Registering a death
You must register the death within 5 days. You must ideally be a member of the family. If this is not possible it should be someone who was present at the death, the person instructing the funeral director or the occupier of the premises in which the death occured.
Appointment to register a death
You can make an appointment using our online booking form
Make an appointment to register a death
What the registrar will need to know
When registering a death, you'll need to take the following
- medical certificate of the cause of death (signed by a doctor) and, if available,
- birth certificate
- marriage or civil partnership certificate
- NHS Medical Card
You will need to tell the registrar
- the person’s full name at time of death and any names previously used, including maiden surname
- the person’s date and place of birth (town and county if born in the UK and country if born abroad)
- their last address
- their occupation
- the full name, date of birth and occupation of a surviving spouse or civil partner
- if they were getting a state pension or any other state benefit
Documents you will receive from the registrar
If a post-mortem is not being held, the registrar will give you
- a certificate for burial or cremation (called the 'green form'), giving permission for the body to be buried or to apply for the body to be cremated
- a certificate of registration of death (form BD8), issued for social security purposes if the person was on a state pension or benefits (read the information on the back, complete and return it, if it applies)
You'll be able to buy one or more death certificates at this time at £4.00 each. The registrar will also give you a booklet called 'What to do after a death', with advice on wills, funerals and financial help.
Tell Us Once
We offer local residents help to notify central or local government when they have had a family bereavement. You can find more about Tell Us Once on the Gov.uk website. The registrar will give you a unique reference number so that you can tell different government departments and agencies about the death either online or by phone.
Registering a death out of hours
An example of an urgent death registration (perhaps requiring registration outside our normal opening hours) would be where the faith of the deceased requires burial within 24 hours of death, and timing is such that the death needs to be registered over a weekend.
If you need to contact us when the contact centre is closed (it is open from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on a Saturday, excluding bank holidays) then please telephone Cambridgeshire Constabulary on 101.
Moving a body
There is no restriction on moving a body within England and Wales, but you need to tell the coroner for the district if you want to move a body to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, or overseas. To do this you will need to fill out a form, which you can get from a coroner.
You will need to give the completed form to the coroner, along with any certificate for burial or cremation. The coroner will let you know when the body can be moved - usually after four days. However, in urgent situations, the whole process can usually be fast-tracked.
If somebody dies abroad you can obtain information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website