How to Obtain an Israeli Death Certificate from Abroad

A son in Chicago is told by an Israeli bank that it cannot release his late mother's account without a teudat petira (תעודת פטירה, death certificate) issued in Israel, apostilled, and accompanied by a succession order. He has the New York death certificate from the hospital where she passed while visiting family. None of it is in the right form, and the bank will not budge. This is where most non-resident families discover that an Israeli death certificate is not a single errand but a short procedure with two completely different starting points, depending on one fact: where the person actually died.

That fork governs everything. If the death happened in Israel, the certificate already exists and you are collecting copies. If an Israeli citizen died abroad, no Israeli certificate exists yet, and the foreign death has to be registered with Israeli authorities before any certificate can be produced. This guide walks through both routes as a family member living overseas executes them, from the request itself through the apostille and translation that make the document usable both in Israeli probate and in your home-country estate. We assume you are doing all of this without flying to Israel.

First, Establish Where the Death Occurred

Everything turns on this. The Israeli death certificate is a record held in the Population Registry under the Population Registry Law 1965 (Hok Mirsham HaUchlosin), and the registry only holds what has been reported to it.

When a person dies in Israel, the death is registered automatically. Hospitals, the burial society, and the local authority feed the death into the system, and the Population and Immigration Authority (Rashut HaUchlosin VeHahagira) at the Ministry of Interior issues the teudat petira. The family's task is purely to obtain certified copies.

When an Israeli citizen dies abroad, nothing happens automatically on the Israeli side. The foreign country issues its own death certificate, and Israel knows nothing of it until someone reports it. Until that report is made and processed, there is no Israeli death certificate to request, no matter how urgently a bank or the Inheritance Registrar asks for one.

A practitioner's caution: confirm the citizenship and residency status of the deceased before you assume which route applies. An Israeli who emigrated decades ago and died in Toronto is still in the Population Registry as a citizen, so the foreign death must be reported to update that record. A foreign national with no Israeli status who happened to own a Tel Aviv apartment will never have an Israeli death certificate at all, and Israeli probate will instead rely on the apostilled foreign certificate.

Route One: The Death Occurred in Israel

Here the certificate exists. You are requesting certified copies of a document already on file.

There are three realistic ways to do this from abroad. The first is online: the Population and Immigration Authority accepts an application through its service portal, and the certificate can be issued digitally. The second is by post, addressed to the National Center for Service and Information at 42 Agripas Street, Jerusalem, with a completed application and proof of your relationship to the deceased. The third, and the one most heirs end up using, is instructing an Israeli lawyer under power of attorney to collect the copies, attach the apostille, and arrange translation in a single coordinated package.

Eligibility matters. The Authority releases a death certificate to a spouse, child, or parent of the deceased, and to other interested persons who attach a written explanation of their interest, such as an executor or a more distant heir. A non-resident grandchild or sibling should expect to document the connection rather than simply assert it.

In Practice: Under the Population Registry Law 1965, the teudat petira itself is issued without charge by the Population and Immigration Authority at the Ministry of Interior, but each apostille placed on it by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs costs NIS 41 per document. A straightforward request for an Israeli-resident decedent, handled by a lawyer under power of attorney, typically yields the certified copies within 1 to 2 weeks, with the apostille added the same week. Order the copies and apostilles together so you are not paying a courier twice.

Route Two: An Israeli Citizen Who Died Abroad

This is the longer road, and the one that surprises families most. Before Israel will issue anything, the foreign death must be reported so the Population Registry can record it.

The report goes to an Israeli consulate or mission in the country where the death occurred, or directly to the Population Registry. The core document is the foreign death certificate, and it cannot be presented in its raw form. It must first be apostilled by the competent authority in the country of death (in the United States, the Secretary of State of the relevant state; in the United Kingdom, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; in France, the relevant cour d'appel or prefecture), and then translated into Hebrew. The translation almost always needs to be notarised, because Israeli authorities will not act on an informal translation of a civil-status document.

The person reporting the death generally has to appear in person at the mission, though a lawyer may handle the family's side of the filing depending on the consulate. Once the report is accepted and the Population Registry updates the deceased's record, you can request either an Israeli death certificate or, in many overseas-death cases, a Population Registry extract (sefach mirsham) that shows the recorded date of death. For Israeli probate and for most foreign estates, that extract carries the same evidential weight as the certificate.

In Practice: Reporting an overseas death under the Population Registry Law 1965 requires the foreign death certificate apostilled in the country of death and a notarial Hebrew translation, submitted to an Israeli consulate of the Population and Immigration Authority. The apostille on Population Registry documents can also be obtained at the Israeli mission itself at NIS 41 per document. Allow 4 to 8 weeks from the consular report to a usable Israeli certificate or registry extract, because the registry update is the slow link, not the apostille. A family that needs the certificate fast for a frozen bank account should start the consular report the same week the foreign certificate is issued.

Making the Certificate Usable: Apostille and Translation

A certified Israeli death certificate sitting on your desk is not yet a working document abroad. Two further steps decide whether anyone will accept it.

The apostille comes first, and its routing trips people up. An Israeli death certificate is a government civil-registry document issued by the Ministry of Interior, so its apostille is placed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not by a court. This differs from how a notarised copy or a notarial translation is authenticated: those carry a notary's seal, and a notary's seal is apostilled at the Magistrates' Court. The distinction is set out in detail in the guide to apostilling Israeli documents, and getting it right the first time saves a wasted courier cycle.

Translation comes second, and it is almost never optional for use abroad. Your home-country probate court, bank, or land registry will need the Hebrew certificate rendered into English (or French, German, Spanish, and so on). The reliable form is a notarial translation under the Notaries Law 1976. Section 15 of that law allows an Israeli notary to certify a translation only where the notary is fluent in both languages and has personally checked the rendering; where no such notary is available for your language pair, the practice is a notarised translator's declaration instead. Either way, you want the translation produced by someone whose certificate foreign authorities will recognise. We cover the standards in the guide to certified translation of Israeli legal documents.

Order in which it happens: certified copy first, then apostille on the certificate, then translation. A translation done before the apostille often has to be redone, because foreign authorities want the apostille itself reflected in the translated package.

How Many Copies, and Where Each One Goes

This is where thrifty families pay twice. Each Israeli process that touches the estate wants its own certified, apostilled copy, and almost none of them return it.

The Israeli succession order (tzav yerusha, צו ירושה) from the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot) requires a death certificate to open the file. Each Israeli bank holding the deceased's account wants its own copy before it will release funds. The Land Registry (Tabu, טאבו) needs one to transfer any Israeli property. And your home-country probate or estate administration needs an apostilled, translated copy of the Israeli certificate as well. That is four destinations before you have counted a second bank or a pension fund.

The foreign heir document checklist for Israeli inheritance sets out the full bundle each Israeli process expects. As a rule, request four to six certified copies at the outset, with apostilles on each, rather than reordering one at a time from another continent.

Common Mistake: Non-residents order a single death certificate, apostille it, and send it to the Inheritance Registrar with the succession order application — then discover the bank, the Land Registry, and their home-country probate court each demand an original apostilled copy that the Registrar has retained. Each replacement copy means a fresh NIS 41 apostille at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a new notarial translation, and international courier time, typically adding 2 to 4 weeks and several hundred shekels per cycle. Ordering four to six apostilled copies in the first request costs almost nothing extra and removes the entire problem.

Using the Israeli Certificate in Your Home-Country Estate

A death abroad rarely involves only one legal system. If your relative held assets both in Israel and at home, two estates run in parallel, and each needs the other's death record.

Your home-country probate or estate process will accept the Israeli teudat petira once it is apostilled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and translated by a recognised translator. Because Israel and most Western countries are parties to the Hague Apostille Convention of 1961, the apostille alone authenticates the certificate; no consular legalisation is needed for Hague members. The translation is what makes it readable to a US Surrogate's Court, a UK probate registry, or a French notaire.

Run the two estates on a shared document plan. The same apostilled, translated certificate that satisfies the Inheritance Registrar in Jerusalem will, in a second certified copy, satisfy the probate court at home. Families who treat the Israeli and foreign processes as separate errands tend to reorder documents repeatedly; families who plan one bundle to serve both move faster and spend less. For the broader picture of obtaining Israeli civil records from overseas, see the guide to obtaining Israeli vital records from the USA, and for the focused version of this question, the Q&A on getting an Israeli death certificate from abroad.

Practical Checklist

• Establish first whether the death occurred in Israel (certificate already exists) or abroad (foreign death must be reported and registered before any Israeli certificate exists)
• For a death in Israel, request certified copies from the Population and Immigration Authority online, by post to 42 Agripas Street in Jerusalem, or through an Israeli lawyer under power of attorney
• For an Israeli who died abroad, apostille the foreign death certificate in the country of death and obtain a notarial Hebrew translation before reporting it to an Israeli consulate
• Order four to six certified copies at once, each apostilled, to cover the succession order, each bank, the Land Registry, and your home-country probate
• Route the apostille correctly: Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the government-issued certificate, Magistrates' Court for a notarial copy or translation
• Sequence the steps as certified copy, then apostille on the certificate, then notarial translation
• Prepare a power of attorney before a notary, apostilled in your country and translated into Hebrew, so your Israeli lawyer can act for you
• Plan one document bundle to serve both the Israeli estate and your home-country probate rather than reordering separately

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

Whether the death occurred in Israel or your Israeli relative passed away overseas, getting a usable death certificate from abroad is a coordination problem: the right route, the correct apostille authority, a recognised translation, and enough copies to feed every process at once. An Israeli attorney can request the certified copies under power of attorney, register an overseas death through the consulate, secure the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apostille and notarial translation, and assemble the bundle your succession order and home-country probate both require.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.