Death Certificate

Five-day period

Usually a person must be buried or cremated within five days of his or her death. This can only be done once the registrar of the Civil Registry has issued a burial or cremation certificate. It is therefore advisable to register the death at the Civil Registry within this period of five days.

Who can register a death

You can register a death if you have personal knowledge of the death. Registration of a death is usually done by the undertaker.

Once the death certificate has been drawn up the death is registered in the Municipal Personal Records Database (Gemeentelijke Basisadministratie, GBA) of the municipality where the person in question resided.

Death in a country outside the Netherlands

If a resident of Amsterdam has died outside the Netherlands, then the Department of Civil Affairs (Burgerzaken) of an urban district council office (stadsdeelkantoor) must be notified. The death can then be registered in the GBA.
You need to provide the following:

• a death certificate, and

• if necessary, a translation of this complete with authentication

Special Circumstances

A death certificate may be drawn up in the following exceptional cases:  

• on 'presumption of death'. This means that there is strong evidence that a person  has died but there is no absolute certainty

• if a death is entered in the GBA without a certificate

• in the case of a stillborn child

Application

A death must be registered in person at the Department of Civil Affairs of an urban district council office. In principle this needs to be done within six days of the death in question. The following documentation must be provided: a valid identity document (passport, driving license, Dutch identity cards or residence permit) and a doctor's death certificate.