Registration of a death

In exceptional cases, deaths are registered at Estonian vital statistics institutions (local governments of county centres, the Vital Statistics Office in Tallinn). These cases are as follows:

• The person died in Estonia, but the healthcare service provided did not forward the data concerning the death to the Population Register and issued a death statement on paper to the next-of-kin;
• The person died in a foreign country and his or her last place of residence was Estonia or he or she had Estonian citizenship (NB! The death must not be registered in a foreign country).

In such exceptional cases, an application may be submitted to any local government of a county centre within seven days from the death of the person or from learning of the death of the person. In order to submit an application, you need to visit a vital statistics institution in person. The vital statistics institution will register the death within three working days from the receipt of the application.

The following needs to be submitted for registering a death:

• an application for the registration of death;
• a medical death statement;
• and the personal identification document of the person making the application.

No state fee is payable for the registration of a death.

If a person has died in a foreign country, but the death was not registered there, documents must be submitted for the registration of the death in Estonian, Russian or English. If the documents are translated, the translation must be done by a sworn translator. The foreign document (e.g. a medical certificate) necessary for the registration of a death must be legalised or certified with an apostille, unless an international treaty stipulates otherwise.

If a death has been registered in a foreign country, it does not have to be registered again in Estonia, but the foreign death document has to be submitted to the local government of a county centre for entry in the Population Register. The document must be in Estonian, Russian or English or translated into these languages, and certified with an apostille/legalised, unless an international treaty stipulates otherwise.

For the purposes of certifying a death, the first death certificate is free of charge. If the data are automatically forwarded from a doctor to the Population Register, the healthcare institution issues the first death certificate. If the death is registered at a vital statistics institution, the first certificate is issued there.

Application to register a death (PDF) Annex to the regulation by the Minister of Regional Affairs