Registration of death in the Population Register System

If the body is repatriated to Finland in a coffin or an urn, a Finnish forensic pathologist writes the death certificate.

In other cases, the family of the deceased must make sure that the date of death is entered in the Finnish Population Information System(Link to another website.). Alternatively, the information can be submitted or posted to a Finnish mission abroad, from where it is sent to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency for registration. Send the documents together with the original death certificate of the deceased. The instructions are country-specific — the death certificate must either be legalised or be certified using an Apostille stamp/certificate. However, EU Member States accept death certificates without legalisation or an Apostille.

If the document has been issued in some other language than Finnish, Swedish or English, an authorised translation in one of these languages must be provided. Translations that have been made abroad must be legalised, or they must be certified by an apostille. Translations made by an authorised translator in Finland (Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)are acceptable as such.

An Apostille certificate or stamp is not required for a death certificate issued by an EU country authority, and a translation is not needed if a multilingual standard form(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) is appended.

The next of kin of the deceased are responsible for the costs arising from obtaining the death certificate, having it translated and getting it legalised.