Your embassy in Thailand, whatever your nationality
Not sure where to start? Start here
Written by Greg Berryman. Sources last checked 12 August 2026.
If this has already happened, start with what to do when someone dies in Thailand.
Six governments publish or have answered the most, and each carries a page of its own. The Thai side of the process is the same whatever passport the person held.
Jump to
What does not change with the passport?
Nearly all of it.
- The police attend a death outside hospital, and their report is required before the death can be registered. See the process, step by step.
- The body goes to a forensic institute, and a post-mortem follows a sudden, unexplained, violent or accidental death.
- The death must be reported to the district office within twenty four hours, and the law says who must do it. See registering the death at the amphur.
- One original death certificate is issued, to whoever reports the death. See the Thai death certificate.
- A body may not lawfully be kept, cremated or moved from where the death happened until the registrar authorises it.
- A Thai bank account freezes on notification of death and is released only on a court order. See the court order that unfreezes a Thai bank account, and what an estate administrator has to do once appointed.
- An unmarried partner has no standing under Thai law, and Thai law does not recognise cohabitation. See who can legally act.
- Foreigners cannot own land and therefore cannot inherit it. See what a Thai will does and does not cover.
None of that varies by nationality. If you are German, Russian, Japanese or anything else, those pages apply to you unchanged.
What does change with the passport?
Three things.
Who your government recognises as next of kin. This decides whether the person standing in the hospital can act, or whether they need written authority from somebody else. Only some governments publish a definition at all, and the ones that do are not consistent with each other.
What your embassy will issue. Every one of them issues some form of letter before a hospital will release a body, but they call it different things and ask for different evidence.
What has to happen at home. Registration, passport cancellation, pensions and probate all differ.
Which governments are covered in detail?
Six, each covering that government's own position in full.
| Country | Posts in Thailand | Their position in full |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Bangkok | When a British person dies in Thailand |
| United States | Bangkok, Chiang Mai | When an American dies in Thailand |
| Australia | Bangkok, Phuket | When an Australian dies in Thailand |
| Canada | Bangkok, Chiang Mai honorary consul | When a Canadian dies in Thailand |
| New Zealand | Bangkok | When a New Zealander dies in Thailand |
| Ireland | Bangkok, Chiang Mai honorary consul | When an Irish person dies in Thailand |
Where is your embassy in Thailand if you are not one of those six?
Every other nationality with a substantial presence in Thailand, and what its own government publishes about a death here.
| Country | Posts in Thailand | Guidance on a death in Thailand |
|---|---|---|
| China | Bangkok, Songkhla, Phuket office, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen | None found |
| France | Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket | Yes, in French |
| Germany | Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, Phuket | Yes, in German |
| Japan | Bangkok, Chiang Mai | None found |
| Netherlands | Bangkok | Yes, in English |
| Norway | Bangkok, Phuket | None found |
| Russia | Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Koh Samui | None found |
| South Korea | Bangkok | None found |
| Sweden | Bangkok, Pattaya | None found |
| Switzerland | Bangkok | Yes, in German |
| Ukraine | Bangkok | None found |
None found means exactly that. A search in the national language did not turn up published guidance, which is not evidence that none exists.
Two notes on the table. Sweden's honorary consulate at Hua Hin has been vacant since 15 January 2025 following the death of the consul, and Swedes are referred to Bangkok until a replacement is appointed. Several of the posts outside Bangkok are honorary consulates or consular offices rather than full consulates, which affects what they can do rather than whether they exist.
What will no embassy in Thailand do?
This is consistent across every government whose guidance has been read for this site. None of them will pay for a funeral or a repatriation, register the death, obtain the death certificate for you, translate a document, investigate the death, or become involved in the estate.
None of them holds a record of your wishes either. Australia has said so directly in correspondence with this site, and no other government offers such a register. A statement written in advance only works if the people who will be in the room have it.
The expectation that a consulate will handle it is the assumption that costs families the most time.
What happens if no next of kin can be found?
Two governments have answered, and the mechanisms they describe exist in every passport.
Canada. The Embassy of Canada in Bangkok has told this site that where Ottawa's attempts to trace next of kin or an emergency contact are unsuccessful, it will treat an unmarried partner as next of kin and issue the authorisation letter to the partner. It added that where an unmarried partner is identified as the deceased's next of kin in the will, the partner becomes next of kin. See when a Canadian dies in Thailand.
Australia. Australian consular correspondence with this site states that where no next of kin can be identified, the emergency contact listed on the deceased's most recent passport application is contacted. Every country's passport application carries that field. No other government has said what it does with it. Check that the name on yours is current. See when an Australian dies in Thailand.
Neither answer appears in that government's published guidance, so treat both as practice rather than policy. What they have in common is worth carrying whatever your nationality: the emergency contact on the passport form, and the will, are the two places a government looks for a name.
Ireland describes a third route to the same question. Its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade arranges through An Garda Síochána for next of kin in Ireland to be informed, and notes that data may be shared with the General Register Office to establish who they are. That trace runs on Irish civil registration records. See when an Irish person dies in Thailand.
Which embassies have a consulate outside Bangkok?
Most foreign residents of Thailand do not live in Bangkok. The two largest concentrations are Chiang Mai in the north and Phuket in the south, and a government's coverage of one says nothing about the other.
Posts in both the north and the south. China, Germany and France. China's is the most complete: a Consulate-General in Songkhla whose jurisdiction runs across the southern provinces including Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Surat Thani and Trang, with a Phuket Consular Office reporting to it, plus a Consulate-General in Chiang Mai and another in Khon Kaen.
Chiang Mai, and nothing further south. The United States, Japan, Canada and Ireland. For a family in Krabi or on Samui, a post in Chiang Mai is further away than Bangkok.
The south, and nothing in the north. Australia, with a Consulate-General in Phuket. Russia, with posts at Phuket, Pattaya and Koh Samui. Norway, whose Phuket honorary consulate covers Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi and operates in Thai and English only.
Nothing outside Bangkok at all. The United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ukraine, Switzerland, the Netherlands and South Korea. Sweden's nearest is Pattaya.
Wherever a British national lives in Thailand, north or south, their consular help is in Bangkok.
Which government's guidance is worth reading whatever your nationality?
The Dutch one, and it is in English.
NetherlandsWorldwide publishes a Thailand-specific page that states plainly that the Thai authorities request a letter of authorisation from the embassy stating who they may release the body to. It also explains the waiver a next of kin signs to release the body to somebody else, and the double legalisation: the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs first, then the embassy.
The Swiss document says the same thing independently, and adds that Thailand has no public authority that administers a deceased person's estate.
That mechanism is described by six governments: the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Switzerland. If your own government publishes nothing, those six are describing the system you are in. See the embassy letter that releases the body.
What if your country is in neither table?
Thailand's own government publishes the list of foreign embassies in Thailand, with addresses and telephone numbers, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes the diplomatic and consular list.
What is in the pack?
The pages on this site are free and stay free.
After a Death in Thailand is for someone dealing with a death that has already happened. It is printable, and it contains:
- A checklist that runs in order: the first hour, the first day, the first week, before the body moves, and afterwards.
- Every phone number you need, in the order you need them.
- A sheet to record who you spoke to, when, and what they said they would do.
- The next of kin authorisation letter, in the wording the embassies ask for.
- A page to hand a funeral director, saying what you want and what to get in writing.
- A page for deciding between cremation here and bringing the body home.
- Separate sections for British, American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Irish nationals, and one for every other nationality.
PDF and Word, $39.
Sources
- List of Foreign Embassies in Thailand, Government Public Relations Department, Thailand, sourced from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Diplomatic and Consular List, Department of Protocol, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Thailand.
- Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Songkhla and Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Thailand, for the Songkhla jurisdiction and the Phuket Consular Office.
- Décès, Ambassade de France en Thaïlande.
- Sterbefälle deutscher Staatsangehöriger in Thailand, Deutsche Botschaft Bangkok, and German missions in Thailand, Federal Foreign Office.
- Contact the Embassy of Ireland, Thailand, for the Bangkok embassy and the honorary consul in Chiang Mai, and Death abroad, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, for the Garda notification and the General Register Office footnote. Checked 12 August 2026.
- Consulate-General of Japan in Chiang Mai, Embassy of Japan in Thailand.
- Death of a Dutch national in Thailand, NetherlandsWorldwide. In English.
- About the Embassy, Norway in Thailand, for the Phuket honorary consulate and the provinces it covers.
- Consulate-General of the Russian Federation in Phuket.
- Embassy of Sweden, Bangkok, for the Pattaya consulate and the vacant Hua Hin honorary consulate.
- Todesfall in Thailand, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland.
- Embassy of Ukraine in the Kingdom of Thailand.
- Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Thailand.
- Embassies, consulates and offices for Thailand, Global Affairs Canada, and New Zealand Embassy to Thailand, New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
- Consular Section, Embassy of Canada to Thailand, in correspondence with this site, 12 August 2026, for the treatment of an unmarried partner as next of kin where tracing is unsuccessful, and for the position that a partner identified as next of kin in the will becomes next of kin. Not published in any Global Affairs Canada guidance.
- Australian consular correspondence with this site, 10 August 2026, for the use of the passport emergency contact where next of kin cannot be identified, and for the absence of any register of a person's wishes. Not published in any Australian government guidance, and the source is not named at their request.
- Where a post is described as honorary, that is how the government itself describes it. Directory sites disagreed with government sources on more than one country during this research, and only government sources have been used for the table.