes the insurer	A funeral director	A funeral director or the travel insurer
What the family receives	Cremation certificate and the ashes	Depends on the burial site	Death certificate, embalming certificate and the documents your home country's customs require (for example, a sealing certificate for a zinc coffin)

What decides the cost, and who pays

Repatriation costs vary with the embalming and coffin work, the distance and airline, and whether documents are processed as standard or express; none of it is published as a fixed price. Travel insurance that covers repatriation usually pays and often picks the provider. Without cover, the costs normally fall to the family, though reasonable funeral expenses, suited to the deceased's circumstances, are a claim against the estate under the Civil and Commercial Code and can be reimbursed from it, without prejudice to creditors.

Taking ashes home usually calls for the Thai death certificate, the temple's cremation certificate and the deceased's passport; ask your consulate whether it also issues its own document for the ashes. Airport customs guidance and airlines may ask for more on top of this, and hand-luggage rules vary, so check with both before you travel.

Bank accounts, property and the estate

Once the first days are behind you, the family's questions turn to money and property. A Thai bank freezes the deceased's account and, in practice, releases funds only to an administrator the Thai court has appointed. A marriage certificate or a will from home does not unlock the account on its own; joint accounts are handled differently from bank to bank.

A grant of probate has no force in Thailand

A UK grant of probate or US letters testamentary carries no authority here: a Thai bank or the Land Office needs a Thai court order naming an administrator, not a foreign court's paperwork. A foreign will can still be used, but only once legalised and translated into Thai by a certified translator, and the case typically takes longer this way; a Thai will naming an administrator tends to move faster through the court than an estate with no will or a foreign will only. If the deceased held both a Thai will and a will made at home, our guide on two wills that don't conflict explains how the two are kept from cancelling each other out.

What happens to the property depends on what it is. A foreign heir keeps a condo unit if the building's 49% foreign quota still has room, or if the heir qualifies under the Condominium Act; otherwise the heir notifies the Land Office and sells the unit within a year. Land passes to a foreign heir only with the Interior Minister's permission, and without it the heir sells within a year. A usufruct, the right to use someone else's property, ends when its holder dies; whether a leasehold villa passes to the heirs depends on the lease itself, and practice is not consistent here. Our guide on inheriting a condo as a foreign heir covers the condo rules in detail, and our typical case of a foreign heir and a condo shows how it can play out.

Deadlines not to miss

• The death must be reported within 24 hours; where travel is difficult, the registration authorities can extend this to no more than 7 days.
• 60 days to notify the Land Office, and a year to sell, if a foreign heir cannot keep an inherited condo.
• One year for an heir to bring a claim against the estate from the death, or from learning of it; a creditor of the deceased has one year from learning of the death, and no claim can be brought more than ten years after the death.

Your own country may set its own deadline for accepting an inheritance or opening probate there, separately from Thailand's rules, so it is worth checking that with a lawyer at home as well. Our lawyers start by working out exactly what is left in Thailand, an account, a condo within the quota, a leasehold villa, and the date each clock starts running. The full process beyond the condo is on our page about probate in Thailand.

We have found no Thai rule requiring the family to notify immigration. UK guidance, for example, suggests doing so as a courtesy for long-term residents, taking the original passport and the death certificate.

When you need a lawyer

Many of the first steps are ones a family manages itself, with help from the hospital, a funeral director and the consulate. A lawyer becomes useful once:

• the family cannot travel and needs someone acting as a representative in Thailand;
• the Thai certificate has to be legalised for use at home;
• an account, a condo or a leasehold villa is left in Thailand;
• the deceased left a Thai will, a foreign will, or both;
• the death was unnatural and a police case is underway.

Our lawyers hold a licence from the Lawyers Council of Thailand. We can explain the process in English, prepare documents in both languages, and run the probate case through the Thai court on the family's behalf. We cannot speed up the police, the consulate or the court, but we can tell you what to expect and in what order. A good starting point is a 45-minute consultation; we agree the fee for that, and for any work after it, before anything begins.

Describe your situation in the form below. We reply within 24 hours and tell you which documents to gather first. If this has made you think about sparing your own family the same uncertainty, our page on making a will in Thailand covers how to set one up with a lawyer.