Formalities following a death

While this guide focuses mainly on practical matters, coping with a loved-one's death is often very difficult emotionally. If you need extra support you can find English-speaking counsellors and psychotherapists via this website.

What happens first?

Essential formalities in the first few days after someone dies include obtaining a death certificate and declaring the death at the mairie.

If you are an employee you have the right to three to five days of paid time off in the event of the death of a close relative (or more if specified in the convention collective workplace rules for your sector).

You also have the right to take a break of up to three months from work to be with a close relative who is terminally ill, this is called a congé de solidarité familiale, during which your contract is suspended and you can claim a daily benefit to partially compensate you for your loss of earnings.

When a person dies their body will usually be placed shortly afterwards in a chambre mortuaire (mortuary) located within the hospital, clinic or hospice where they died. A special mortuary is used for violent deaths such as road accidents.

Use of this is free for the first three days following admission but then there may be a fee for extra days.

If the deceased was an expatriate one of the first documents you will need to locate is their passport and/or carte de séjour residence card which doctors may wish to see.

You may also be asked to select some suitable clothing for the person to be dressed in.

We take you through a timeline of administrative processes which will then follow.

Wishes of the deceased

Coping with a bereavement is always hard for families but it is also a time when many key administrative actions need to be taken, some immediately and others in the weeks and months that follow.

This can be all the harder if you are unfamiliar with the terminology and requirements so this chapter aims to help with this.

No one likes to think about death but knowing what will be required afterwards can help to lessen the stress for family when it happens. It may also be reassuring to know what will happen so you can minimise problems for your heirs.

In France it is a legal right to state in advance how you wish your funeral to be conducted.

This can be done, for example, in a document headed volontés funéraires, or by informing close relatives.

It is actually a criminal offence for your next of kin to organise your funeral in a ‘contrary manner’ to your expressed wish as long as your wishes are not against French law or contrary to 'public order and ethics'.

Timeline of tasks

French government information website service-public.gouv.fr has a simple website for checking key things to do after a death depending on your personal situation.

Within 24 hours

• Obtain a medical certificate (un constat de décès) from a doctor certifying the death. Violent deaths, including road accidents, must be notified to the police or gendarmerie, who will supply a certificate; in which case the body may be transferred to a special mortuary where an autopsy may be conducted before it is transferred to a usual mortuary after judicial permission.

Apart from the basic proof of death, the medical certificate will also contain information that is important for admission to a private or municipal mortuary; transport of the body before the coffin is sealed and transport abroad after sealing; embalming or cremation.

In such cases, the certificate must show that there are no medical/legal issues of concern, that the person did not have a contagious illness and, if they are to be cremated, that they did not have a pacemaker – or if they did, that it has been removed, as these can explode.

• Declare the death to the mairie of the area where it occurred. This can be done by the funeral directors or a care home or medical establishment if the death happened there. It must be done within 24 hours (not counting weekends and bank holidays). Some mairies have limited opening hours and you may need to call the mayor directly.

If you do this yourself you will need personal ID, the constat de décès, plus ID for the deceased such as a marriage, birth certificate or passport. This is the same for anyone else who is charged with declaring the death. You will then be given a death certificate acte de décès – and we advise getting at least a dozen copies.

• Wherever the death takes place, the close family can ask for the body to be transferred for example, from a hospital or retirement home, before the placing in the coffin – whether to their home, a relative’s home or to a chambre funéraire. The latter is a private or municipal mortuary, often run by funeral directors and which costs more than using a hospital mortuary. This requires authorisation from the local mairie and usually must take place within 24 hours, or 48 hours if there has been embalming. If the body is to be transferred to a different commune, authorisation from that commune’s mairie is required. In the case of transfer from an institution, transfer also requires permission from the home director or the doctor in charge.

When is an autopsy done?

An autopsy is required if a death is violent, suspicious or from a work accident; or may be done at the request of a public hospital.

If the doctor asked to certify death thinks an autopsy is appropriate, they will state on the certificate that the cause of death may pose a legal obstacle to burial permission. 

In which case the judicial police are informed and they make a report on the condition of the body and the circumstances of death. A judicial enquiry is opened and the public prosecutor may order an autopsy.

The family cannot oppose this. The pathologist who carries out the autopsy then makes a report to the judge. The family may obtain the results on application to the judge.

Appointing funeral directors

Contact your chosen firm of funeral directors (pompes funèbres) within about 48 hours of the death and instruct them of your wishes.

They will help with subsequent formalities and arranging the obsèques (funeral). A list of firms can be found at the mairie. You should check if the deceased had expressed a choice of cremation or burial.

Before signing anything make sure the quote includes all charges and labour. The average cost of a funeral is around €4,300 for a funeral with burial and €3,800 for one with cremation, a study by a professional body for the sector, CPFM, found.

However the organisation said prices vary widely, and can be twice as much in Paris or the Riveria compared to Hauts-de-France. 

You may wish to obtain quotes from several firms. Vocabulary may include: a fully-equipped oak coffin for burial in a cemetery (cercueil en chêne équipé). Equipped means with inner lining, handles, plaque, screws etc;

– a coffin equipped for cremation (cercueil équipé destiné à la crémation);

– or equipped and zinc-coated (zingué et équipé) for shipment abroad;

– a hearse (corbillard) and pallbearers (porteurs de cercueil).

The tasks of the funeral director may include: cleaning and dressing the body (if not already carried out at hospital), looking after it in their chambre funéraire, embalming, providing a coffin and accessories (or an urn), organising the cortège (hearse and bearers), a civil or religious ceremony (with or without a maître de cérémonie in charge), fees for the burial plot, grave digging, funeral monument or for storage of an urn.

There may be extra fees for the firm’s help with general organisation, printing cards and for a notice in the paper.

A funeral must take place within six days unless there are special circumstances and permission.

The placing in the coffin (mise en bière) usually happens at the place where the person died. 

Wherever a death takes place, no one can impose removal of the body to the deceased’s home or to a chambre funéraire without permission from the family. 

The only exception is where a care home is unable to contact a family member within 10 hours after the death. In such a case it can arrange a transfer, at the establishment’s cost.

A body can stay in a private home or retirement home for up to six days. In a case such as a death in a road accident, where the body has been sent to a chambre funéraire without the family requesting it, the family is not obliged to use any funeral directors services offered by the private chamber – the right to choose independently remains.

Other formalities in the first weeks

• You may wish to arrange cards notifying friends and family of the death – this is an optional service at undertakers – and/or arrange for a notice in a local newspaper and for flowers for the ceremony.
• You will need to gather any other important documents relating to the deceased that may be needed for further formalities – the livret de famille (if the deceased had one), their passport or identity card, their will and any documents relating to family legal arrangements such as a marriage contract or a donation entre époux.

• Unless the estate is worth less than €5,000 you will need to visit a notaire and secure an attestation of your right to act as next of kin – an acte de notoriété (see here).  He or she will take care of key formalities such as lodging a déclaration de succession which must be done within six months of the death. A huissier can compile an inventory of the property in the case of any questions over the estate. Once the inheritance is organised you need to get the déclaration de succession and pay any tax owed.
• If necessary, obtain extra copies of the death certificate. 
• Inform the person’s employer if they were working. Check if the deceased was paying into a plan d’épargne entreprise (PEE) scheme through work, which may give a payout. The firm may also have arranged private insurance called assurance prévoyance which may now give a payment.
• Inform France Travail if the person was receiving unemployment benefit.
• Inform their bank or other lending organisations including those where the deceased held savings accounts such as a Livret A or Plan d’épargne en actions (PEA). Any personal accounts will be frozen until the inheritance has been organised (joint accounts in the name of M. ou Mme will be accessible by the survivor but only for half of the sum deposited). A PEA is closed and its shares moved into an ordinary shares account (they can be sold, or transferred to one or more heirs). For loans with death insurance, this clause must be invoked, otherwise loans are part of the debts of the estate.
  Note that some bank cards come with death insurance, allowing for a payment or for benefits like payment for repatriation of a body in the case of death abroad. Banks levy ‘inheritance fees’ from around €75 to €400 for services after a death such as freezing accounts and transferring money to heirs or a notaire. The bank also checks the death certificate and declares the amount of money left by the deceased to the tax office.

• Either one of the heirs, or the notaire dealing with the estate should contact Ficoba, the Fichier des comptes bancaires, which lists all accounts held by a person. You need to include a death certificate, proof of identity and a document proving you are an heir, and send the request to: Centre national de traitement FBFV, BP31, 77421 Marne-la-Vallée Cedex 02.

Useful numbers and contacts

French tax information: Direction Générale des Finances Publiques: 0809 401 401

Allô service-public (French administrative services helpline): 3939

State health service English helpline: 09 74 75 36 46 (or outside France 0033 974 75 36 46)

NHS Business Services’ Overseas Healthcare Team (UK office dealing with issue of S1 forms and exportable benefits): 0044 191 218 1999

International Pension Centre (information on UK state pension and benefits).

Association Française d’Information Funéraire: This was set up in 1992 and is an independent non-profit association which is a useful port of call for anyone seeking information about funerals: Tel: 05 46 43 44 12.